Chapter One

The Madness in Your Eyes

May 22nd, 2020

Despite the rain that beat down on the cracked sidewalk pavement and the trash laden streets, the fires never seemed to die down. No, instead they roared long hours into the night, casting orange light down around it as it burned Wayne Tower to ash. He stood there, watching from atop a building across the wide street. Even from the distance, he could feel the heat dance across the bare skin on his jaw. He clenched his teeth and balled his gloved hands into fists of rage.

How could I let this happen? He wondered. How could I fail Gotham like this?

"How do ya do it?" the voice was shrill and pained, weak compared to the blaring sirens that blasted through Gotham at the moment. "I get all the pain and tragedy stuff. Hell, I caused half of it myself. My… how do you brood so well. Don't you ever get tired of just standing there like that. You hardly move at all. And the cape. Doesn't that thing just get in the way? I tried wearing one once. Figured it would work wonders for me. But then I tripped over it and fell down the stairs. But you just jump off buildings with that thing, and it doesn't seem to bother you at all."

"Shut up," he said through gritted teeth.

"Aw. But I'm curious. And I've always wanted to ask. Now seems like the right time, considering you're about to kill me."

"I don't kill."

"Wait," the Joker bolted to his feet, his lanky arms flailing on the way up as his blood red lips curved into the malicious glare that haunted thousands of Gotham's denizens. "You're not going to kill me?" he cackled, barring his stained yellow teeth like a hyena. "After all this, after all I've put you through, you're not going to kill me? I brought Gotham to its knees. I made your little Bat-family bleed their bat blood all of the bat carpets of your bat home. Don't you wanna get your revenge? Don't you want to end all of this?"

"I don't kill," Batman repeated, spinning around, yanking the cold metal handcuffs from his utility belt.

"Maybe you're right," the Joker's green hair was matted down with a mixture of rainwater and blood. His jackal-like features glowed in the light of the flames, and his eyes flickered with the same cold insanity that had always been there. He flatted out his purple suit, which had now been torn in several places, and straightened out the wilted flower on his lapel. "Maybe you don't kill. Maybe you're just self-righteous enough to think that you're above all that. That… that you won't get your hands dirty. But… c'mon, Batsy. We've been at this for years now. You know how I am. You beat me up, bruise me in places I didn't know bruised and then throw me in the same old cell at Arkham. Maybe you have Cash throw in a few extra guards or something. Maybe you tell them to feed the key to Croc. But it doesn't matter. I get out. I pull off a few more heists, put myself back on top of the criminal underworld in this cesspool they call a city. And I kill. I kill and I kill and I kill. But you could end this right now. One life for who knows how many. Break your one rule. Kill. You know you want to. I've brought your end to you. I brought war to the heart of Gotham. And I'll do it all again. And again and again and again until there's no one left to leave slaughtered. No more little boys to be left alone in the streets, watching as their mommies and daddies bleed out, knowing that from now on, their life will be forever different. Kill me, and you save Gotham."

He took a few step forwards. He knew it would come to this. He had always known. There was no other way. There was no rehabilitating a mad man like him. He craved chaos and destruction. There was nothing to alleviate that hunger. There was nothing he could do but end it for good. He held his hand out, unclasping it, his fingers stretching out, grabbing towards his neck.

"Do it," Joker laughed, his eyes devoid of fear even as he faced near-certain death. "Just know, that no matter what, I won. No matter what you do to me, I've proven that you are nothing more than a broken man. That you are no better than me. You kill me, I force you to break your one and only rule. You let me live, and you weren't strong enough to save Gotham. This was how it was always meant to be, Batman. You could never win."

"You're wrong," his fingers were just mere inches from the Joker's throat. All he had to do was grab it, force the life right out.

"Oh really?" Joker took a step forward, placing his throat right on Batman's palm. Then, he forced the Dark Knight to clasp gauntlet guarded fingers around. "Because from where I'm standing, all I can see is your failure. This city used to want to build shrines in honor of your victories and triumphs. But now, all of Gotham is just a monument to your defeat."

Kill him a voice in the back of Batman's head rang clear. Perhaps it was the logical part. But it just as easily could have been an unstable part. It had been hard to tell ever since he put the cowl on twelve years prior.

"Do it," Joker chuckled again, the laughter screeching into the night. "You want to. I can see it in your eyes. It's right there. That's the madness in your eyes. It's just like mine, only you try to control it. You cage it. But you shouldn't bother, Batsy. It's not healthy. And I should know. I used to date a psychiatrist. Sure, it ended poorly, but-"

"Batman," the roof-access door burst open and Barbara burst through, a gun held in front of her now time-weary face. Her shortened hair blew lightly in the rain, and her brown coat had become soaked in the rain. "Don't move."

"Barbara," he felt his voice ease, anger replaced by the guilt that had stored up in the past two years. "Just… put the gun down."

