Dancing with the Devil in the Moonlight
Twenty years. Two decades. Seven thousand three hundred days. That's how long I have been doing this dance. How long I've been tangling with Gotham's underbelly trying to provide justice to the downtrodden and forgotten people of my city. Not a day goes by that I don't remember the struggle of trying to be good in a cruel world. A world that would swallow a child whole and spit out something…twisted. My enemies never had very enlightening things to say, when I would listen to them instead of punching them, but there were a few moments when I had to consider if I was truly doing what was right. Many of them revolved around that damned clown and his obsessive need to bring me down into the darkness with him. I've always been a criminal, breaking and entering into private and public property, assault and battery, tampering with the scene of a crime. I'd have an easier time telling you the crimes I haven't committed in the name of "keeping Gotham safe". Is that really what I've been doing? Is Gotham any safer now than when I started?
The Joker always brought reality down on my head when I got too optimistic. Whenever I could see the light at the end of the tunnel, maybe look forward to the days when the Batman wouldn't be needed, he would blow up the tunnel. Crippling and killing my allies as if they were simple chess pieces to remove from a board. It was always personal for him, he always thought he was so damn important to me. And I made him feel that way. He would always cross the line whenever he wanted, just to show me that nothing had or would ever change. And I let him. Years of fighting the Joker taught me nothing as I would throw him in Arkham again and again only for him to escape. He even made it to trial once and the case was thrown out. That day justice failed Gotham completely.
He is an animal, a monster that needs to be put down. But I never did it. My ideals versus his rampant need to be destructive. Order and chaos clashing over and over till the limit was pushed too far. I should have killed him after he crippled Barbara. Should have stopped him before he took the next step. When he crippled her and tortured Jim, that should have been the last straw. But I was afraid. What would I turn into if I took his life? He wasn't the only criminal who crossed the line. Would I stop at killing the Joker? Or would I start cleaning up Gotham the bloody way? Maybe the more important question would be, who could stop me?
My fear and hesitancy gave him another opportunity to hurt someone…someone I loved. Jason Todd was a good soldier, he became Robin after Dick decided to become his own hero and I was proud of him. I was proud of them both. I didn't say it enough, I thought they would know that I was proud and that I loved having them as Robin by my side. Now I can never tell Jason that, because of the Joker. I was away on a business trip when Alfred called me, frantically trying to explain that Jason had gone out patrolling on his own and been captured. My heart sunk as he told me who had taken him, the Joker. I've never moved that fast in my life. I risked being caught and discovered as Batman to try to make it to Jason before anything happened. But I was too late. The Joker had lured him into a trap and captured his mom to ensure Jason wouldn't fight back. Then he blew them both up and left me to search the rubble for their bodies. When I found him he was broken, bruised, and charred from the Joker's treatment. I let the Joker destroy him, and in the end, I wondered what he felt. Was it disappointment as he realized I would be too late to save him? Would it be raw fear in the face of death? He only ever wanted to make me proud and prove he was good enough to be by my side. And I never told him that he was.
The funeral was small, private so that not many would question it. My sorrow was replaced with rage and hate. Not at the Joker, but toward myself. I felt the same shame I had felt when Barbara lost her legs to that madman, I could barely look her in the eye afterwards. Now he had killed one of my own, my Robin, and he thought he could just get away with it. It took me months to find him which was odd. He always took credit for his crimes, always galivanted around the city till I chased after him. This time he was just quiet, and nobody seemed to know where he was, even his henchman who I thoroughly interrogated. Little did I know he had already been captured, and he was being held in a "secret" wing in Blackgate Prison. It seemed odd that he could get arrested without it making the news or someone letting me know, like Jim Gordon. Jim was the arresting officer but neglected to tell me. I had gone on a rampage through Gotham's criminal underworld trying to get to the Joker. Over 126 people put in the hospital, to say I was angry was an understatement. I was on a mission and I wouldn't be stopped.
The moment I found the Joker I turned into a missile. I wasn't just going to seek and destroy the Joker, I was going to beat him to death. Every punch and kick a testament to the pain he inflected on others. No less than he deserved. So I snuck into Blackgate, an easy task as it was designed to keep people in not out. I found the "secret" wing where the Joker was being held, but what I found there was heartbreaking. Dick and Jim were already there, set up to stop me. I couldn't understand, they just didn't get it. They were all next on Joker's hitlist, none of them were safe from his reign of terror. Not until he was dead. I was prepared to sacrifice myself to kill him, to sacrifice the Batman and turn myself in after I did it. But they had other plans.
They pleaded with me to see the truth in what I was doing, but I could only see the grin on Joker's face. All I heard was his maniacal, cackling laughter as he beat and broke Jason before killing him. For years I did this dance with the clown, I played his game and let people die so that justice could be rendered. But justice failed Gotham when it came to the Joker and I couldn't stand for it anymore.
