Title: Everything Burns

Rating: T (for now, may increase later…)

Pairings: None

Warnings: Mild language; Angst; Violence; Gore. Read at your own discretion. This isn't for children guys.

A/N: Thanks so much to all of the lovely readers and reviewers! You guys make my day. I can't even begin to tell you how ridiculously fun it is to write this story. I only wish I had more free time to write, school just keeps getting in my way. It's *so* annoying.

I know this is far later than usual; this past week has been even crazier than last week was. I was going to write all day Wednesday but I got caught up after work because a friend was in the hospital so I didn't get home until after midnight and no time to finish working on the chapter until after I did my homework. Then I was away for the weekend and had no time to write and just… *sigh*

Not to mention I didn't start writing until Tuesday because I was extremely distracted by "Sherlock" Anyway… I'm babbling now.

And now, back to the story!

Chapter Four: The Spark the Started the Fire

Previously…

As screams filled the room, the Joker bellowed over the uproar, laughing as he sauntered further inside.

"Hell-oh, kiddies!" he greeted them, holding the gun threateningly in his hands. "Have we all been good boys and girls?"

Gordon practically ran into the Mayor's office, breathing heavily, sweat beading on his forehead. Garcia was just standing from his desk, hanging his phone up as he pulled on his coat. He barely cast a glance at the shaken police commissioner.

"Any word yet?" he demanded, waving for the man to follow him as he briefly checked his cell phone and slipped it into his coat pocket.

Gordon shook his head, his face tight and pale. "Nothing," he said, "Not since the initial call. It's been silent for over an hour now."

"That can't be good," the Mayor looked ragged, Gordon realized for the first time. A man who normally carried himself strongly, he was fidgeting a bit, his tie lopsided, his hands shaking, eyes wide with panic. Not that he could blame him. About an hour ago they'd received a phone call from the Joker telling them exactly where he was.

Normally, that'd be considered some sort of miracle if it weren't for the fact that he was heavily armed inside Gotham Elementary School.

"Have you got eyes inside yet?"

"There's no way," Gordon shook his head, "The Auditorium doesn't have windows, we'd have to go into the main building. We can't risk him setting off a bomb or shooting school children." The commissioner held the door open for Garcia as the two men rushed outside, sliding into a car quickly, ignoring the reporters who'd already gathered outside of City Hall, all clamoring for answers.

Garcia ran a hand over his face, dark eyes restlessly probing the buildings as they drove past. He just kept telling himself that there was always a way out. There had to be some solution to this seemingly impossibly problem. He just had to figure out what it was first.

"Any word from… him?"

Gordon didn't ask who 'he' was, he just shook his head. Garcia must be desperate if he was going to ask if Gordon had actually been in contact with Batman. Gordon only wished that he had, but the Batman was almost always nocturnal. He probably wouldn't show up in the middle of the afternoon. Somehow, Gordon had the feeling the Joker had been counting on that.

"We've got do something, damn it!" Garcia spat viciously, glaring out the window now. Gordon's fists clenched and he nodded curtly.

"We're doing everything we can," he assured him. "We've tried calling in, but he won't answer. He hasn't called back yet. He's got to want something, but until he contacts us again, we won't know for sure."

"And until then we just sit here, looking like helpless idiots," Garcia muttered bitterly.

Gordon scowled, "What do expect me to do!" he snapped, "My own children are in there! Do you think I want them in danger? But we can't do anything without risking their lives until we find out what the Joker wants."

Garcia swallowed roughly, shaking his head, turning his entire body away from the commissioner. Gordon sighed and shook his head, hating how helpless he really did feel at the moment. He could almost hear the screams of terrified kids as the Joker taunted them, waving guns at them from the safety of his innocent human shields. There had to be something they could do.

"Those FBI agents," Garcia suddenly broke Gordon out his desperate thoughts, "They're some kind of specialists, right?"

Gordon blinked, "Behavioral Analysts," he said, "They, uh, study people."

Garcia nodded, "Call them in, maybe they can negotiate with him,"

"Sir, with all respect, we can handle –"

"No, we can't," Garcia cut him off. "We need this to go away, and we need it to go away quickly, Gordon. Call them in."

