A/N: I don't own any of these characters. They are either owned by DC or Christopher Nolan or someone. Enjoy reading it.

Chaos' Angel

"Scars"

"Ma?" Little Jim Barton had just arrived home from school, excited to see his mother after such a hectic and tiring day. On the walk to the small apartment complex, he wasn't able to foresee that he would soon find out that the pain of his day had only been a fraction of what his mother had experienced.

"Jim." It was her voice, though very weak. From his position in the front doorway, he could see a broken table and glasses. With a slight shift of a few degrees, a new sight presented itself, one that would be a severe shock for any other, ordinary eight year old boy. His mother lay on the floor, beaten, bruised, and bleeding out of multiple wounds. "Daddy was here again, Jimmy. Get the bed ready."

"No. No, no, no, he can't stay!"

"But he is." She couldn't even move to comfort him from the now prevalent fatigue and pain that were coursing throughout her body.

"I'll go. I won't come back." His face was red with anger and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

"He'll kill me if you try that again. He just wants us to be a family, like we used to. He'll get us out of Gotham's Narrows. Maybe the Palisades, Jimmy! The Palisades! Oh, that new job at Wayne Enterprises is going so well for him."

"You believe him?"

"I do. He's family. That's what matters, now, Jimmy. Family. You, me, and your pa, all together now." Jimmy shook his head and ran off to the room he would soon have to hand over to the fiend his mother insisted on calling his "father". As was his tendency, he looked out of his window and watched the kids play street Basketball.

For some reason, he couldn't stop himself from laughing, and he couldn't figure out what was so funny. It was something that his underdeveloped mind was incapable of comprehending at this age. When he became older, he would understand that he was laughing at the obliviousness of the kids on the street, and their fighting over the rules, who broke them, and that their attempts to control the game were all pathetic.

"You some kind of clown, boy? Huh? You some kind of joker?" The cold, dry voice of his father sent chills down his spine and he wisely decided not to let his back be turned on him for one second, so he snapped around.

"N-no, sir..."

"Good. OUT!" The scream was so intense and sudden that he ran as fast as he could out of the room and, seeing that his mom was still on the floor, he knelt down beside her. He could hear his father from the other room laughing, and then saying, "Kid's too serious. Needs to lighten up."

"Mom?"

"Jimmy?"

"He didn't help you..."

She could barely even stroke his hair and watched helplessly as tears ran down his cheeks. "Hey, daddy needs his rest, baby."

"What about you?"

"Daddy works so hard, babe."

"He hurt you..."

"Out of love, Jimmy, out of love. Someday, when you have a woman, you'll understand."

"No. I won't." He continued to look at his mother's angelically beautiful face, though bruised it was. Her tanned bronze skin, flowing, straight brown hair, soft even with the shards of glass and hardened blood scattered throughout its strands. Her green eyes peered as hard at him as they could through the puffy, bruised eyelids.

His reverie was interrupted by the sound of the monster from the other room. "Jimmy. In here. NOW!"

He snapped up and ran into the room, taking his place against the wall as to prevent any rear attacks. "Sir?"

"Fix the antenna on this damned TV of yours and get me some beers when you're done. I wanna watch the game that's on tonight."

"Yes, sir..."

"You know, sometimes, you're kind of a good kid."

"Thank you, sir."

For a moment he was silent, but then his face was furious. "GO! Retard..."

Jimmy nodded and started adjusting the antennas until his father said it was clear enough and then dashed into the kitchen, bringing him several beers from the door.

He took them, grumbled, sat back on the bed and gulped the first one in several minutes. Jimmy was still there, and this infuriated him. He stood up and towered over the small boy. "Why in the hell are you still here?"

"You didn't say I could go, sir." This seethed inside of his father for a minute, until he drew back his hand and slammed it into the child's face.

"NOW YOU CAN GO! AND DON'T EVEN GIVE A FUCKING THOUGHT TO CRYING JUST BECAUSE I PUNISED YOU WHEN YOU DESERVED IT!" What ran through Jimmy's mind was 'he doesn't understand'. His father didn't understand that he wouldn't cry because he didn't think he deserved it, he would cry because it hurt. Physically and mentally.

When he stumbled into the living room, struggling to see through the tears, he could make out shapes that appeared as if his mother were trying to get off the floor. He stopped paying attention to his own, personal pain and tried to help his mother up. They were able to get as far as the couch, where she struggled, breathless.

"Mom..."

"He... Really does... Love us, you know... That, right?"

"No, mom, no, he doesn't... No, it's not true..."

"Jimmy, you just gotta believe. He does these things to keep us safe, to keep us happy."

