Always and Always
Chapter 11: One Rule
It had been a crazy idea. But then again, it concerned the party of three's youngest member, whose entire existence revolved around a crazy idea dreamed up by two men whose sanity was questionable at best, so what was or wasn't justifiable for them could not be discerned by any sort of fine line. Perhaps it was what was best for them: give her (and all three of them, for that matter) a taste of normalcy, let them all play pretend for a while, and who would be any the wiser?
She had been begging to for weeks, and had wondered to herself as long as she could remember why they did not partake in such activities together as did her peers at school. With no simple answer forthcoming, Joker had realized it wasn't that bad of an idea, after all. Who would know? They had become so accustomed to shrouding their lives in secrets that nothing would ever bring anyone to suspect that the family in their midst was in fact the mover-and-shaker trio of the present and the future.
Besides, it would be in the girl's best interests to experience what the rest of the world was really like, and what human beings really were. Bruce agreed, though both knew at the back of their minds that they had very different ideas about what they wanted their daughter to learn from the night. In the end, however, they had come to the consensus to leave that all behind tonight, and focus on just letting the five-year-old see the world through her own eyes, and judge for herself.
And so the Batman, the Joker, and their prized jewel, Gotham, went out to a late eight o'clock dinner at a McDonald's.
No one screamed in terror or called the police when they ordered their Big Macs and Happy Meal, which was a good sign. No other children fearfully shrank away from Gotham when she decided to play in the giant play place; on the contrary, they quite welcomed her jubilant enthusiasm to play tag. And perhaps the only tentative glances the two men received from the mothers throughout the restaurant were due to the suspicion that they were same-sex parents. But no one commented, for if they truly weren't and were perhaps friends or relatives, or even just babysitters, no attention wanted to be drawn to a false accuser.
(Although perhaps out of the sheer hilarity of watching Bruce struggle to ignore it, Joker did manage to slink the toe of his shoe up the other's pant leg an inch for a good ten minutes – but was later surprised to feel Bruce return the gesture for a flash. It might have been intended as a kick, but that grin on the incognito billionaire's face told him quite satisfactorily otherwise.)
So the two gods of Gotham and the junior deity-to-be adopted the falsehood of a semi-average family, and by the time they left, well after nine, all three agreed they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Indeed, perhaps they shouldn't end their outing quite yet, and they opted to show Gotham the sights of the city at night – their hunting ground, her true inheritance.
But something was off in the way they walked through the maze of city streets and broken pavement. Gotham skipped happily between her daddies, still clutching her Happy Meal Barbie toy in her hand, gazing round-eyed at the beautiful lights and skyscrapers, reveling in the freedom of the night air, perfectly innocent. Joker was careful to disguise his laugh as he watched her antics, the latex and makeup that hid his scars stretching on his unpainted face, walking to her left in normal civilian clothes and golden hair as he absently hummed "Put a Smile On," feeling immortal and on top of the world.
But Bruce, unable to escape the sense of vigilance that the darkening sky always seemed to force upon him, was starting to feel paranoid. Yes, paranoid, as much as he hated to admit it, but he couldn't find any other word that fit. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why; this was his city, the place he knew by heart, by sight, by breath, by feel. The place he had spent nearly every night for the past sixteen years, smashing criminals and (when not distracted by fucking clowns) dispensing justice. But a faint dissonance was crackling at the edges of his awareness, and his battle senses were tensing inside him, ready to react if called upon. He walked upright and careful, watching the movements of the other two in detail, stepping dark and full of purpose on his daughter's right.
…why couldn't he figure this out?
Static was charging in the air, but it was quite clear that he was the only one of the three who felt it; Gotham skipped on as carelessly as ever, but Joker was the one he was most surprised at: he was lost in humming what seemed to be his new theme song, watching Gotham with the most amused of expressions, completely separated from Bruce's senses. It seemed so strange to Bruce, not having the man as tuned in to any sort of abnormal feeling of his; he supposed he took their status as soul mates for granted so often that whenever they weren't joined on the same wavelength, he felt quite akin to empty.
