A/N: Welcome back my love dovies, and enjoy the sequel of the Help Me Mr Batman. This occurs almost two years after Kayne's kidnapping and death. She would have been almost eighteen right now. Find out what the Joker has been up to since then.
This chapter will mostly be flashbacks.
Warning: Strong Graphic Gore, Drug Use/Addiction, Stockholm Syndrome, Murder, Superman References, Slight Sexual Content, and Strong Languag
Nobody's Hero: Prologue
The ice in the honey glaze liquid stirred in the noiseless room. A shaking hand lifts up the cup full of whiskey to bearded lips. The Ex-Dark Knight sat in a room cluttered with pictures and articles pinned to the wall. A once beautiful white bed stood worn and tarnished in the middle of the room with copper brown hand prints staining the sheets.
If someone had bothered to step into the room, they would assume a man completely drunk with empty whiskey bottles surrounding the old chair. Only the billionaire knew where his mind was. It was routine now.
Achingly waking up in his lonely room, and grabbing his cane to walk over to her room. The cane worn at the bottom but always polished. It was the only thing he had left of her.
If he didn't sleep, which was more likely, he would already be in the room. He never worried about maids or workers. They weren't allowed up in these corridors.
Then he would try for the first half of the day to desperately look for clues, something, anything that would lead him back to his dead daughter. The grave set next to his parents gave him no remedy.
By noon, his whiskey bottle had already seduced him into pouring a few glasses to keep his throat moist. Then he would just sit and stare.
He would take in the pictures of cases that strung his attention. He would stare and try to make the connection between all the recent gruesome events. He could see the growing connection now. His mind tugged him into the memory.
Driving down the windy highway, Bruce massaged his left knee. Lucius wanted to see him for something and Bruce had a feeling on what it was. He didn't want to dwell on it though. Something else was testing him. Something that told him bad things were going to happen.
He had felt it once before, right before Kayne's body was found.
He boards the bridge leading to Wayne Industries, and glances up. He regretted immediately as red splatters his windshield. He slams on the brake harshly causing him to collide viscously with the car in front of him.
He groans as the air bag punches him in the face causing his lip to split. He struggles out of the car but instantly regrets it as q red spray whips around him, staining his clothes and everybody elses with red droplets as they all got out of their cars.
Bruce looks up with all of Gotham to see two strung up bodies hanging on Gotham bridge. Flying through the air was blood dripping and getting caught in the wind. The bodies hung decapitated by their arms, or arm in one bodies case. On the bridge wall written in crimson blood stated, Dogs escape the Pound.
They found the missing body parts in the river under the bridge and finally identified the bodies. It was a female and male. Bruce paled when the news announced who they were. Dr. Rick and Jordan Jones were tortured, killed and hung on the Gotham Bridge.
Kayne's old foster parents…
Bruce hums in distaste as he thinks about them. Everyone knew who killed them. The Joker was out for blood and no one knew why. The only possible solution was Kayne's death. Thanks to Kayne's death, her testimony was invalid and the doctors were released.
Bruce didn't even know they were released. No one did or there obviously would be a riot. The police wanted to keep the peace in Gotham so they released the abusers in silence. Bruce was so focused on another case that, at the time, could've pertained to Kayne that he didn't even realize it either.
Before the Bridge Hanging:
GNN Tonight comes with Breaking News. The Joker packing up and going home? A dumpster found with five dead bodies all with clown masks leaves police confused. Is the Joker cleaning house or are we just hopeful? More tonight on 9o'clock news.
The TV quiets and goes on commercial.
Bruce dropped his cup and hobbled over to the TV. "Alfred!" Bruce calls hysterically, nudging pictures in boxes away from the old TV.
Bruce began to pour over the case, even bothering the leave the house to harass Gordon into sharing this case.
According to Gordon though, the clowns however didn't die by Joker's means. They were all poisoned by something Bruce was all too familiar with. It caused Bruce's stomach to drop when he realized that Scarecrow escaped.
Bruce groans as he shifts in his chair. Questions swarmed through his head as he worked backwards through the cases. Questions that have gone unanswered for too long rises back up. Why would Scarecrow want to kill the clowns? What did Scarecrow want with the Joker?