Dick's strength was always his acrobatics, he was more agile and an excellent counter striker because of it. Jim was a trained marine so he was no slouch when it came to close quarters combat, besides that he had his magnum and was deadeye with it at most ranges. Getting through some punks on the street or henchmen for a villain them wouldn't have been as hard as this would be. Normally I would have held back a bit no matter what, I never tried to hurt Dick or Barbara or Jason when we sparred. I only tried to teach them were they made mistakes. This situation was different, they were in my way and I had to make that damn clown stop laughing.
My silence to their pleas to stop told them enough about how the night was going to go. Dick started the attack, not wanting me to get the first move in. I ducked and dodged his movements and strikes. He kept his jabs and kicks tight so that I would get staggered and only defend. I taught him well, but I didn't teach him everything. I bided my time with his attack, waiting for one opening and I found it. My constant defense made him frustrated and he sent a jab that was far too wide to even hit me squarely. As I caught his arm from the punch I used his momentum to drive him into a wall. While he was stunned for a second, I dislocated the shoulder. He staggered to the ground and Jim decided to take a warning shot to the right of my head. "Enough!" he shouted, "we've all got reason to do it, but we don't. So, if I can't kill him then neither can you."
He would be startled by my response "There are 50 ways I could make it look like an accident. Fifteen ways to make it look like he killed himself. At least a hundred ways I could make him scream into the night for no one to hear. I'm not leaving tonight till I've used at least one of them." Jim could hear the dedication in my voice and he knew this wasn't just some guilted rage that would wear off. I was going to kill the Joker tonight, even if I had to go through some of my greatest friends.
In his distraction I threw a batarang at him and he dodged one second too late, allowing it to cut him just above the eyebrow. He took a wild shot while recoiling that hit the ceiling and that was all it took for me to reach him. A swift punch to the gut made him keel over and fall right into an uppercut that landed squarely into his jaw. As he was lifted off his feet, backwards into the air, he dropped his gun. Temporarily knocked out, it should have given me enough time to get to the Joker and kill him. But Dick wasn't giving up.
Even with one arm he was able to push me a bit, more of my training mixed with his own intuition. It wasn't enough, and he found himself face first on the ground next to Jim. If I felt bad at all Joker's laughter drowned it all out. He was so damned pleased with himself, I suppose in some twisted way this was what he wanted. And I was going to deliver it to him. I had a decently well laid plan on what I was going to do. Killing him Blackgate would be messy but trying to travel with him was risky. With Jim and Dick's interference I would have to settle for pummeling him to death with my fists.
Dick had other plans however as he jumped on my back in an attempt to put me in a chokehold and wrapping his legs around me from behind to ensure I couldn't throw him off. My anger grew at his persistence and I threw myself backwards and landed him roughly into a wall. I threw my head back an instant later, no doubt breaking his nose against my cowl. The chokehold loosened, and I grabbed him from behind me and tossed him in front of me. "You've done enough. Stay down." As soon as the words left my mouth I knew all I did was give him more resolve to keep fighting and he got back up to his feet shakily, ready to keep fighting. He staggered forward to throw a wild blow and I countered with a knee to his solar plexus. He held onto me to keep from falling and I pushed him back striking him in the head twice, but he refused to fall. All I saw was red until I heard the next gunshot, this one taking a bit of my cowl off.
I was on top of Dick, pummeling him into submission. Before Jim shot at me again. "Stop! Look what you're doing! That's Nightwing you're beating to death right now!" I felt shock at the statement even thought I knew it was true. Dick's bloodied and bruised face was below me. My fists were covered in his blood. "Look at what he's turning you into. Your going off the deep end Batman. You didn't let me do it, you kept me afloat. Now it's my turn. Stop this now and let's get the kid some medical attention. Don't let the Joker break you. You're the strongest of us, it goes without saying. If he breaks you, then all of us will fall."
The sight of Dick's face covered in welts and beaten to a pulp because of me will forever be etched in my mind. I almost killed him to kill the Joker. The red was gone, regret and sadness took its place. What type of man would do that to his own son? Somewhere during my contemplation, Jim had come over to get me off of Dick. The two of us picked him up and began to exit. All the clown did was laugh the entire time, I just gave him the greatest show of his life. After this, after almost killing Dick, I had to reconsider everything
Gotham hadn't really changed, the villains just had new faces. With a revolving door like Arkham letting the bad guys come and go like it was a hotel, there was no way I could keep Gotham safe. And Jason's death…I needed time to mourn and grieve. I wasn't going to get it dealing with psychos in the streets of Gotham. So the Batman took a hiatus, I still helped when I was needed. But the night in night out patrols stopped, much to Alfred's joy. Neither Dick or Barbara spoke to me after that night, there wasn't much to say. I didn't try to reach out because I didn't know what to say. What do you say to someone when you almost kill them for trying to help you?
