DISCOVERY

ONE

The last week had been the most difficult of his life and that was saying a lot. It wasn't just the violence and hysteria that was sweeping the city, all courtesy of the Joker. That was bad enough. No, this ran much deeper.

Bruce held the document in his trembling hands. His whole world was balanced precariously on the outcome of a few strands of DNA. If the tests were negative then nothing changed. He would hunt the Joker down and make sure that he was put into a hole he could never crawl out of. But if the tests were positive… if what he suspected was true, then everything was about to change. His whole world was about to sink deeper into hell. So deep, he wouldn't be able to find his way back. He looked over to where Alfred stood, trying to look stalwart, but for once failing. The man was as nervous as he was.

"No use dragging this out, I guess." He took a deep breath and tore into the large envelope. Bruce scanned the documents quickly until he came across one particular line, *One hundred percent probability*. The typeface seemed to scream at him. *Correlation indicates a sibling match*His mind went blank and his eyes watered. He released a gasp and sat back against the arm of the sofa.

"Master Bruce…"

He held up his hand to stay his friend. There was no solace for this. Bruce put his fist to his mouth and cleared his throat in an effort to get his careening emotions under control. He had prepared for this possible outcome. "I need you to get the final security measures in place, Alfred. Don't worry about the peripherals, we just need to make sure he's contained."

"Understood," Alfred intoned evenly. "Sir, I have to ask. Are you sure? Once he knows who you are… there won't be any going back."

"It doesn't matter, Alfred. I've… I've thought about this. He's family, my…" Bruce swallowed the huge lump in his throat, "My brother. If I have to spend the rest of my life taking care of him, trying to make him rational, then that's what I'm going to do."

"Somehow, I don't think he will appreciate the familial connection."

"That doesn't matter either. He has to be stopped. I can't allow him to continue to hurt people. He needs help, rather he wants it or not. I'm his family that makes him my responsibility. I'm going to do this."

"How will you find him?"

"That's a good question." Bruce sighed like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. "The news said the police had him cornered last night and that he was injured in the fray, maybe badly. If he's hurt, it'll slow him down. I'll see what Gordon has and with any luck, I'll get to him before the police do."

"If he's injured… and cornered, it will also make him more dangerous."

"Another reason I need to get to him and quickly. If he thinks they're closing in, he might decide to see how many people he can take with him and given what he's capable of, I don't want to see how that will turn out."

Alfred frowned. "Given how he's kept everyone running in circles for weeks, I'm more than a little apprehensive about the odds of his capture being bloodless."

"I'm going to get word to Gordon now. I'll gather as much intel as I can. As soon as it's dark, I'm out there in the streets and I'm not coming back until I have him."

TWO

The air was chill and damp. But what could you expect from an abandoned building? The Joker was huddled in the corner, his purple coat draped over him like a blanket. He was miserable and he was pissed off. He pulled his coat tighter trying to find a more comfortable position in which to sleep.

His right side had finally stopped bleeding but it ached like a bitch and his head felt like it was full of cotton and ice. He had a nasty goose egg on his temple from the fall he took into the dumpster. The way his vision was blurring in and out, it was a good guess that he had a concussion.

"Worl-duh class accom..o..dations," he commented to himself.

His gang had scattered to the four winds after the incident with the ferries. Apparently, committing the mass murder of several thousand people was a little too much even for the criminal element in Gotham. They just didn't get it. It didn't matter who lived or who died. It was all pointless. Everyone was on borrowed time. The Joker sniffled. He hoped he wasn't catching cold. Now he would have to start his game over. It wouldn't be that hard but it would be time consuming.

People were basically greedy, ignorant sheep so all he needed to do was throw around enough money and he'd have everything he required. What he couldn't buy in manpower, he could manipulate, which in the end would probably work out better anyway. Criminals couldn't be trusted not to cut and run at the first sign of trouble. Mental patients, on the other hand, turned out to be a goldmine. Find the key to their psychosis and you could make them do anything you wanted.

