Batman didn't turn his back until The Joker was long out of sight. He could hear Jacky's ragged breathing behind him and he was sure he'd seen the clown cut her, so he turned and made his way over to her.
Matt backed away a little as he approached. He knelt down in front of Jacky, who looked dazed and was probably in shock. He took a brief moment to inspect the long cut that extended one end of her lips to create a gruesome smirk. She was bleeding pretty badly, which was a given.
"She'll need stitches." He rasped curtly to the boy hovering close by. "Get her to a hospital."
He looked back to Jacky. She looked blankly back into his eyes. His voice softened a little with the worry of an uncle. He couldn't seem to hold it back.
"It's not too bad. You'll be alright." He knew she would be, physically at least, and that was all he was worried about for that moment. She continued to stare into his eyes, and he saw the faintest hint of recognition…
Batman stood abruptly and turned quickly, his cape shadowing his movements as he moved silent as the grave, through a window already broken by a bullet. He was towards the back of the building when he landed out on the street, which was good because the cops had arrived and were inadvertently creating a huge fuss towards the front of it.
Batman slid silently into the shadows, unnoticed by anyone else, and left the police to do their job, not that they had much left to do but clean up at that point. That was alright, though; they probably needed a break. The Joker had been all over the place lately, worse than usual, and this was the first time that Batman could think of that he'd left no corpses in his wake. Why hadn't he killed Jacky? He hadn't even really threatened her, at least not after Batman had arrived. Not that he was complaining of course; he was more than a little relieved to know that his niece was safe. But The Joker never gave up that easily on a victim. And he hadn't touched anyone else in the restaurant either. It was as if he'd somehow gotten fixed on Jacky alone, noticed something different about her maybe..
He stopped that train of thought before it could go any further. He was getting ahead of himself. The Joker was unpredictable, and it was entirely possible that he'd simply changed his mind or maybe hadn't even cared about victims this time, just wanted a good fight with 'Batsy'. Whatever the case actually was, he'd have to think on it later as he took to his cities roof tops, tailing Matt and Jacky on their way to the nearest hospital.
Beep..Beep..Beep..Beep..
At first Jacky was aware only of that slow, steady, and incessant beeping.
Beep..Beep..
It was more than a little annoying. She could feel her cheek now. It hurt, bad. What happened?
Beep..Beep..
Was she in a hospital? She recognized the beeping now and wondered about just how much trouble she'd get in for tearing the machine apart, it was so annoying. Could she even move? Her arm was sore as if she'd bruised it. She slowly began to remember why. Someone had grabbed her, restrained her.
There were people in the room with her now. She could hear voices over the beeping.
"No change?" The first voice was familiar, and obviously a guy. Her Uncle Bruce.
"Nope. She's still out. Nurse says not to worry, she should come around soon.." The second voice was even more familiar, though not as deep as her Uncle's. Matt.
Beep..Beep..
"Has her Uncle Joe been here?" Bruce's voice was closer than Matt's. He was standing next to her.
"Yeah, he was here earlier. He was almost panicking over her, but he had to leave. Did you know he's a cop?" Typical Matt. He wasn't going to leave any room for silence now that there was someone else in the room.
Beep..Beep..
"Yeah, I remember she told me that at some point. I haven't met him."
"Probably better that you don't; most people don't like him very much anyways."
They kept on talking and the machine kept on beep beep beeping and her cheek was pounding and now she could easily remember exactly what had happened. The Joker came barreling into the restaurant and for some reason he'd gotten fixed on her of all people and where had her Uncle Bruce gone? He'd left somewhere along the line, just left her there, and then The Joker had a knife to her throat, or was it her cheek? Well, obviously her cheek, probably both at one point or another, and what a nice knife that had been too. And then that big stupid Bat had to appear out of nowhere and make her jump and she really wished he hadn't because then maybe The Joker wouldn't have cut her. Or, maybe that was a stupid thought, because from what she knew of The Joker he never took pity on people, but he'd paused with her, hadn't kept going until Batman came up behind him and she'd jumped, which again wouldn't have happened had the Bat not come out of nowhere like that.
Batman. She suddenly found herself fixed on the single image of him, towering over her as she stared dazedly up at him, her torn cheek bleeding like crazy. Batman. If her cheek scarred as bad as.. Well, she'd be blaming him even more than The Joker to say the least.
She remembered off handedly that something else about the large black figure had also captured her attention, but with all the noise in the room and outside it and her bruised arm and hurt cheek she once again was too distracted to think about it.
What hospital was she in anyways? How had they gotten here? Was that…
She heard a few loud bangs, which wouldn't have been so nerve racking had she known exactly where she was; the room she was in was close to the psychiatric ward of the hospital, and the banging was most likely one of its many occupants making a fuss over something. She'd always had incredibly good hearing. But she didn't know exactly where she was, and to her confused mind the bangs reminded her a little too much of gunfire.