And he knew that Joker's state of oblivion meant that something was wrong.
He was about to open his mouth to mention something, perhaps to wake Joker up to the foreboding that he surely wasn't alone in feeling…when his eyes suddenly fell on what was making him so anxious, and why he was the only one feeling it.
They were walking right past the opera house.
His heart leapt into his throat, and his blood turned to ice as he realized just what this meant for him. This wasn't just any sort of unidentified feeling. It was a familiar feeling. He was walking past the opera house at night with his family. With the two people he cared about more than anything in the world. With two people who were completely unaware of any harm that might come their way.
This wasn't just static in the air.
…this was déjà vu.
"J-" he caught himself just in time to avoid addressing his partner by his true name – such an utterance would be sure to perk up the ears of the buildings' shadows and invite the darkness to converge on their presence. But the short consonant was enough to catch Joker's attention, as he turned with raised eyebrows while still continuing the "everybody come on" refrain in his throat.
"We should go," Bruce said in a hushed voice, his eyes flicking to the opera house that forced its magnitude upon him with every passing second. Joker's brow fell, knitting in confusion.
Gotham looked up at him. "Why, Daddy? I wanna walk around more!" Her mini-Barbie swung around absently by its one arm clutched in her hand.
"We've walked around enough. Now come on-"
"What's gotten into you, lamb chop?" Joker interrupted him. "We're still in Gantry. It's only the theatre district, it's not like we're going to South Hinkley, or the Narrows, Bat forbid…"
"Would you shut up?" Bruce snapped at the mention of the mockingly-intoned idol that so happened to be his usual alias around this hour. A tremor pricked him, not from the usual reason people flinched at the mention of bats on the streets at night, but from the memories sifting through the back of his vision, teeming with acrobats in black horns, trumpets descending through a G minor scale, Mefistofele belting out "Ascolta!" when Bruce wanted to beg the same thing of Joker, to listen, just listen for a minute, can't you hear what's in the air of OUR CITY RIGHT NOW –
"You'll have plenty of time to catch up on your soaps later," Joker chided with a cheeky wink, and with two dismissive pats to Bruce's cheek he took Gotham's hand and continued on their way.
Bruce couldn't take the strangling presentiment much longer; he grabbed Joker's bicep and whirled him back around. He was not going to take one step further away from their car sixteen blocks behind them. "We're going home, Joker," he hissed an inch from the man's face, praying no one was around to hear that dreadful supplication to the city's Lord of Misrule, never spoken in the dark of night by anyone who knew what was good for them.
"Now, now, no need to be so antagonistic, dear," Joker lightly brushed the grip off his arm. "I honestly don't know what you're so anxious to get back home to; it can't be soooo important it can't wait a few-"
"Then why don't you look around, and tell me?" Bruce gritted out. Surely if Joker stopped to pay attention to it, he would notice it too, he had to…
Joker slid his head to the left, lingered for three seconds, then whiplashed around to his right for another three before turning back to face Bruce. He smiled. "Oh look. Lightning didn't strike us down."
"Jay…"
"There's no one else on the streets besides us…"
"Jay…"
"And," a single finger normally clad in purple leather pressed to Bruce's lips, "I don't see any Italian restaurants in sight!" His hand slid down to tweak Bruce's chin as he breathed a latex-puckering smirk. "We are fine."
"That's not what I'm-"
"Alright, alright. You have a valid point; there is the possibility of those two freaks pouncing down on us poor saps at any given moment, those…whatchamacallims? That Bat-Man, or even worse, that clown bloke, the Joker…" he paused as if in thought, then made a show of lighting up with a pretend-epiphany. "Oh, wait." He grinned devilishly. "Come along, Gotham," he drawled out their daughter's exceptional name, intending to lead the way forward again.
