There were bodies lining the streets.
Batman stepped outside into the centre of Gotham. He was seconds too late. He'd hopped into the car as soon as he'd seen the news, but he was still too late. He was always too late.
And now the streets were lined with corpses.
Bruce began to panic inside of the suit, Batman forgotten as he stared around him.
It was a cold night. Cold and dark, clouds covering the sky and blocking out the moon, bursting and throwing heavy, ice cold droplets down on to the pavement below where they hit the concrete so hard and fast that they bounced back up like they were trying to rejoin the clouds.
The water was bouncing against cold flesh and running down those frozen faces.
Bruce felt sick.
Batman was trying to hold it together.
Bruce had made the switch into Bat-mode as soon as he saw the widespread panic and agitation on the streets. The first few aggressive and/or terrified people had been carted off by GPD and kept in the holding cells; calling for ambulances and doctors when the people started to scream at the pain in their muscles and spasm uncontrollably, dropping to the floor, shrieking, and dying within an hour, usually less.
The ambulance teams were convinced it was a new toxin being released, and Jonathan Crane was dragged out of Arkham and to the streets. He was still under the influence of the Fear Toxin and he refused to comply. He said they were being 'stupid'. He predicted many people were going to die. And then he started to laugh.
The news put out an announcement to rush to the nearest poison's hospital if any individual or member of their families, friends, or any man on the street started to become agitated, restless or fearful or started to spasm as a matter of urgency.
Panic overtook as the Joker's face interrupted the broadcast.
All he did was smile.
Bruce had gotten into the suit and drove into the streets. He'd been asleep in the afternoon. By the time he'd managed to catch the repeat, hundreds of people were dead.
The Joker had successfully blown up the emergency service vehicle garages, leaving a burning pile of wood and ash in its place and completely disarming the police from actually helping anyone.
Without Batman, they were lost. And Gordon couldn't admit to knowing how to contact him. He'd have to wait for him to appear in his own time, and hope to God he wasn't disillusioned enough with the city not to help out.
Bruce walked the silent streets for the first time since he became Batman in total and utter horror. The corpses were everywhere, lying where they'd fallen when the tetanus kicked in and their muscles had spasmed and stopped working, their lungs packing up before anyone could reach them and help. Bruce walked past men, women and children, people of all shapes and sizes in some sort of daze.
It chilled him to the bone just to look at them.
Bruce heard humming from ahead, and the Joker skipped into view. He stopped when he saw Batman, the rain causing his dirty green curls to hang limp and stick to the side of his face, dripping its own rain on to the pavement to join the puddles, his clothes hanging down, saturated with water. His make-up was smeared more than usual, white streaks melting into his natural skin tone, black dripping down from his eyelashes and his lipstick smeared into the cracks of his scars. He reached to the hair in his eyes, running his hand through it and pushing it over his head, trying to smooth it down, licking his lips. He sauntered forwards towards Batman, his sweetheart.
Bruce snapped back to Batman, and he stepped forwards.
"What the hell are you doing?" he growled, grabbing the Joker by the collar. He giggled.
"Walking."
He threw him down to the floor and the Joker splashed into a puddle, before springing back to his feet.
"Joker!"
He laughed again, "Oh, lighten up baby. I'm just trying to spread a little joy."
Batman's eyes narrowed, "Do these people look joyful to you?"
The Joker sauntered over to one of the corpses, a big, bloated man whose face had turned blue and puffy. He placed his foot on the body and, instead of trying to force it onto its side, just twisted the head. The neck gave a sickening crack and Bruce tried not to wince, to keep Batman stoic.
The Joker held the puffed up face still, pointing it at Batman. He looked up through the rain, his hair dripping in his eyes and smiled.
"Uh, yeah."
Bruce didn't want to look at the expression on the man's face; he didn't want to see the sickening smile plastered across the rigor mortis stricken features.
"How?"
The Joker dropped the head and looked up, raising an eyebrow.
"Oh, c'mon, Batsy! You must know what strychnine does."
Batman lost his temper and punched the Joker full in the face. The Joker lurched sideways, staggering out of reach for a second before another punch struck him in the stomach. He laughed, the pain and the contact as ever feeling good from his Bat.
"Of course I know!" Batman ground out. "Where did you distribute it?"
The Joker only laughed more, and Batman hurled him into a building, knocking his head against the bricks. The Joker saw stars, and tried to shake them out of his brain but was roughly pulled round and a knee was shoved into his groin hard enough to make him feel sick. He fell forward and landed sharply on his knees.
"Tell me! Just tell me why! Make me understand!"
The Joker looked up through pain-dulled eyes.
"What? Can't a man celebrate a birthday?"
Bruce's heart stopped, and he pulled the Joker to his feet again, slamming him up against the wall, his face inches from the other mans.
"What did you just say?"
"Yeah, hah, funny story. I woke up this morning, found some strychnine and decided to poison some of Gotham's lovely citizens with it. Completely by chance, I looked at a newspaper and saw that it was my birthday! Not that birthdays mean much anymore, I mean, I lost count a while back but I thought that since I'm here, and alive in such a wonderful place with such wonderful people it caused for some celebration."
Batman pushed him, jolting the Joker's back against the sharp bricks of the alley wall. The sensation of the pain sent shockwaves through the Joker's body. It always made him feel so alive.
