AUTHOR'S NOTE; I'm terribly sorry for the month long absense. Exams, moving, writer's block and RL issues hit me like a truck. While this is my longest chapter so far (not by much), it is probably also slightly confusing, because I have a bad cold and its mucking with my processing. Just... use your imagination if words don't make sense. I don't have a beta. Everything downwards of streetfight (you'll know which one) is written with said cold, so that's probably the worse of it. Also, 's segment break problem as been resolved - if AO3 sees a change, it was because I'm too lazy to do two different types. We're sticking with O-O-O.
Also I now have a tumblr where my WUWAC stuff and some of my legitimate writing novel stuff will be posted. Follow for spoilers and sneak-peeks? It's alexbtuesday (at tumblr dot com).
WARNING; semi-creepy crime scene?
Bruce sets aside a part of the Batcave for investigations.
He knows that Gordon and his team of fairly trustworthy cops could be left to handle some of the work, but this is a game between Jack and him.
It requires both of them to work at it.
He pins a map of the city to the wall and starts to mark down every location the Joker has hit, every place he's been spotted. He examines evidence left at the scenes – scraps of fabric, knives taken from his person during the arrest, playing cards.
There is a lot of playing cards. In fact, Bruce has half a deck here – not the actual cards, which are still in the Gotham's police evidence locker, but photocopies – and they've all been dropped or left behind at attacks or raids or general terrorizing.
Jack had left the night before, in full getup. Since then, he'd robbed a tourist store on Main street, a house in the Narrows and another one in the west end (both with the residents in – that was no accident). He'd been seen in five different places throughout the city in five hours, including a Starbucks, where he'd ordered a cup of coffee, paid with a hundred dollar bill and left the change, all while holding the barista and other customers at gunpoint.
He'd run past the police station, and had only avoided capture because the officers on a smoke break were so stunned they hadn't realized what had happened until he had disappeared again. He'd taken a newspaper from a newsstand, but hadn't paid this time.
Every place he went, he dropped a card, or left it tucked somewhere that the investigation unit found quickly.
Bruce pinned these onto the map as well, frowning at the seemingly random splattering across the Gotham streets.
Jack was leading them to something-
No. The Joker was leading them to something. And it wasn't Bruce following, Batman was.
This was beyond childhood sweethearts now. The Others were battling, and the city was their Normandy Landings. They would storm the streets, attack from the shadows and the air, leaving no criminal or corrupt official untouched.
They would bombard the unworthy until they had no chance but to surrender. It was Gotham – nobody could ever leave.
Bruce spent over three hours in the cave, examining every single piece of the game he could find, but little turned up. He knew who Jack was. He knew the ultimate purpose behind the playing. He knew where the Joker got his supplies, where he was sleeping, where he was getting his food and medicine for any received injuries. He even knew where and from whom he was hiring his henchmen.
He just didn't know where the Joker would strike next. And his job was to prevent the Joker from doing anything dangerous to other people. He had to catch him, he had to make sure he didn't kill anyone… well, at least to the public he did. That was the Batman's role; the savior for the innocent and forgotten.
He'd protect them, because that was his job now. And he'd ignore the twisting in his gut from the urge to just get rid of everyone who'd hurt and wound, anyone who'd defiled the city.
He wanted to kill so badly.
Bruce closed his eyes against the map, tried to settle down into a meditation, tried to calm the urges sliding through him faster then he could taste them.
A beep sounded to his right, the computer chirping an alert.
Bruce opened his eyes. A message blinked on the screen, a feed that had just hit up the "Joker" keyword the program was looking for.
A news article stared back at him, posted only a few minutes ago.
JOKER SHOOTS INTO CROWED STREET, KILLS ONE
Ah. Bruce thought, moving to pull up the full story. There you are.
