He looked down the gaping hole in the dirt.
Batman saw the gruesome visage of the Joker at the bottom, neck snapped for a nearly instant death. The batman was almost numb, regretful that it ended this way but secretly relieved that it was over. No more children disappearing into the Joker's insane hands.
Unfortunately he wasn't just the batman. There is a man under the cowl and while the batman was calm, Dr. Thomas Wayne was trying very hard not to be swallowed by the very grief and insanity that had stolen his beloved wife from him all those years ago.
When Thomas Wayne looked down the hole he saw the love of his life dead, his angel, Gotham's number one psychotic villain, covered in blood. Hers, his, the commissioners, Dent's kids, dear god! Martha, his Martha, broke so horribly after Bruce died. Would it happen to him now too? Losing Bruce and then Martha in such violence? He could crack even easier.
"I miss Bruce." She had said years ago.
"He's gone. You have to accept that." He had tried to comfort her, brushing his thick fingers through the tips of her beautiful hair, trying to pull her vacant gaze from the window over looking the city that took their son. "And I miss him too…along with your smile."
Perhaps he had caused this. The night he went out searching for vengeance and delighting to kill Joe Chill with his fists in pure rage over the painless lethal syringe he had carried with him for the purpose.
She could have seen the desperation in his eyes as he left that night. She always had him figured out. In a sick way he thought killing the bastard that killed their son would make Martha better. Give her closure to move on.
Instead he returned to give her the news only for her to say she understood-
"See? I'm smiling." She returned as she meet his eyes. Her mouth grimly sliced far up either side into a forged smile that revealed glimpses of her perfect white teeth where cheek should be.
If only she hadn't ran. She wouldn't have fallen. He wouldn't be alone. She was sane two minutes ago…he knew it. She cried, kissed him, begged for him to make a world where they wouldn't exist. Where Bruce would be okay.
He hoped that she was still sane when she ran from him. That the realization that Bruce, without them, would grow to become the batman in his father's place had made her realize the extent of all the horrors she had done as the Joker. That she ran from herself. Not from him, not from what their son would become.
He hoped she died knowing he loved her and that heaven, if it truly existed, had cured her mind and allowed her to hold their boy in her arms. He hoped they would wait for him.
Although if the Flash was right there was a chance they could undo it all and Bruce would still be alive. It was the only thing that kept him alive and hopefully sane. He mustn't give in and try to join her too soon. Bruce needed him.
He needed to bury his wife. Get her out of those bloody clothes. Thomas took a shaky breath. A morbid hopelessness clung to him. He had to this. For Martha. For Bruce.
He needed the strength to save them all even if technically it was already too late.
The earth suddenly crumbled beneath his feet as he stared down into his wife's face again. Suddenly he was falling to meet her too fast, too soon.
"NO!" He forced himself to look away from her shadowed face, to react. His hands fumbled for the grapple gun, too late, he was plunged into the inky darkness.