"They just got out of the hospital; they were injured in the explosion yesterday –"

"Then call in the rest of their team!" Garcia snapped, "We don't have time to sit here arguing. You said it yourself, children are in danger. Your children. If these agents can talk the Joker down, let them try. It's doing something at least."

Gordon almost objected again, wanting to suggest that instead they wait it out until nightfall – if they could, anyway. Then perhaps the Batman would show up and fix this. But then he remembered that Batman was still a wanted felon in the eyes nearly every cop on the force, not to mention the MCU. Besides that, Garcia and the new DA were obviously not fans of the Caped Crusader. And he thought about his son and daughter and knew he wanted them out of there as soon as possible.

"I'll see what I can do," he relented, a bit annoyed that the Mayor lost confidence in the Gotham PD so quickly. Once again, he couldn't really blame him. If their last run in with the Joker had proven anything it was that sometimes, they couldn't even trust their own people to catch the bad guys. Maybe calling in the FBI was a good thing. But he certainly wasn't looking forward to it.

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Bruce was keeping a close eye on the news. About an hour and a half ago the Joker had barged into Gotham Elementary's annual "Say No to Drugs" speech with seven men, all armed with assault rifles and God only knew what else. Gotham police were on the scene and he'd heard that the Commissioner had called in the Behavioral Analysis Unit to negotiate with the Joker.

There was no negotiating with a man like the Joker though and it was obvious that they weren't getting anywhere. They needed him, they needed Batman. But they didn't want him.

And it was four o'clock in the afternoon, still far too light out for his usual appearances. Which left him on edge, watching the clock and the news with intensity. The second it appeared that things were going to go any farther than they already had, he would be there daylight or not. He was not about to let the Joker hurt innocent children.

He could feel Alfred's worried gaze on him whenever he entered the room but he didn't turn around, still watching the television screen with dark, brooding eyes. There was a beat of heavy silence before Bruce finally broke it.

"Children, Alfred. They're just kids. Why would anyone want to threaten children?"

Alfred sighed heavily, shaking his head at the television, "As I said before, Master Wayne, some men just want to watch the world burn. The Joker doesn't care who he's harming so long as it sends people into a panic,"

Bruce frowned, glaring at the TV. He'd tried and failed to really understand the Joker's motives before. He had to want something after all, all criminals do. But for whatever reason, the Joker never seemed to want anything other than to create mayhem. He truly enjoyed watching the fear and panic that he incited. Maybe it made him feel powerful, Bruce wasn't sure. What he did know was that no one would ever make sense of the man. Not these BAU agents they were sending in, not the doctors at Arkham, not Batman, no one. The Joker was a mystery that would never be unraveled.

But just because he didn't have an answer to the "Why?" that constantly plagued him when he thought of the man, didn't mean he couldn't stop him anyway. Logical or not, the Joker was still a criminal and still just a man and he had to be stopped before things escalated like they had before.

"What could he possibly gain from any of this?" Bruce wondered aloud, shaking his head at the television. Alfred just eyed the younger man sympathetically. He wished he could give Bruce advice on how to handle this, but some small selfish part of the butler wanted to tell him to leave the Joker to the police. Then, of course, another part of him reminded him that Batman was a part of Bruce Wayne. Sometimes, especially lately, he'd begun to wonder where Batman ended and Bruce began. The two were so integrated together that to separate them would be impossible.

"The Batman will stop him, Master Wayne," he smiled faintly, his eyes twinkling for a moment, "I hear he's just as stubborn as you are."

Bruce chuckled lightly at that, smiling. But his eyes turned grim again as they fell on the television screen and the Mayor's worried face as he tried to calm down the panicked parents who were demanding to know what was being done to save their children.

"-doing everything we can to negotiate with –"

"Negotiate! You can't possibly be considering giving in to this psycho's demands, Mayor?"

"No, of course we aren't, we're simply trying to get your children out of the school safely and with as little trouble as possible. We can't just go in there guns blazing and –"

"But the longer you sit here doing nothing, the longer those children are being exposed to a madman! You have to do something!"