The Joker wiggled around some more, which only made his side start to hurt in earnest. It was too damn cold to sleep anyway. Leaning against the wall for support, he wobbled to his feet. His shirt was soaked with blood. He most likely needed stitches and a tetanus shot, he considered. But that wouldn't happen. He would probably just use some duct tape to hold the wound together and germs be damned.

Pressing his side, he slowly walked over to the broken window and looked out Gotham. The sun was high in the sky now, it wouldn't be too much longer. If the citizens of Gotham thought they were safe because the cops had him on the run, they should think again. It would be a cold day in hell when the Gotham PD could bring him down. The Joker cocked his head. "A cold day in hell," he giggled. "That it is, that.. it.. is," Joker intoned.

He wasn't worried. He never worried. A few days rest and he would be back on his game. Then the real fun could begin. "You haven't seen anything yet," he murmured. His crooked smile stretched, "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat, how I won.. derrr what you're at."

Bruce entered the last of the information that Gordon had provided into the massive computer system in the cave. It would give him a starting point. While computers were an invaluable tool for crime fighting, in the end, they were only machines. They presented facts and data. It was how the data was interpreted that could make or break a case, that could bring a criminal to justice or in this instance to his own personal prison.

He really hadn't had time to think through the long term logistics of what he was planning. Did he really intend to keep the Joker locked up on the estate for the rest of his life? Would he even be able to, if it came down to that? The Joker would certainly not make it easy.

He'd already made a few inquiries into the psychiatric community to find the most likely candidate to become his brother's doctor. The man needed some serious help. Whatever had happened to him in the past had created a monster. Bruce only hoped there was still a man left inside that could be reached. He didn't have a lot of hope that such a severe psychosis could be addressed with any success but it wasn't his field of expertise.

He also hadn't put much thought into how he would personally deal with the Joker, with his brother. Frankly, he was terrified. When he had found out that his brother was still alive, he'd been ecstatic. His baby brother was alive! All he'd ever wanted was to have his family back, and now he could, at least part of it. Then to find out that his "family" was one and the same with the sadistic, murdering, freak he had been hunting was enough to shatter even his faith in humanity.

But there was much more to this story. The Joker coming here to Gotham was fortuitous... and suspicious. Bruce had wondered if it were possible that it had been a set-up, that the Joker knew all along who he was dealing with, but in the end, he had discarded that theory.

In the few weeks he had studied his nemesis, Bruce learned enough to know that if the Joker had come to Gotham to get revenge on him, as his brother, the attacks would have been far more specific, far more personal. No, the Joker had no idea that he was a Wayne. It still left the mystery as to where his brother had been all this time and what had happened to him.

Rather or not he knew Batman's identity was still up for debate. The Joker had terrifying insight and coupled with an obviously keen mind, he had rapidly been putting the pieces together, that was clear from their conversation at the MCU. He seemed to find patterns that most people couldn't see, that kind of intelligence made him even more dangerous.

Bruce leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. The Joker had almost beaten him. He wasn't just talking about the crime spree either. He had broken Harvey, nearly killed Gordon… and nearly… wrecked him. Denying that, would only be more ammunition for the Joker to use against him. He needed to own up to his part in what had happened. The lengths that he had been willing to go, just like the Joker said he would. He hadn't realized until he took a step back, how far he'd fallen.

Had he not found out that the clown was really his brother, would he have killed him? Would he have gone that far? Bruce put his head in his hands. Thankfully, he wouldn't have to find out. He had a new purpose now.

Now he didn't have to just be Batman, dealing with the scum of the city night after night. He could also be Bruce Wayne, brother to a man that needed his help. He had part of his family back, a part of his soul back. It wasn't going to be easy. He didn't have any illusions. The Joker would try to destroy him, confined or not. But with time and treatment, there was a chance that they could forge some kind of bond. That he could call the Joker "brother" and mean it.