She could feel her heart rate speed up as she remembered the sudden gunfire from the night before. Very much awake now, she shot up in bed, and the heart monitor that was still beep beep beeping away only got louder and faster and even more annoying than before. She tried to open her mouth, to talk, but oh! It hurt worse than she remembered it hurting and now she felt panicked because the sudden jolting pain that trying to open her mouth caused her to feel seemed to put her back in the restaurant with the Joker holding her there and his knife in her mouth and…
The heart monitor was going really crazy now. Only half conscious of what she was doing, she started pulling at the wires and things attaching her to it, hoping to make it so she could get up and run. And of course this all really happened in only a few seconds, and her Uncle Bruce seemed to move almost reflexively, pushing her back down onto the hospital bed gently but firmly and restraining her arms.
Matt ran out to see where the nurse was.
"Jacky! Calm down! You're safe, you're in a hospital! Don't try to talk, you'll pull the stitches."
She stared up at her uncle with a blank expression and a somewhat wild look in her eyes. She could feel the salty, metallic taste of blood on her tongue. He continued to restrain her. Two nurses hurried in with Matt in tow.
"Bless her heart, it looks worse than before… It's bleeding again."
"Not as badly. We'll worry about that later. Do we need to sedate her?"
"Not a good idea after she was already unconscious, just give her a minute to get her bearings."
Jacky had her eyes closed again. She took a few deep breaths and felt herself calming a little.
"That's a good girl. Nothing to worry about in here, I promise."
She opened her eyes back up and found herself looked up at a smiling nurse, who was too busy looking down at a clipboard to direct her overly perky smile at Jacky.
"Careful trying to talk, sweetie."
"Do.." Jacky paused and winced. "Do not… call me 'sweetie.'"
The nurse's smile faded a little. She looked up now.
"Well, uhm, alright. I'm sorry?" It sounded almost like a question. "As I was saying, try not to open your mouth too wide. You'll…" She trailed off as if unsure of what to say next.
Jacky licked the inside of her cheek with her tongue and winced again when it hurt some more.
The smile-y nurse turned to the other nurse, who was older and not quite as peppy, obviously asking a silent question. Jacky could see the older nurse shake her head very slightly with a grim expression on her slightly wrinkled face, saying 'no' to whatever smile-y was asking.
"Well, just take my word for it and be careful, alright?" Smile-y finally finished her sentence and stepped away from the bed, a nervous look in her eyes.
"Mirror." Jacky's request seemed to startle the nurses. They both looked up to her at once, as did her uncle and boyfriend. "Can I… have one?"
"Uh, babe, that's not such a good idea, you should settle down first. We'll worry about all that later." Matt tried to take her hand in his but she pulled it away.
"No. I want to see it. Now. Mirror."
The nurses exchanged looks, then Smile-y nodded and bustled out of the room. Everyone was quiet. Matt rubbed the back of his neck, looking nervous. Bruce's phone beeped suddenly and the older nurse gave him a look.
"You can't use those things back here." She scolded.
"I know I can't ma'am. I'm on my way out now." He looked to Jacky. Even he looked a little unnerved. She was starting to really worry now. "I'll be back tomorrow, I promise."
A little half nod was her only reply. Suddenly looking extremely preoccupied, he brushed past Smile-y as she was coming back in.
Smile-y seemed to think nothing of the sudden change in his behavior as she approached Jacky.
"Are you sure you want…"
"Yes." Jacky cut her off and reached for the mirror. Smile-y handed it to her and sent the older nurse another look. The older nurse just shrugged. Jacky brought the mirror up slowly and looked into it.
The right side of her face was perfect, untouched and normal, but that only served to make her cheek on the left side look even worse than it was. The cut was slanted upwards, pointing towards her cheek bone. She could see why they wanted her to be so careful now; there were little plastic, barely visible stitches weaving in and out of the raw, bright red flesh. The skin around it was pink and swollen. She reached up to brush her fingers against it, half hoping that it wasn't actually there, and whimpered slightly when even the slight pressure she had put on it caused it to hurt more. She felt a tear slide down her cheek and looked to Matt, expecting some comfort.
"It's uh, it's not as bad as it looks." He wouldn't look at her. None of them would, she realized suddenly. Her uncle hadn't kept his eyes on her for very long, the nurses were apparently too busy doing other things; even Matt wouldn't look at her. He took her hand in his and just stared down at it.
"It looks really bad, Matt… Please. Look at me." He hesitated, then slowly lifted his eyes to look at her…
…and his gaze was automatically drawn to her cheek. He stared for a brief moment, then looked away again. Jacky's German-Irish blood was fully boiling by now.
The glass mirror flew across the room faster than anybody could realize what was happening. It shattered into a million pieces, the sound echoing off of the sterile walls of the hospital room.
I hope there aren't any odd mistakes or anything in this. I know it's short too, but it's late and I'm tired, so this it for now. Review please. :-)