At that point Commissioner Gordon stepped up and took the microphone away from the mayor, beginning to address the crowd of angry parents and reporters. Bruce leaned forward in his seat, glancing at his watch. Still too early for Batman, but maybe not too early for Bruce Wayne to be seen outside of a press conference on a hostage situation…

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Reid and Morgan stood just a few feet to the side of Commissioner Gordon and Mayor Garcia, listening as reporters bombarded the two men with questions and complaints and demands. Morgan was hardly paying attention to them, his jaw fixed as he glanced back at the school behind them. If there was one thing that he couldn't tolerate, it was someone terrorizing children in any way. It took a special kind of monster to do something like that.

Reid was eyeing his partner anxiously, knowing him well enough to know what was going through his mind. Gordon had called the two of them down about half an hour ago, reluctantly asking for their assistance on the case. Reid could tell that he hadn't liked asking for help from the FBI and was surprised when he said that the rest of their team was on the next flight there. After Gordon had turned down their earlier offer of assistance, he hadn't thought he'd come around so quickly.

Then again, when over two hundred children were being held hostage, he couldn't blame the man for taking any help that he could get. He'd heard Morgan say something about Gordon only asking because it was too early for their vigilante to intervene. Some part of him had wanted to disagree; it wasn't as if the police relied solely on Batman. In fact, from what he'd seen, most of them didn't like him at all.

"He should've called again by now…" Morgan muttered to himself.

Reid frowned, glancing over at him, "What?"

"The Joker," Morgan said, "It's been nearly two and a half hours. He should have called again. What's he waiting for?"

Reid glanced behind him at the school, nodding slowly, "Could be nothing," he said quietly, "He doesn't seem to want anything other than to create chaos…" Then he bit his lip and glanced up at the sky. It was starting to get darker now; sunset was only a couple of hours away.

"He could be waiting for nightfall,"

Morgan knitted his brows, looking over at the younger agent, "What do you mean?"

"The Joker is obsessed with Batman," Reid said, "He could be waiting until it's night because… that's when Batman would show up."

Morgan made a face, shaking his head. "They'll never let him go in there,"

Reid shrugged, "I'm not saying they will, but from what we know about the Joker so far, it's the most likely reason he's being so quiet," He was silent for a minute before he glanced back over at Morgan curiously, "Would you really refuse to let Batman in if that was his demand?"

"Yes," Morgan muttered, "Batman's a criminal. We are professionals. There is no way that we can send a criminal in to deal with another criminal."

"Even if that 'criminal' was the only one who could stop this?"

Morgan scowled, "Even if," he nodded. "…Besides, he seemed to like you, maybe we should send you in."

He was smirking slightly and Reid knew that he was just kidding, but the thought had crossed his mind a few times already. For whatever reason, the Joker had seemed oddly drawn to him and if there was some way that he could use that to his advantage and get those kids out of there safely, he would. But first they needed to find out what the Joker was planning with all of this.

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By the time they arrived at the school the crowd had grown to mammoth proportions, worried and angry parents, reporters looking for a story and anxious citizens just clamoring around, watching in horror, terrified of another bombing. Hotch and Rossi worked their way around the crowd, JJ and Prentiss moving around in the opposite direction. Commissioner Gordon stood with the Mayor and Reid and Morgan, just behind the school's entrance in a makeshift tent they'd set up.

Hotch ducked under the tent flaps, glancing around at the small group. There were a few officers standing around, but most of them were standing closer to the main school building, or standing outside watching the crowd.

The Commissioner and the Mayor immediately approached them, shaking Hotch's hand, "Agent Hotchner, FBI," Hotch introduced himself. Gordon nodded and shook the rest of the agents' hands as well.

"Jim Gordon, nice to meet you. We've been talking with your other agents for a while,"

"We hear you guys are some of the best in the country," Garcia greeted him eager, pumping his hand up and down repeatedly. "Maybe you can be of some help."

"We hope so," Hotch said, glancing over at Reid and Morgan, "What have we got so far?"