"Joker," Bruce growled lowly, just as hushed and twice as urgent as before. "I'm serious about this."
"Well, that's your problem, sweets. I've always told you if you'd just relax your outlook a bit-"
Bruce grabbed Gotham's other hand assertively; now was not the time for an argument about his life's philosophy when this electric current in the air was pressing in on him from all directions, kicking in his fight-or-flight responses. "We're going home," he ground out with a firm grip on the girl's hand. This time, when his family was in danger as they surely were now, he was going to pick flight.
"Daddy…"
"See?" Joker reprimanded him. "You're scaring her. Why you feel the need to ruin every moment of fun in life is beyo-"
"Daddy…"
"We're going back, and that's the end of-"
"Daddy…"
"Oh really? Who died and made you king, hmm?"
"I'd rather it not be any of us toni-"
"Daddy…"
"Aww, you can't handle the streets without your pointy ears?"
"DADDY…"
"Gimme the money, fags."
Bruce's heart shuddered to a crashing halt. Joker stopped mid-breath, as his eyes faltered to surprise, then morphed into suspicion. The two slowly turned their heads to the direction Gotham was staring with her trembling, wild eyes.
The punk's face wasn't as angular as Chill's had been, and his hair was darker, bordering on the realms of black instead of that shaggy dark blonde. The mustache bore some resemblance, but the sparse beard was more developed and less attended to. The gun was a newer model than that of thirty-eight years ago, and shook considerably less in the mugger's grip.
But it was all the same in Bruce's eyes.
His family.
Was being held at gunpoint.
His family was –
"I said, gimme y'dough, faggots." The gun gestured to them again, returned back to aiming squarely at chest-level for the adults. Gotham's hands tightened in each of her fathers', her petrified eyes hypnotized by the gun barrel.
Bruce knew he couldn't react as Batman would, with the automatic twist of the forearm to break the wrist, followed through with an uppercut to the jaw and a final knee to the ribs to effectively crack them and knock the assailant down. He wasn't in his armor right now, the only defining outfit that constituted such behavior from him.
But deep down he knew he had to do something.
Training is nothing; will is everything.
He had failed to act then, his father had failed to act, the man had also said jewelry and then bang, scream, pearls, wallet, BANG –
"Come on, fuckin' queers, I ain't got all night." The gun moved closer, trained on the more uneasy of the two men. "Don't want nobody gettin' hurt, do we?"
Gotham's hand was a death grip in Bruce's, and he was suddenly envisioning the scene through his mother's eyes, the child's hand clenching around its parent's as the gun zeroed in on the chest, neither one prepared for what would happen next –
Bruce wasn't moving, and the mugger didn't like it. "Ever heard of the word now, cocksucker? Go getcha boyfriend's wallet, a'ight?"
He probably had no real reason to believe they were actually lovers, or maybe their previous body language had given the obvious signals. Either way, this was quickly escalating far beyond the usual kinds of nightmares that transported Bruce back to that night. Hell, this nightmare had probably never been dreamt by anyone before.
The Batman and the Joker…were getting mugged.
Joker chose that precise moment to begin laughing hysterically.
The gasping hoots were a sharp veer away from Bruce's frozen memories, and enough to get him, Gotham, and the gunman to turn to the cackling madman out the corners of their eyes, wary and bewildered.
Joker had let go of Gotham's hand to clap them together in his delight, then managed to point at Bruce once he had gathered enough of himself to speak. "Oh, you…" he spluttered between breaths and endless giggles, "You…you, my good fellow, are a riot! No…" he dissolved into another surge of an uproar, throwing his head back to the sky as mirthful tears began to collect at the corners of his eyes. "No…no wonder you're so-hehaha-so good at catching criminals," his one hand held his side as if in danger of it splitting, while his other arm swept in a wide gesture at the utterly perplexed mugger, "if you can just make them APPEAR, out of THIN AIR, when you want to prove a goddamn – POINT!"