Then that brief hiatus turned into an extended absence. I'd all but given up the cowl, my philanthropic work as Bruce Wayne was doing more to change the city then the Batman had ever done. And I think that I gained some perspective on how best to protect Gotham. Sure, Batman could protect Gotham from villains and gangs, but Bruce Wayne could build homes, provide jobs, and make sure that Gotham was a more habitable place for everyone. So, for a long time I traded my Batman armor for a three-piece suit, the Batmobile for a Mercedes. But then He came.
The Kryptonians invaded Earth in search of their "missing citizen" and as a result thousands of people were killed. All because of Him, the Superman. A Kryptonian that was living among us for some time, an alien right under our noses. Not just an alien, a super-powered being. One that leveled half of Metropolis when he attempted to "save" us. Innocent men, women, and children were killed that day all because of the Kryptonian. Because of Superman.
The world was divided on what to feel about him. Some saw a savior, a God on Earth who was the answer to their prayers. Others saw an alien who didn't belong on Earth and should have been made to leave. I took a more practical approach. One fight between Kryptonians leveled an entire city. What would happen if a Kryptonian wanted to cause some destruction? He could destroy everything, kill anyone, and no one could stop him. So, I would have to be the one to do it.
That's where everything went downhill. My anger, my rage, the feeling that I couldn't stop him made me desperate. A year of searching for a weakness yielded nothing. Superman was bulletproof, fireproof, could survive in space, survive extreme temperatures, and all of that on top of being immeasurably strong with the ability to fly. And I didn't even mention that he shoots fire from his eyes. Talk about a mismatch for every single being on the planet I obsessively searched for a weakness, a counterbalance on the scales that would let me even the playing field as a cautionary deterrent. But my motives became sullied by time. Everyday I saw the faces of the people who died in the Metropolis attack. The people whose lives were ruined.
I let emotion rule my actions and it led me down a dark path. Branding criminals, not caring if people lived or died when they got in my way. All so I could find a weapon to stop Superman. Once I found it, he managed to stop me from retrieving it, whether it was by accident or design I'm not sure. Given that Luthor ended up receiving it instead, I'm inclined to think he didn't even know what I was chasing. He just wanted to stop me. But I was too far gone down my path of destruction to see that I was going too far.
I had no clue that Luthor was manipulating me the entire time. Every step of the way I played into his hand. He treated me like a heat-seeking missile and I almost destroyed my target. After the Congress bombing something snapped in me. I stole the kryptonite from Luthor and made my plan to kill Superman. I ignored his plea for help and fought him. The kryptonite grenades worked perfectly, but he recovered quicker than I anticipated. Almost took my head off for making that mistake. He probably wished he did.
Everything else happened so quickly. As I was going for the killing blow Diana Prince stopped me from making a grave mistake, by then I figured that she was a metahuman as well. Luthor's plan revealed itself as I realized the monster I had become. Superman was forced to fight me to save his mother who was kidnapped by Luthor. And Luthor was tampering with the Kryptonian ship in Metropolis to create his monster. In the end we stopped Luthor and saved the world from Luthor's "Doomsday" but not without losing our greatest hope.
The irony dawns on me now, the man I tried so hard to destroy for almost 2 years saved me and the planet I claimed he would destroy. Now I'm left to pick up the pieces, someone was manipulating Luthor by influencing him or controlling his mind. And that someone wanted Superman out of the way. Now that he is, I must find the other metahumans from Luthor's file and bring them together. We will need to fight when the time comes.
It starts with Diana, I need her on my side to help me convince the others. But she knows what I tried to do to Superman. I can only hope that she sees the bigger picture and decides to help me. As much as I want to make Luthor suffer for what he did to me, I can't help but focus on the new problem. A world without Superman. A world without hope.
Author's Note: For the other 'Story So Far' stories I went through previous DC movies. For this one I just wanted to provide backstory on what we haven't seen from Batman's perspective. You can read about what this Batman has done in the other stories and that pretty much tells the tale of him being a bastard up until he recognizes that he made another mistake. This sets up my Justice League story that will be based off the DC movie verse. I'll be taking a ton of creative freedom with that story given how that fiasco of a movie turned out. Which means that the story won't be ready for posting for quite some time. I also am still working on 'Take Me As I Am' as my main story so until that's squared away I won't be starting anything new. Thanks for reading!
Additional Author's Note: I am still working on 'Take Me As I Am' so if you are reading that/waiting for an update rest assured I am working on it. Progress on the story has been slowed down because of events in my life. I simply have not had much time to write and edit the story. But please trust that it will be updated and finished, its just going to take much more time than I planned. Thank you for sticking with me and continuing to read my stories. The next update/story submission I do will definitely be for 'Take Me As I Am'. Thank you again for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting and I hope to have an update for you all soon.