Morgan glanced back at the school, sighing heavily, "Not much more than what's in the file, we only got a few hours of interrogation on him and he didn't say much,"

Hotch glanced down at the cast on his arm, "How's the arm?"

"Not bad, I can work," Morgan assured him. Hotch looked skeptical, shaking his head.

"I'm sure your doctor would disagree," he murmured, turning to Reid, "How are you, Reid?"

"Fine," Reid nodded, but he wasn't exactly looking at Hotch, he was looking past him and out the open tent flap toward the school. It had been quiet and dark for hours. What was the Joker doing in there?

"Nothing broken, just a few scrapes and bruises, honestly."

Hotch nodded, "Any word from inside?"

"Not since first contact earlier this afternoon," Gordon answered, stepping forward, crossing his arms over his chest. "It's been quiet since then. We can't spot movement inside from here and we don't want to get too close and set him off."

"So you're stuck here," Rossi summed up quietly, eyeing the school with narrowed eyes. "Any way you can get eyes and ears inside?"

Gordon shook his head, "Not without going inside the main building. The Auditorium is directly in the center, no windows and only two doors, both inside. He'd hear us coming before we got there and there's no telling how he'd react."

"He didn't name any demands when he called earlier?" Prentiss frowned, "He has to want something."

"Not this guy," Gordon shook his head, "You haven't met him, Agent –"

"Prentiss," she answered, "What do you mean?"

"The Joker isn't a typical 'mobster'," Reid spoke up, "He's not even a normal terrorist. He's not doing this because of some belief system or monetary gain. He just wants to cause trouble. He enjoys watching people run and panic…" he paused for a moment, "And then there's Batman."

JJ raised a brow, "The vigilante?"

Reid nodded, noticing that Gordon was watching him a bit more carefully when he mentioned the Dark Knight. "When we interrogated him, the Joker told me a story. He fixated on Batman and almost came out and said that he became who he is to give Batman someone to challenge."

"You think that's what he wants?" Hotch frowned, "Batman?"

"I don't know," Reid said, "Could be. He seemed extremely obsessed with him. If that's what he wants, how are we supposed to get in touch with him?"

"The Batman's wanted felon," Hotch said, frowning, "We aren't going to get in touch with him."

"He's got to keep a close watch on the news," Prentiss pointed out, "He probably already knows that the Joker's here and he's just waiting for nightfall to make his move."

"Well in that case we'll have two criminals to apprehend," Hotch pointed out, not missing the look on Gordon's face as he said it. "Right now let's just focus on getting through to the Joker. Have you got a phone number for the Auditorium?"

"We've got a phone set up over here," Gordon nodded, leading them to a table set up in the middle of the tent, "We've tried getting through to him a few times but he's not picking up. Our negotiators are getting nowhere."

Hotch frowned, "Alright, Rossi, you make the call. Maybe he'll pick up this time."

Rossi nodded and moved toward the phone. It was just a normal, white landline that they'd hooked up in the tent, wires trailing down around the table. There wasn't anything about it that really stood out other than the fact that it was a very old model phone that probably didn't get much use any longer. And at that moment it was the most important tool in the entire city of Gotham.

Rossi reached out to lift the phone off the hook but just before his fingers brushed the plastic surface the phone let out a shrill, peeling ring, shaking slightly in its casing. The cops and agents – and Mayor – all froze, eyes darting around the tent as an eerie silence fell. The Joker was calling…

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The Joker sat in one of the folding chairs in the Auditorium. It was a large room with bright lights and rows of seats set up like in a movie theater with a large stage near the front. Three of his men were standing on the stage, guns pointed at the crowd of students and teachers who were all huddled in the west side of the room, ever seat taken, the teachers holding some of the younger children.

The other four armed men stood around the section, guns hanging idly at their sides as they watched the restless crowd. No one had said a word in over an hour, though some of the younger kids were still crying. The Joker was seated in the far east section of chairs, gun hanging over his legs as he stretched across three of the uncomfortable seats, humming to himself. There was a telephone sitting on the seat direction in front of him and he had the receiver in his hands, holding it up to his ear.