Any further words of his were unintelligible to the other three as he drowned himself in his merriment. Bruce didn't know what to do first, what to think first. Joker was laughing at a mugger, which was certainly helping to either distract the man from his threats or to make good on them all the hastier to end this madness. At this point, if the Joker really was trying to ward off an attack, he may end up getting a bullet first.
But what was pressing on Bruce's sense of rising panic even further was that Joker had directly referenced his activities of catching criminals.
And that the clown was making no effort whatsoever to disguise his signature cackles any longer.
Of course Joker had become thoroughly taken with tonight's idea once they got the evening started, for its ultimate appeal to him, Bruce knew, was the irony of the Batman and the Joker parading around their city at night as everyday citizens – with their young daughter, no less. For this, the lunatic had thrown himself headlong into his role, playing his part with so much ease it had taken Bruce quite by surprise to watch how chameleon-like he could be when he wanted to. Their cashier from the restaurant had missed her chance to call the police when she had handed the killer his order, serving the most wanted man in the city with a smile as wide as his.
But now the mask was off, something the mugger was definitely noticing if his widening eyes, incessantly shaking gun, and quivering, sweat-beaded lips were anything to go by. Bruce watched the blur of movement as the barrel swerved from his chest to the unpainted, mad-laughing clown's, while Joker's hand on his side dipped into his blazer, reaching for something within the pockets, Bruce, why were you such a fool to trust –
He reacted. Gotham's hand was released, and she shrank back behind Joker in terror. Thankfully some part of Bruce's rational mind still remained intact in a corner of his awareness, reminding him that neither as an anonymous Joe Schmoe nor Bruce Wayne could he be seen aiming his punches as precisely as Batman. He may work out every day to maintain his Olympian physique for the next lady of the evening, but he wasn't supposed to have any practical application for such defensive techniques to be utilized every night.
The instantaneous jerk of his arm to block the gun from his lover's body was slowed just a fraction of a second, to avoid appearing superhuman. The gun, diverted from its path as the trigger was pulled, shattered the second-story window shutters of the building beside them. He gave a window of time for the man to grunt with surprise before his abysmally-prepared fist hit the other's jaw at an odd angle, too slow for instant loss of consciousness but enough to disorient and daze.
A snarl sounded behind him, all the warning Bruce received before he and the armed man were knocked down by the Joker that flung himself into their midst. The madman was still laughing with glee, but now they were interspersed between his gasps for air from the struggle to grab the gun from the flailing mugger. That, and to sink the polished switchblade into any piece of the criminal's flesh he could gain purchase on.
Bruce saw the flick of silver, and with a growl of frustration at his anti-companion he leapt for the knife to pry it from Joker's grasp. His fingers clawed at Joker's, who growled and made to elbow him away, but not before his eyes lighted behind Bruce. The gun's metal squeezed against Bruce's throat as its owner grabbed him in a headlock, choking the breath out of him.
Joker was on the thug in an instant, his knife dangerously close to both the intended face and his beloved's neck. Bruce at this point was caught between fighting the mugger, fighting the Joker's will for a bloody massacre over a simple knockout, and fighting for his next breath. The latter of the three, at the moment, took up the majority of his concentration. Second after desperate second the clash of wills between the three arm-wrestled on, Bruce and the mugger against the knife, Joker and Bruce against the gun, all three criminals against their own lungs that wouldn't work hard enough for their tasks at hand.
At last Bruce managed to wrench the arm an inch from his throat, then twisted the hand to finally break the wrist. The mugger yelled in pain, but his cry was cut short as Bruce's elbow connected with his ribs, simultaneously pushing him away from the Joker and allowing Bruce the leverage enough to land a punch squarely on his temple, knocking him out cold.
He shook his hand out to work the impact out of his unarmored knuckles, panting for his rightful air again. "Beauutiful work, as always, dear," Joker purred behind him, but upon turning to face him Bruce only just caught the terrifyingly crazed look gleaming in the green eyes before lunging to stop the maniac's leap forward to the unconscious man, still-unused knife raised with glistening promise.