O-O-O
"One playing card, a Glock 23 hangun left at the scene – no fingerprints or evidence of any kind – and one abandoned getaway car with a confused driver." Gordon closed the case file and sighed. "Victim was Mary Brown, single mother, waitressed at a 24 hour dinner called "Mo's Coffee" – seriously, who names these things? – known drug record, been arrested five times, two for child abuse, had three credit cards in her purse under different names, we're checking them now."
Gordon paused. "Her kids are at the station, they've spent the last half hour talking about how much they hate her. And we tracked down the father; apparently she'd turned him away for whatever reason. He's clean."
"The Joker fired into a crowd of over a hundred people and managed to kill the only drug addict child abuser there?" Batman lowered his own copy of the file and gave the police officer a hard stare.
"Apparently. Well. We don't know if that was the only drug addict – probably not – but-" Gordon cut himself off with a shrug. "It was either an unlucky shot or he did it on purpose. But random shootings make more sense then stalking does, if we consider style."
"He may have picked the target then. Something tells me he's planning something, even if he doesn't look like it. We should assume he's going to do the opposite of what we expect."
Gordon made a face and turned to put down the file. "God, this job was a lot easier when it was just murderers and gang members running around. Now there's you and this clown-"
The caped crusader was gone when the cop turned back around.
"I… really hope he doesn't make a habit of that."
O-O-O
The sun had barely gone down and already Batman had broken up three crimes, leaving tips on the police line as to the location of the handcuffed criminals. But the normal punks and weirdos wandering around held little interest for him tonight.
For the Batman was hunting. He knew without a single doubt that the Joker's plan would be completed within the next few days. His knowledge that he had to let it play out for the sake of their personas was now wrestling with… something else.
The Bat wanted to save people. Something inside of Bruce had shifted, a once black force had turned its eyes to the goal of salvation. Within the space of a week, something had grown apart, established itself. Something that hadn't been there in the months before, when he'd first gone out.
It was like a whole new person was being created, something that was strangely enough – good – and Bruce wasn't entirely sure how to deal with it, or if he could stop it.
He made a mental note to talk to Jack about it later, since he had begun to notice the signs in his eyes when he looked in the mirror. The same differences he'd seen in Jack's eyes after he'd crawled from that tank. Something was changing – all the trauma and accidents that had happened so far, nothing was comparing to their shifting minds as they took on new roles.
And who would have thought that a costume could solve what dead parents couldn't? Bruce mused, preferring a perfect aerial takedown on two unexpecting muggers. The victim, whose phone had already been in his hand to hand over, managed to get a rather lovely picture of Batman punching the oldest mugger in the face before he bolted for it.
Batman finished handcuffing the criminals and alerting the police once again, only to be interrupted by a quiet coughing.
The Joker was standing before him, a coil of rope over his shoulder, a portable gas tank in one hand and a lighter raised to a cigarette between his teeth in the other hand.
"Lovely night for beatin' thugs in the face, is it not?" He purred, a spark of delight and amusement in his eyes.
Bruce eyed the gas and lighter with mild distaste. Apparently arson was going to be added to the Joker's rapidly expanding list of crimes. "When you said you were exploring alternate ideas, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind."
"I'm thinking of it like bingo." The clown drawled, a lazy grin splitting his cheeks. "Gotta get all the squares!" A small giggle escaped him, the gas sloshing in the canister.
"A game." Bruce breathes. The autumn air seems to still and swirl around him. Suddenly they aren't just two men, standing and discussing bingo, of all things. They were enemies, they were warriors, standing and defending their lines, their soldiers behind them raising their banners. Justice and crime, chaos and control, toeing the line, their faces raised to their goals.
Joker saw what Batman saw. Jack was gone, the clean, white face of immorality was staring back at him. Bruce's own desires – to play as the Joker played – vanished like morning mist. Steel resolve began to circle his veins.
