The Wretched Comedy
She could hear his heart pound, could feel the sudden intake of breath. No twitching. No mumbling.
No screams.
"Him again?" She stroked the raised scar across his chest.
His breathing slowed.
She threw her arm across him, burying her nose into his shoulder and leaving feather-soft kisses across his skin.
He drew in a sharp breath, then: "His name was Arthur."
The sudden strength and sorrow in his voice gave her pause, but she kept silent.
"His name was Arthur. I-" He swallowed. "I did some digging, after everything. He had a wife, a little- a little girl. A job at WayneChem."
She heard a sound, almost like a cat throwing up a hairball. She kept silent.
"Then my father took the last straw, and it all came tumbling down."
As the motley mass of soldiers, civilians, heroes, and villains lurched onwards across the continent, and the nights passed on, one by one, he added yet another stroke to the painting. A missed bill here, an insidious peanut there. A wedding to one "Sophia Dermont" followed by a disastrous set at a place called "Pogo's" and getting pelted with glasses from an angry audience.
But he always returned to that one particularly cold April afternoon. She could almost see it now: the puddles from the shower of rain the day before rippling as the man laughed and cried and pulled out his hair on the curb outside WayneChem; the hung head staring at nothing before he lifted his head and belted towards the sound of sirens, leaving the bouquet of bittersweet and primrose to wilt and rot in the runoff.
They had just passed what had once been the Bulgarian town of Silistra - Kassandra the Elder remembered it as the Roman fort of Durostorum, putting everyone on edge - when he finished his tale. His voice shook as he described his hated foe's last moments on the roof of Barbara Gordon's apartment complex, staring at the inferno of the city streets far below before he sighed and simply... stepped off, with nary a peep. Just one last, sad smile.
As he drew in a breath, she rubbed at his thigh, squeezing at the months-old wound for nothing else than to comfort and calm him.
"You wished you could've helped him."
He blew it out. "Yes."
"How, though, Bruce? By the time you'd fought him at Ace, he'd already done so much. Maybe too much."
He was silent for a moment, chest rising and falling, before responding: "And yet."
Author's Note:
So, I rewatched the trailer for Joker today, and I saw the documentary over Heath Ledger, I Am Heath Ledger. This was born out of those two things, for the most part.
If those of you who've read Saltaldar recall, I mentioned some very Jokeresque things on Batman's hands while he was on the Watchtower in the first chapter. Initially, I thought that Batman may have done the "won't kill you, won't save you" thing from Batman Begins, but I realized that his first kill needed to have a big impact, on both him and the world at large. So instead, I just adapted bits and pieces from existing Joker lore and the trailer for Joker to create this version of the character.
While the notion Joker put forth in the "Killing Joke" comic was interesting, the truth is, it takes a series of bad events and wrong turns, capped off by an especially shitty day, to break someone to the point that they become as twisted as the Joker. Arthur, in the trailer, seems to adhere to this sentiment.
Hope you enjoyed my small rambling.
-Nate