"Mom, it doesn't help."

"He has rules. They're simple enough to follow."

"I know what they are, but they're stupid."

"No. They keep you safe..."

"No, they don't. Please..."

Some strength flowed back into her nearly lifeless body, causing her to jump forward and grab Jimmy's face. Her voice was stronger now. "Listen to me, Jimmy. Listen! He is all we've got. We've got to cherish him, because we've got to cherish all we've got. And he's it. He is absolutely it. There's nothing more, nothing less."

Her strength remained as the fiend walked out of the bedroom, in a drunken stupor. "Your kid don't love me, Casey. Our kid don't love me."

"Mike... I don't know..."

"Make him love me, please, Casey, MAKE HIM LOVE ME! Make him love me, or I'll... I'll kill 'em. Or you. Maybe you first, then him. I don't need no kid who can't love me and I don't need no girl who can't make a damn kid who don't love me. That's my number one rule, love and respect me, without fail. And this, this RETARD never follows rule numero uno."

"Mike, please, please... Hold on, Mike." She was able to stand up on her own, rounding around him toward the kitchen. "Think this through, Mike. Please, baby. I love you. You're my numero uno."

"No, I'm not. I KNOW, for a FACT, that you've been sleeping with Hector."

"Hector? Who in the hell is that?"

"He works with me. At the factory. He keeps talking about your pussy all the time. In great detail. He knows you, he KNOWS you, Casey. So, first, I'll kill you, and then him. I don't know what to do with the kid. He's still young. Maybe I can teach him, I don't know."

"No, please, I swear, I don't know a Hector. I've never heard of any one with that name."

"You trying to say you don't like the Hispanic type? A lil' mucho caliente? Eh?"

"No, I swear." She was nearing the knife rack, her hand shaking as she slid it near the handle of one of the longer, larger bladed knives. She knew he was too drunk to notice until the knife was right up on him, so there would only be one chance.

"Come on, you know you like it better when they shout "God" in Spanish. 'Oh mi Dios, oh mi dios, OH MI DIIIOOOS!' Don't you, babe?"

"Please, Mike, you don't know what you're talking about." She had now slid one of the knives behind her back, and was prepared to go on the defensive.

"The hell I don't!" He began to draw closer, and she pointed the knife toward him.

"Mike, if you come any closer, I swear. You know how sharp you keep these things."

"Yeah, for you. Not me. Now, babe, put that knife down, because I really, REALLY don't like it when you do that."

"No."

"Bitch, you asked for it." He quickly pulled her weak wrist back that was holding the knife, forcing her to drop it, and sunk his fist deep into her face. Jimmy had fallen against the counter, terrified at what he was seeing. He knew his mother had been beaten before, but he had never actually seen it happen.

It became much worse as Mike picked up the dropped knife and sunk it into Casey's chest, laughing maniacally. She screamed and began breathing extremely hard, which disappointed Mike for that fact that she was still alive. He sunk the blade into her chest several more times until she fell, limp and dead, onto the cold floor.

He turned at Jimmy, with a gigantic smile on his face. "Why so SERIOUS?" He approached Jimmy, holding the knife and with an even bigger grin on his face. "Why so SERIOUS?!"

Jimmy couldn't move, even as he felt the blade begin to slice into his cheek--skin, muscle and all. "Let's put a smile on that face!"

After several minutes of excruciating pain in his cheeks, of being sliced on his face, relief was finally at hand. The door was busted down. Apparently, the thin walls of the projects allowed every person in a three apartment radius to hear what was going on, and the GCPD received multiple reports of a domestic disturbance at Number 3, Peach Tree Place.

Jimmy was taken to ICU, where his scars were treated as best as medically possible. Even still, the doctors informed him that they would be there forever.

But the physical scars weren't nearly as important as the emotional ones. The real scarring came from the final confirmation that his mother was dead.

The one thing that he felt provided stability in his life, that drove away the chaos, had left him. Chaos had finally taken her, and somehow, perhaps subconsciously, he knew he would be next.

He would become an agent of chaos, because he was beginning to realize in full how uncontrollable life really was, and that the more one tried to do anything about it, the less happiness was brought to them. The more pain they would receive.

It was best just to work with, or for, chaos, to let it influence one's every action. To show the planners how foolish they really are.

These ideas were beginning to become clearer and clearer to him every second he spent eating hospital food and having his bandages changed, through the itching, scabbing, and finally scarring.

Emotionally, he was in the scabbing phase, but scars were soon to take over.

There were things he had to do, after all. He needed these scars so he could become numb to his past, yet still have a reminder of why he was doing anything at all.