He stood straighter, prowled to the side, began to circle. The Joker waited, watched, shifted his weight to better follow the path of the caped crusader. His gaze was eager – he wanted the fight. In fact, the Joker was setting down his canister, putting his cigarette out against a nearby lamppost. The rope was dropped beside the arson ammo. The slender villain rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, a slow grin spreading across his sharp features.
For a moment, they paused. If there was anyone watching, they were hidden from view. The thugs were out cold. The cold streets of Gotham were their stage, the streetlights their only backing. The only noise was the crunch of gravel and glass beneath their feet.
Batman cracked his knuckles and rolled his fingers into fists. Joker lifted a knife from his pocket and began to pace back and forward, speed edging his steps, jitteriness began to course through his frame. He wanted, wanted wanted wantedwanted to fight, to hurt and to hunt.
So the Joker leapt first, laughter running through him like its own type of energy. For a split second before they collided Batman's only thought was God, he's savage.
Then his ears filled with a roar, and the Bat took over, flooded his head with stream, clean-cut data, information pouring through every cell of him, telling him exactly what he needed to know to take the Joker down.
Fighting the clown was harder then it seemed. The Batman had a hundred pounds on him easy – plus heavy-duty body armor, visor, cowl, a lovely range of weapons – but the Joker was all limbs and energy, endless, endless energy. He had the advantage of stamina and speed. Any moment the Bat almost had a hold on him, the clown slipped like jello between his fingers.
They crossed that street a hundred times, chasing and throwing, stomping and slapping, working up a breathless routine through which Joker still managed to laugh and taunt, mocking and yelling up a storm.
Once or twice, as Batman lunched back and forth trying hard to just hit the damn bastard, he caught sight of an audience that had gathered on the far ends of the street, the edger citizens of Gotham coming out of the shadows to see a show at all hours of the night.
The Joker staggered to a halt across the road, swaying on his feet from the blows Batman had landed. "Oh Batsy, we could do this all night, really." And he grinned, teeth bared in an almost vampirism manner. "But I've got an appointment."
Bruce had stopped to catch his breath, and listen to whatever the clown had to say, but he stilled even further at his enemy's words.
"An appoint-" A thundering roar split the air behind them, the night sky's lighting up as somewhere, a building went up in flames.
"What did you DO!?" Batman screamed at Joker, dragging the momentarily stunned villain up into the air by his lapels. "How many people did you just kill-"
"Nobody!" The clown shrieked in laughter, his whole body heaving in fits of giggles. "That building wasn't even finished." Bruce cut off the end of his speech with one fist around his throat. "You bastard-"
There was a small part of him that briefly registered the pain at the back of his skull. Another that noted the texture of pavement against his chin. A tiny voice whispered that his vision was going.
The Joker leaned down to his prone body. "Oh Batsy, give this to the boss man, will you?" Something was tucked into his belt. And then, in a complete cliché, everything went black.
O-O-O
"You should know, I technically have a warrant for your arrest." Gordon said it with a thin layer in his voice that sounded like tired and boredom that had sat in the fridge for three days, and then been microwaved for too long.
"Urg." Bruce swatted at his vision a bit, trying to rub his face through the cowl.
Oddly enough, he didn't remember falling asleep in the police station. But lo and behold, he was spread across the roof, the bat signal alight above him. In a half-formed oval around him, there was the highest ranking officers of Jim Gordon's loyal group – the grim-faced Cripus Allen, a bemused Harvey Bullock, homicide detective Renee Montoya and district-attorney Harvey Dent. Not to mention the man himself, James Gordon.
"Also, a bunch of random buildings just blew up. You slept through it." Bullock chewed a cigar between yellow teeth and gave the caped crusader a dirty look. Bruce vaguely recalled Gordon mentioning Bullock's shady reputation and "bad cop" routine.
"It was the Joker." The Batman stumbled to his feet. "We were fighting earlier-"
His belt. Jack had tucked something in his belt right before he passed out. His hands immediately began to pat down every compartment, looking for an irregularity.
