Batman and all related elements and characters belong to DC Comics.
I make no money from this story and I claim no intellectual ownership over anything.
Happy Mother's Day.
Past the Point.
The little bodies strung all along the fair had been treated with surgical precision. There was no way to mistake the precise touch of that hand, even if the bleached down faces had not been enough of a clue. The carnival of horrors only could be the handwork of a single man.
That, and the date was an added give-away.
They'd have to run another inquiry at Arkham, the woman thought as she advanced through the fair, the nocturnal silence only broken by the faint echoes of circus magic. They had fooled her and Gordon, over the last week, as they tried to keep tabs on Inmate 19-39. During that time, the administration had reassured them the patient was safely locked up, and, busy as she had been with Killer Croc, she had no time to check on it personally. Now she regretted that decision and cursed herself as she walked through the darkness. Croc's latest rampage was nothing compared to what had happened that afternoon, when Inmate 19-39 and his gang had taken over the country fair.
Inmate 19-39. She had to keep calling him that way, even in her most private thoughts. She couldn't allow him the satisfaction of calling him by the name he had chosen for himself after his dark rebirth, but she couldn't call him Th- that way anymore, either. That man had died along the child, that night, so long ago.
"Batwoman," Gordon's voice crackled through the radio transmisor in her cowl, "that's him. The man in Arkham is a body double. He says Joker threatened his family..."
"Believe him," Batwoman snarled as she headed towards the circus big top at the middle of the grounds, after dispatching yet another clown who had crossed her path, brandishing a gun. Her own handgun still was smoking, as she walked over the clown, the precise hole in the middle of his forehead vacantly staring up at her, like a fresh, bleeding third eye. "That's just like him. Going after families."
"Do we send Bullock and Tactical in already?" Gordon asked.
"I've got it under control, and you've lost enough men tonight," she said, entering the big top. No, that wasn't true. He hadn't lost the men; their families had, just like so many other families had lost their loved ones as well earlier, when the gang massacred those who couldn't exit the fair in time. Just like all those who sat around the circus' ring, grinning corpses supported on each other, old and young, small and large alike. She could count at least two dozens from there. A sickening cold bathed her insides. "Gotta leave you now, Commissioner. I'm going to have a few words with him."
Sure enough, he stood there, with a still living, traumatized boy in his arms, grinning widely at her from the center of the big top. "Martha, dear," the monster who once had been her husband cooed, Glasgow scars stretching along his grin. "You're late. On the other hand, you're hardly the only one tonight, so I forgive you. You're going to set another bad example for Bruce, however. You know I despise tardiness over all things..."
"I'm not in the mood for games. Put the boy down gently, safely, no tricks, and save those for me," she urged him, gesturing towards his head with the gun. "Unless you aren't man enough for that anymore."
He chuckled grisly, as a switchblade popped out his sleeve, and he pressed it against the boy's throat. "What's the difference, Martha? You clearly think I'm not man enough already, anyway. But then, real men can protect their families..."
"... and they don't take others' families away because they couldn't," she said, stern like a real mother and wife. "Or rather, because we couldn't."
"If you ask me," Thomas said, whimsically running the blade up and down, teasing the tender skin, "being a real man is overrated anyway. It's much better to be a grown child, playing around instead of playing the good man, the good doctor, the pillar of the community. Maybe, if I had stayed inside more time, playing with Brucie-boy, we wouldn't have-"
"I told you, let him down," she urged, her gun's aim still steady and true. "You want to wax up on that nonsense? Fine, we'll do it in your cell, then. Press me further on, or I'll talk to your gravestone instead!"
"Oh, you would like that, wouldn't you," a humorless chuckle, black as tar, bubbled from the man's chalk white throat, still marred by the scars of many a failed attempt. "Of course you wouldn't! You little old bitch, old bat, if you'd ever wanted it, you'd have let me do it myself, after doing you, but nooooo, you're so in love with your job, you can't even let me have that! Despite your knowing it's the best for everyone!"
"I don't want to die, and I don't want you to die, because I know that's not what Bruce would have wanted," the Bat said, "but to save that boy's life, I'll do it if necessary. He's not our Bruce, but he's still someone else's."
"Yeah, well, those fellows are right back there, and I doubt they'll care anymore," the Joker snorted. "And to save this brat's life, what you have to do is throwing that gun and kicking it my way, that's what!"
"We've done this before. You'll kill him regardless."
He sighed. "See, that's the worst part of doing this with your wife. You know me too well, and frankly, I'm afraid it's taking the fun away from our relationsh-"
The trick shot sent the switchblade flying off his hand, along with two fingers. The Joker yowled in pain as he let the boy down, and then Batwoman was throwing herself into him, tackling him against the ground.
They struggled and wrestled like violent lovers, trying to strangle each other, until she pressed the barrel of her gun against one of his shoulders and shot, sending him back with another howl of pain. She stood over him, aiming at his head, before exhaling and kicking him down. "Ex-wife," she corrected, before hogtying him up tightly, leaving him on his stomach.
"I don't think this will help either. Not even BDSM can bring the magic back," he winced while she tended to the catatonic boy, then to his own wounds. "Maybe we should start seeing other people... I mean, other than other, I'm growing kind of fed up with Harley as well, and-"
She made a call. "Gordon, send Bullock in. He's down. No, no, alive. Although I won't answer for it if the ambulance isn't here immediately. No, it's only a flesh wound. I mean I'll kill him..."
The Joker breathed deeply, managing as much of a frown as he could. "I just wanted to know, you know? How that man must have felt that night. If he felt some sense of victory, of fulfillment. I've tried it over and over, until it became enjoyable, but I don't know if I've matched what he must have felt. If only we could ask him..."
She gave him a dead, cold glare. "I could. Through you, because you've become all he ever was and more. But it'd be pointless. You don't have any answers to give."
"Hmmmm. Maybe you're right," he allowed. "Maybe."
And, a moment later, he added, "How's Alfred doing these days, by the way?"
THE END.