His dark eyes were glued to the clock and he had a twisted grin on his face. Not even his men knew what he was planning. The phone had been ringing off and on for hours but the Joker had made no move to answer it yet. And now he was sitting there, making a call, humming some mindless tune to himself.

He sat up abruptly, causing the rifle to clatter to the floor, setting off the sensitive trigger and shooting a small hail of bullets into the wall, making several people scream and startling the henchmen. The Joker appeared unperturbed, leaning forward, hunched over, pressing the phone against his ear and smearing his make-up.

"Helloooo," he grinned brightly, chuckling to himself. "Is this the Com-ish-on-errrrrr," he drug the word out, smacking his lips together as he did. Gordon had answered the first call and the Joker assumed that he'd been the one making all the previous calls that he'd ignored.

"No," a deep male voice responded on the other end of the phone line and the Joker raised his painted brows, whistling for a moment. "This is SSA David Rossi; I'm with the Behavior Analysis Unit."

"Oh really!" his eyes lit up as he grinned even more widely. His men on the stage took their eyes off the hostages for a moment to glance at their boss apprehensively. The near giddiness that the madman was displaying at the moment was enough to put them on edge even when the assault rifle wouldn't.

"Well this is a surprise isn't it?" The Joker laughed, "I was just speaking to two agents from there…" he trailed off and tilted his head thoughtfully, "Maybe you know my new friend. His name's Spencey…"

The agent hesitated, probably consulting with the other people gathered around outside. The Joker couldn't risk going out himself to look but he knew how these things went. The cops were all stationed outside, as close as they were willing to get, standing around a telephone just waiting for a call. And, apparently, they'd called in the FBI this time. The thought made him ecstatic. He always loved new people.

"You mean Agent Reid?"

"That's the one!" The Joker clapped a hand on his knee, nodding vigorously. "Is he there? I'd love to talk to him,"

Another pause. That was a yes then. Agent Reid was there and this Agent Rossi wasn't sure he wanted to put him on the phone or not. Of course, he would. The Joker knew how the police worked. Trap a room of children with a group of armed men and they'll risk anything to put it to an end as quickly as possible.

"You want to talk to Agent Reid?"

The Joker's grin turned predatory as he nodded. He only wished these agents could see him. They'd be out of their minds with terror. His appearance always seemed to have that effect on people. They didn't like him for some reason.

"Yes," he nodded, "Spencey is far more interesting than you. We shared something… He understands me."

He knew that would get them. Claim any sort of connection and they'll do what he wanted. Besides, Spencer really was more interesting than those other boring agents. Something about the young man just reminded him of Batman… Or maybe himself. He wasn't sure; he got the two confused so often.

It still took a few moments, during which he was sure that the agents and cops were having some ridiculously tedious argument about whether or not putting Agent Reid on the phone was in their best interest. But once again, he was proven right as he heard the murmuring voices fall quiet and the phone was picked up again.

"This is Agent Reid," he recognized the softer male voice immediately and his grin stretched to his ears.

"Spencey!" he giggled to himself, "I'm so glad you could come! It's beginning to get boring in here."

"Then why don't you let the children and teachers go and do something more fun?"

The Joker laughed a barked laugh and shook his head, "Oh, Spencey… I get the feeling you wouldn't approve of my idea of more 'fun'. It could be a bit… messy…"

The young agent didn't miss a beat however. The Joker found himself mildly impressed, "Tell me what you'd rather be doing then, I'll see what I can do. Just as long as you let the children go unharmed."

He raised his brows again, his scarred lips twitching as he fought off another it of laughter. "Hmm, since you're so keen to help me… Why don't you come inside, Spencey? I'll let the kiddies go if you join me…"

Once again, the agent surprised the Joker when he didn't hesitate for a moment. "Okay. Send them out and I'll go in."

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A/N: Hmm… That's my first intentional "cliffhanger". It feels wrong to end it there, but the next chapter is where things sort of get off a bit more. And I do believe that means the BAU (at least some of them) will get to meet the infamous Batman XD

So, hope you guys enjoyed it! And please forgive me for making you wait. These chapters are longer than what I normally write and also, time is short and life hates me. Anyway…

Please review!