Stuck between two batarangs was a playing card. The back of it was decorated with a black gothic design. The others had been blue, red, orange and a variety of bright colors. A break in the pattern was sure not to be good. He glanced above the card to see Gordon's horrified expression.
He turned the card over and stilled at the ace staring back at him.
"Our teams at some of the explosions found queens and kings. We caught on and checked some of his earlier locations as well, he had left some there that we missed." Rasped Gordon. "He's building up to something, this is the finale."
"There's only a few hours until daylight." Dent handed Bruce a large file. "We're missing two queens, two kings and three aces. We estimate he'll probably use between three or four cards for the rest of the pre-finale, and then the rest for whatever he's building up to."
Batman nodded and tried to shake off the odd feeling brought on by the fact that Gordon's team had figured out what he'd already known.
"You may want to get a move on." Sighed Gordon. "The Joker's still on the loose, and worse, he seems to have recruited henchmen. At the last bombsite, we found a dead goon, dressed up sloppily like a clown."
"A clown? You've got to be kidding me." Batman groaned as he began to flip though Dent's file.
"Bad hair dye, bad makeup, bad clothes." Gordon confirmed. "There's a photo somewhere in there."
Bruce found himself longing oddly for the days where Jack had sat at his computer and fed him information about what was going on in the city at any given moment.
Joker's next move would have to happen soon, but where would the clown be? Would he go after criminals or innocents, buildings or people, items of value or cheap trinkets? The high-and-mighty business district or the Gotham slums?
A double static crackle interrupted his muses and the quiet discussion of Gordon's people. One was from the portable police scanner one of the police officers was carrying, while the other was from the Batman's cowl.
He pressed a finger to the pressure sensitive volume control on the side of his mask, while Allen lifted his own device and turned up the noise for the others to listen to.
"… Joker sighted at the corner of 6th and Jubilee…"
Gordon noticed Batman listening into his own channel and a look of semi-horror overtook the senior detective as he realized the caped crusader was tapping their feeds.
Batman flipped through the file as quickly as he could, committing as much as he could to photographic memory. Dent and Bullock began to argue over whether to call the resident SWAT team.
He waited until everyone had turned their backs before dropping the file and leaping from the roof, his cape spread behind him like a massive shadow.
He barely even managed to hear Montoya yell something about him disappearing like a damn ghost before he grabbled up onto a high-rise.
O-O-O
The corner of 6th and Jubilee did not host the Joker, but it did have a group of what Batman could only describe as goons, dressed up as stereotypical clowns, complete with… tutus?
They were performing what looked like an incredible butchered ballet performance, seemingly split fifty-fifty between nervous and bored. There was a loose ring of police cars and officers looking intensely confused at the whole performance.
Batman perched as high as he could, trying his best to gain a complete view of everything he could. Bruce had little doubt that the Joker had probably made a bolt for it by now. But on a night like this, he'd surely been here for a reason.
The performance was being danced in front of a pawn store – to be exact, "The Diamond King". The front door had a playing card taped to the door, face down, but Batman didn't need to see it to know what it was.
So instead, he crept around the crowd and slid through the back door. The entire store was dark, considering the hour, and smelled like dusty furniture and very strong pine.
The register counter had been cleared off, the former impulse purchases and trinkets all knocked to the floor. The glass top was smeared with traces of blood, shards of metal from the register sprinkled amongst it. Settled in the middle was a stack of logbooks.
The first flip through didn't reveal much – until he quickly noticed a pattern of names selling things that were much more expensive then anyone who frequented pawnshops should own.
A fence. The Joker had given him a fence. But why? If the Joker kept targeting criminals, eventually the police were going to catch on, and may label him as a vigilante, which wasn't per their agreement at all-
A muffled thump sounded from behind him. Bruce cast a weary eye on the closed door leading to the owner's office. Either Joker had stuck around for another confrontation, or…
The moment he pushed open the door, the smell of pine hit him in a wave. Hung from the ceiling – on what was possibly hundreds of tacks, were car air fresheners.