"You don't give me orders anymore," she grimaced, her eyes narrowing and her fingers tightening around the trigger. "Now step away and let me put a bullet in this sicko's head. Right between his eyes."

"We don't kill."

"You don't kill," Barbara gritted her teeth. "But he's ruined my life more times than I can count. It's about time we put an end to it. Once and for all."

"You'll never be able to come back from this, Barbara. Killing him will pull you down into the darkness."

"He already did that. It's too late to save me. But it's not too late to save Gotham."

"Wow," Joker heaved yet another laugh and clapped his gloved hands together. "This is getting quite entertaining. Would you mind letting go of my throat for just a second so that I can go get some popcorn?"

Batman ignored him. "Barbara. Just… put the gun down. The GCPD will be here in a minute. They'll take care of things."

"Just like they have before? Don't you get it? They catch him, he gets out and he kills again. The GCPD couldn't handle him before. And now… now after all that's happened… how are they supposed to do that?"

"See?" Joker grinned. "She gets it."

"Shut up!" Batman roared, tossing the Joker to the ground. "Just put down the gun. This isn't what your father would want."

"None of this is what he would have wanted," she pleaded. "Don't you get it? Gotham is burning down around you. Chaos is practically pouring into the streets. My father wouldn't have wanted any of it. But now… he sure as hell wouldn't want the Joker to live."

"If you kill him..." Batman wasn't even sure if he believed his own words. "If you kill him, then he just proves that the law doesn't work."

"Isn't that why you put on the costume in the first place? Because the way things were being done in the city weren't good enough?"

"Ooh," Joker stumbled to his feet again. "She has a point. I… I like her a lot more since I capped off her old man. She's so much more fun than when I shot her in the ribs."

"Be quiet," Barbara spun, her hands steady as she looked down the nose of her pistol at Joker. "I swear, I will put a bullet right between your eyes right now."

"Go ahead," Joker shrugged. "Honestly I'm just waiting to see what happens. This is the most fun I've hand in far too long."

"Don't do it," Batman spoke through gritted teeth. "This isn't you, Barbara."

"You don't know who I am," a tear rolled down her cheek and her hands shook just slightly. "Not anymore."

"Yes I do," gingerly, Batman took a step forward. "You're Batgirl. You're Oracle. You help people. You save people. You don't end lives. You could never kill. It's not in you. You're stronger than that."

"Then why do I feel so weak?" her voice wavered. "Why is it that as long as he draws breath, I feel like I failed? He needs to die, Bruce. This… this had gone on for too long. As long as he's alive, he'll kill. There's no saving him. No making any of it better. Ending him, right here and right now, it's the only answer. The only way to make things better."

"You don't believe that."

"Maybe I didn't used to," Barbara clenched her jaw and straightened her aim. "But then war came to Gotham. We're all a little different now. Sometimes war makes you blind. But this… this gave me clarity. The Joker needs to die, and I'll be the one to do it."

"Nobody move!" GCPD officers and SWAT members swarmed through the roof-access, tightly gripping their guns and holding riot shields out in front of them.

"Uh-oh," Joker tipped his head back in delight as a police officer dragged him away, roughly tightening handcuffs on him. "Looks like you took too long. But don't worry. We'll have another chance next time. Maybe I'll do something a little smaller then. I could kill another Robin. That's always fun."

The sounds seemed to be drowned out around him as he watched Joker be pulled away. Again. It was just like before. But he couldn't help but wonder if he would break out just like the other times. He couldn't help but wonder if this was all just a never ending cycle. One that would never be broken, no matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he wanted it to.

He turned away, placing one foot on the edge of the building as he prepared to leap. The fire department fought valiantly to kill the flames across the street, although it did very little. The blaze continued as his muscles tensed and he prepared to make the jump. He held his arms out, grasping each side of his cape tightly to prepare to glide. And then, despite everything else sounding so far away, he heard the gun cock right behind his head.

"You move, I shoot."

"Montoya…"

"That's Commissioner Montoya," Batman turned his head to see her. Her face was stern like a rock, her deep brown eyes burning with rage. "And I'm placing you under arrest for the murder of Bruce Wayne."

"You know I had no part in that."

"You've had a part in all of this. Ever since you showed up, Gotham has been getting more and more dangerous. This was just the final tipping point."

"I can't let you take me in. There's still work to be done."

Montoya sighed, biting her lip in frustration. Clearly, she hadn't expected things to go any differently. "You think you can just make all of this go away? The days of the bat signal flooding into the skies is done. The day of you being anything more than a criminal vigilante are gone. If you really want to save the city, then you're going to come with me, Batman."

"I'm sorry, Renee."

"Don't think I'm afraid to pull the trigger, Batman."

"I don't," he sighed, tugging two capsules from his utility belt. "I just don't think you're fast enough for it to matter."