They never found Scarecrow, but it seemed like he fooled them for a long time. He had been missing from the asylum as long as the Joker had. No one noticed until a year later. Of course they were all caught up with the Joker escaping and, oh yes, Lex Luthor's attempted assassination.
Right before the Clown Massacre:
"I can assure you, Metropolis, that my so called 'assassination' was just a big understanding. This supposed 'Superman' didn't save my life. He interrupted a deal between me and a source that prefers to stay anonymous because of all this attention. This old friend of mine was bringing by a product when Superman barged in, guns blazing…" Lex Luthor's voice announces on the TV, surrounded by news reporters. Questions were asked about the products and the business associate but Luthor brushed those off for a chance to black ball Superman.
A blonde news reporter caught Bruce's eyes on the TV. A blonde reporter with red tips, and blue eyes with a slight Brooklyn accent that batted her eyes at Luthor like an old friend. It couldn't be…
But it was. Bruce did some digging to find clowns in Metropolis right after Kayne died. It caused him to be away from her funeral to go and investigate. The investigation was a dub. Lex Luthor enhanced security that Bruce would need his suit to get into and he didn't want to draw attention to himself. Besides, his knees were just beginning to hurt.
Although a reporter did publish an article that would put Lex under heat for a long time. Bruce went to talk to the reporter, Miss Lois Lane, but her apparent body guard Kent something or another stopped him. Bruce didn't push it because The Joker was spotted back in Gotham at the Iceberg Lounge right before it caught fire.
Bruce took a plane back to find Alfred standing in the hangar with a cane and a newspaper.
The newspaper was turned to the obituary page for the day of Kayne's death. Right below the biggest death, Kayne herself, was two drug addicts that if you looked close enough could see the resemblance to the person above them. It was Kayne's biological parents.
Bruce snaps back to the present, finding his whiskey glass now empty. It was doing that a lot lately.
His eyes glance at the pictures on the walls. Dead bodies everywhere, and this time they weren't hallucinations.
Bruce remembers hallucinations that caused him to stain the room red just a couple of years ago. He found the culprit when he was mourning Kayne's kidnapping in the first week. A crumpled receipt for a supermarket in Kayne's purse was lightly coated in a very weak hallucinogen. He must have touched it while looking through her purse.
Bruce realized in the same second that Kayne was sick for the very same reason he was.
Too bad he didn't catch all of this in time. The signs that she was drugged when she fell. The voices in her head pushing her to fall. Bruce throwing her away because the Joker wished it. The Joker set it up and Bruce danced perfectly with the plan.
Now the Joker was a ghost, and Bruce was getting old. Bruce couldn't protect her after all.
The glass in Bruce's hand shatters under his drunken grip just like a few hours before when Alfred and him were arguing.
Alfred walked into the room to see Bruce plucking pictures off the wall slowly. "Dare I ask what it is you are doing, Master Bruce." Alfred demands. Bruce glances behind his shoulder to look at Alfred. "I'm cleaning up. This room deserves better." He replies solemnly
"What about Ka-" "Don't say her name. Life goes on."
Alfred helplessly attempts to save this. "Don't be so sure Bruce."
The scotch in Bruce's empty hand hit the wall. A shattered glass gone and left in it's place anger.
"I failed her! She's gone!" Bruce bellows, turning towards Alfred who hasn't flinched.
Alfred just stands before the Dark Knight. Disappointment and hopelessness etched into his face. "After all this time, you give up. Why?"
Silence, before a door closes.
A knock on the door alerts Bruce to reality.
"I just dropped a glass Alfred." Bruce calls out immediately on reflex.
"I don't care Master Bruce! If you want to catch him, now's your chance! A tip came in from the police scanner. The Joker is planning on blowing up the charity even you were invited to." Alfred calls from the now open door.
Bruce had run quickly from the door with his cane. He pushes past Alfred and heads to his garage.
The words Kayne carved into his cane kept milling through his now sober head. Nil Desperandum. Never Despair. Right now, he wasn't.
He is dead set on revenge.