And on the floor, were the mangled corpses of he could only guess was the owner's family.
He recognized Jack's style immediately. He hadn't seen his Other kill often – but he'd still seen it, and the clean wounds to the quick, most painless death he could offer were obviously there, under a coating of post-humorous stabbings. The family themselves – a wife, and a couple of teenage kids - were laid out in various angles, heads twisted towards the door so the first thing anyone would see was their slashed faces, massive "grins" (a style, Bruce noted in the part of his brain that was trying not to hyperventilate, that closely resembled a "Glasgow Grin") smiling up at him, eyes open wide in permanent terror.
The owner himself was tied to a chair in the middle of the mess, tear tracks down his cheeks and blood dripping from his wrists, where he'd fought against the restraints. Someone had stuck a rolled up sock into his mouth and tied it in place.
Batman undid the gag, only to instantly be hit with an angry stream of curses and general abuse.
"I don't have time for this." He growled, giving the man a hard stare. "I know you just lost your family, but I need to know everything you can tell me fast."
"I ain't telling you nothin'!" The man screamed back at him.
"The Joker choose you – did you do anything to him?"
"No!" Of this, the man seemed slightly proud – or at least relieved to have escaped the spotlit trail of the killer clown.
"He had to have had a reason." Batman insisted, the stares of the bodies around him beginning to add an edge to his nerves. God, why had it had to be a family?
"I dunno, maybe he hated my boss or something, God, you're annoying." The owner gave him a pissed look. "I don't know nothin' about no clown, so go and leave me be."
"Who do you work for?" He added a snarl, shifting his body like the League had shown him, adding a predator edge that people sensed, if not saw.
"I…" The man swallowed, looked at the bodies of his kids. "… There's a smuggling boat, goes down the coast often enough. I just pass 'long the goods. I never done anything real back. Not'in' to deserve this…"
The sound of people approaching interrupted before Batman could ask more. As swiftly as he could, he left, only just missing the police beginning to search the building.
Gordon was standing by a long police car, looking tired and concerned as the constables on duty handcuffed the thugs.
He spared only a moment's glance – wondered if perhaps he should tell Gordon what he noticed. But the static of the police scanner cut through again, this time announcing a break-in and arrest of some teenagers down in the Narrows. It was a subtle reminder that crime was still afoot, even just a few hours before dawn, during the Joker's rein of confusion.
O-O-O
The remaining hours dragged slow and true, and bit by bit, three more attacks by the Joker were witnessed, scattered amongst a cloud of average crime. Or as average as crime could be.
The first was a fire set at a homeless shelter, no fatalities. The second was a non-fatal stabbing and mugging in the middle of Gotham's nightlife central. The third, was a break-in – with a grand total of five murders, this time against college students sharing a room.
The Joker was nowhere to be found.
The news hit the late-night news specials first, with only a couple of newspapers getting out any sort of story. By the time the sun had risen, and Bruce was forced to return to his cave, leaving only a brief message with his assistant that he would not be going into work that day, the city had begun a mild panic. By the time the morning news radio and TV shows alike aired, the Gothamites had abandoned most sense of rationality and had taken up protesting and running screaming through the streets, because apparently Gothamites did that in a crisis.
The sun rose a Monday. And it was perhaps the worst Monday Bruce Wayne had ever suffered through.
AUTHOR'S NOTE; A lot of characters were introduced in this chapter - all of Gordon's team of higher-ranking trust-worthy peeps are actual characters from the bat'verse. You may know some of them, you may not know others. They'll all have a part to play later! There was also some hints for later people... though I may have been too sick to write them and just imagined the whole thing.
Next chapter (which is hopefully debuting sometimes this week - but I'm moving so maybe not?) will include three, possibly four future villains. After that, there is probably going to be an interlude, with villian!backstory! Trying to decide who to do.