In an instant, they dropped, bursting into a plumb of smoke as Batman dove off the side of the building, pulling his cape to the sides, forming a makeshift glider. The hot air from the burning building whipped against his face as his stomach did somersaults inside of his gut. There was some small part of him that would never be able to get used to the feeling. The pull of gravity meshing awkwardly with the weightlessness of gliding. But he didn't have time to become distracted. He heard Montoya shoot a flurry of unintelligible curses from the rooftop as he dove for the streets. Red and blue lights streamed up the sides of buildings as the screeching rose to the tops of even the tallest skyscrapers. He was going to have to be careful.

"Pennyone," he shouted into his earpiece, his voice gruff, the smog of fire irritating his throat. "Bring the car around."

"The Batmobile is on its way now, sir," Alfred remained as calm and composed as ever, his voice never wavering. A small part of Batman wondered how he did it. "I have alerted the rest of the family to meet at the cave. I… well, many did not respond. We may be on our own now, sir."

"We'll manage," Batman tucked his arms close to his body and did a nose dive into the center of the street. The Batmobile, sleek and black, shimmering in the fire light, skidded between police cars, the canopy sliding open. He landed as gracefully as ever, instantly wrapping his fingers around the steering wheel and his feet pressing down hard on the gas. Police officers ran to the side, shouting at him to stop. He didn't.

"Even still, Master Bruce," Alfred said, "I still think that it would be the best course of action to talk to them all. They… they have all been through so much these last two years. And… I…"

"We don't need their help for this," Batman clenched his teeth in confidence, although he doubted the words that he said. He swerved the car between police barricade after police barricade. The near impregnable hull was belted with a flurry of bullets as he maneuvered his way through the chaos ridden streets of Gotham.

"Just because we don't need their help, doesn't mean we shouldn't have it. They are your family, Master Bruce."

An armored police truck bolted out from an alley and slammed into the side of the Batmobile. Batman's head jerked to the side as he grunted, a curse slipping out under his breath. But his focus remained undeterred. His finger snapped to the computer command screen.

"Stealth mode activate," he barked as the Batcomputer clicked and whirred with the order. Light-refracting panels spun on the outside as the car became nearly invisible. Silently, Batman thanked Lucius for his meticulous designs. True, it would drain the power, but he wasn't far from the cave.

"Bruce," Alfred pleaded. "After everything that has happened, they should be a part of this. They have no one else. You have no one else. You cannot simply be the Batman. You are still Bruce Wayne."

"No," Batman grumbled. "Bruce Wayne is dead."

The Batmobile zipped through the streets, unseen by any passerbys. The yellow moon hung precariously in the sky, the stars glittered in the infinite blackness of space and all of the sleepy city's denizens shuffled home, keeping their heads down out of fear of what lurked in the shadows. Somehow, despite everything, the city seemed so normal to him. And this feeling only continued to swell inside of him as he drove up the charred remains of the former Wayne Manor. The once prosperous fields were now filled with overgrown weeds. Vines crawled up the sides of the house. Crime scene tape sat wrapped around the entrance.

This city used to want to build shrines in honor of your victories and triumphs. But now, all of Gotham is just a monument to your defeat.

The Joker's words echoed in his mind. He was right, Batman thought as the cave entrance behind the mansion open, rocks crumbling to the side. I failed. I failed everyone. Dick, Barbara, Jason, Tim… Damian.

"Master Bruce," Alfred walked over the the car as it pulled in, coming to a stop on the platform that hung over the underground river that streamed under the cave. "I am afraid I was correct. The family… they have not responded yet."

Batman hopped out of the Batmobile. "Doesn't matter."

"But sir-"

"If they want to leave," Batman took his cowl off, cool air brushing against his face, "then let them. This started with just the two of us, and it went fine. I work better alone, anyway."

"Oh," Alfred sighed. "Joy. Another one of these bouts."

"What?"

"Nothing," Alfred stuttered. "But… I would like you to know that I believe you must reach out. I… I fear you will not make it without them. They are your legacy. And… while this war may be over, the aftershocks could be even more deadly."

"The Joker is going back to Arkham," Batman pulled off the heavy armor, flinching as it rubbed against one of his many old wounds. "Cobblepot, Nygma, Dent, they've all been taken care of. The only real threat comes from the Falcones, and that's only if they try to take control of the new power vacuum. But considering how weak they were when they left Gotham for Bludhaven…"

"I know you may think that you can do all of this on your own, Master Bruce," Alfred walked over to the Batcomputer. "But you are far from invincible. You need them. And they need you. You have taken them all under your wing and… oh, dear lord."

"What is it?" Bruce wrapped a bandage around his waist as blood gushed around yet another wound.

"It…" for the first time, Bruce saw his old friend as completely lost for words. "It's the Joker. Commissioner Montoya and a group of SWAT were taking him to Arkham and then…"

"He escaped, didn't he," Bruce knew he should have done it. He should have ended things for good on that rooftop. Now, any murder the Joker caused would be his fault.

"No," the word seemed to hang in the air for a moment too long, bounding between the cave walls. "The Joker… he was murdered."