He looked up into the Bat's eyes and laughed again.
"You looked tense for a moment there, darling. Why so serious, huh?" He pouted, seemingly trying to look concerned. "Want me to help with that?"
The Joker reached out and tried to massage Batman's shoulders through the armour.
Batman growled in response to Bruce, and pushed the Joker away. It was his birthday, too. Was he supposed to believe they shared? Was it really that inconceivable? He was so convinced that the Joker had worked it all out. Now he was playing games and Bruce had let another level of his disguise slip.
"How?"
The Joker laughed, and Bruce punched him in the face, splitting his lip. The Joker laughed more.
"HOW?"
"The answer, cupcake, is right behind you."
Batman dropped the Joker, who crumpled to the floor in a heap, and turned to face a huge McDonald's billboard.
"You're crazy," Batman muttered, and the Joker sighed, rolling his eyes.
"This again? Oh c'mon, Batsy. Change the record. I'm really not. The people who believe they can control chaos, tame chaos," he motioned to Batman. "They're the ones who are crazy. The only true sane people are those who just, ah, go with the flow."
"You disgust me."
"Again, predicatable."
"You are sick."
The Joker leapt to his feet with speed and agility that shouldn't come from a man who had just had the shit kicked out of him. Again, Bruce couldn't help but wonder if he had learnt to morph pain into something else, or get rid of it completely.
In the couple of seconds he was wondering, the Joker had launched an attack, kicking and punching and stabbing anywhere he could reach; a knife being pulled from seemingly nowhere, fury in his eyes and a growl from his throat.
"STOP TRYING TO BE LIKE THEM!"
Batman fought back as hard as he could; the Joker could easily match him in speed an agility, the advantage he had in strength, the Joker brought back in brutality. They were very well matched. Very good dance partners.
But the Joker was injured, and tired easily. He backed off, still snarling, his teeth bared and a knife held out in front of him.
"You're not like them."
He almost sounded wounded.
"They dropped you. They hunt you. You will never be one of them. Why would you want to be?"
Batman had no answer.
Bruce had plenty.
Batman advanced, instead, silently.
"Nothing? I'm disappointed." The Joker was behaving like a cornered dog; Batman must have gotten him pretty badly. Where he was walking forward, the Joker was lurching backwards. Bruce couldn't make out a limp, but his walk was so slumped and shambolic anyway that he didn't know if he could manage, even if there was one present.
The Joker pulled out a detonator when Batman picked up the pace.
"Ah, ah, ah. No. Come closer and I will press this. And bang goes an orphanage."
"Don't."
"Stay where you are then, sweetheart."
Batman stopped, and held up his hands.
"Now, don't you have a strychnine infected McDonald's to track down? Hmm?"
The Joker was twitchier than usual, and Batman didn't like to try his luck.
"Good boy." He held up a hand, "Be seeing you, lover."
He turned on his heel and walked away through the maze of bodies he'd left behind. The clean up was going to be a nightmare.
Bruce was suddenly aware of being surrounded by grinning corpses and felt sick again, nausea rising from his stomach to his throat and settling there, ready to break out at any time. He got out his phone and rang Gordon.
"Strychnine. In a McDonalds. Don't know which, I'll try to find out."
There was a large boom from one of the side streets as he hung up the phone that dulled his hearing and sent him flying sideways into the brick wall. He stood up, dazed, and felt rather than heard the mobile phone go off in his hand. He dazedly looked at the screen.
11:37
19/02/2012
Oops.
J
xxx
Batman swore and, regaining his senses ran to the source of the devastation. It was an orphanage, alright, but it was one that had been closed for quite a while. He couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, even with the strychnine still in circulation.
He rang Gordon again
"Ignore the blast, it was a deserted building. Get some fire teams down. Focus on the strychnine quarantine. Confirm with hospitals."
Batman checked the CCTV system from the car for the McDonalds nearby while Gordon compiled a profile from people working in each one to see whether they could identify any victims from old photographs. He didn't want to show people post-mortem photographs, after all. The "grin" was enough to make police officer's sick, and so he hated to think what it would do to these teenagers. He ordered a clean-up of the city, for his officers to take any vehicles they could find and start bagging up the bodies, not forgetting masks and gloves.
It would take a while, but they'd get through it.
And Batman was on the case. Even if he was hiding out in the background.
God, Gordon hoped he'd beaten the shit out of that bastard this time…
11:58
19/02/2012
Happy birthday, Bruce.
J
xxx
Bruce didn't know whether to laugh, or cry, or scream, or all three. So the Joker's idea of a birthday present to himself was to kill a load of people. His idea of a present from Batman was a beating. His idea of a present to Batman was to not kill a load of kids. And his present to Bruce was a mind-fuck.
He didn't know whether to hunt the Joker down and kill him or at least beat him up until he swore not to tell anyone his identity. But somehow, he didn't think he would anyway. It would ruin the "game".
And Batman had bigger fish to fry at that moment.
So he helped Gordon from afar with the investigation, and once the biohazard teams moved in and the staff got checked out, he went home and almost managed to ignore the bunch of flowers left at the door from him signed "lots of love, J xxx".
The man was a definite mind-fuck.
Bruce had a shower and was in bed by 3am, vowing to take the next day off work with a 'hangover'.
The Joker would wait.
He always did.