"Stop!" he roared as Joker shoved against his shoulder with all his might, but Bruce had had it with the night's turn of events; he was not about to let Joker escalate things further. Joker attempted to twist past him, but a surge of Batman flared up like bile in Bruce's throat and he slammed his damned other half against the brick of the nearest building.
"We are not – going – to kill him," Bruce growled deep in his throat, at which sound he knew the pulse of light in Joker's eyes was reflecting that of his own.
"Oh?" scoffed Joker. "Then what do you propose we do, hm? Let him live to tell the tale of how he caught Batman and Joker holding hands, spinning yarns like regular chums? I thought you cared about your little secrets being secrets more than that-"
"He wouldn't have known at all if we'd left like I wanted to in the first place," Bruce countered, "and your giggling like the goddamn lunatic you are didn't help matters!" He knew he really should try to keep his voice down in case another unlucky passerby overheard them, but his fermenting anger at said goddamn lunatic usually didn't coincide with any form of level-headedness, and this time was no exception. "What the hell were you trying to accomplish with that? You tell me!"
"If you let me at him, I just might be able to show you," Joker leered, and attempted to shove past Bruce again, but the Bat wasn't letting him. The struggle turned fierce, and there was a very real chance of them ensuing their age-old battle right then and there, costumes or not, they could feel it in their bones –
But not as sharply as they felt the high-pitched scream into the night air pierce their hearts.
Bat and Clown's eyes locked together, the closest thing to panic their immortal personas had ever felt mounting between them. Eyes blue and green hovered together as the scream's after-burn tore holes through their eardrums. They turned to the source of the forbidden sound.
The Barbie toy lay on the pavement, alone.
Their age-old battle took on another of its numerous meanings as they wordlessly, breathlessly, thoughtlessly tore down the street to an adjacent alley, chasing the source of that terrible scream.
The mugger lay forgotten by the pair, but apparently not by his buddies. It had been an unfortunate slip of the mind on the part of both Batman and Joker that, ever since their equal rises to power, robberies were no longer usually carried out by lone men with a single gun. In that indirect way, Batman had achieved all he had ever been working for, by ensuring that his exact tragedy would never befall anyone else again.
Instead, the desperate massed together in unified desperate clumps, banding together to form pseudo-gangs for a night or two. A single hit man was rarely acting completely alone. With the threat of the Batman and the Joker both on the city streets, criminals had learned the uses of strength – and safety – in numbers.
Gotham couldn't have been aware of any of these risks before tonight, but as she faced the retaliation of their comrade's severe beating by getting snatched off the street by the eight men surrounding her now, she was quickly becoming subjected to the true horrors of her namesake.
"What're we gonna do wid her?" one asked as he jogged up beside the one carrying the squirming girl.
"Would ya concentrate more on jus' runnin', Derek?" a third yelled back from the front of the entourage. "We're almost there, then we c'figger it out!"
"I'm just sayin'," said Derek, panting between words, "maybe we should, y'know, think this trew? She don't got no money wid her, so whassa point?"
"The point," a fourth called from the rear as the group rounded a sharp turn, "is t'get her assfuckin' daddies to fork over their money to us. Yo' momma gave ya brains for a reason, din' she, Derek?"
"MOTHERFUCKER!" howled the one carrying their kidnapped mini-freak. The gang scrambled to a stop, looking toward him in alarm. "Fuckin' cunt, she bit me!" His hand was certainly bleeding quite a bit – thanks to a few experimental tactics when wrestling with her fathers, Gotham knew how to mean it when she snapped at someone. Yet despite her violent struggling to break free from her captor's injured grip, he still didn't let go of her.
"Okay, dat's it," growled a fifth, pulling out a fearsome-looking crowbar from his jacket. "I oughtta…"
"Woah, woah, easy there, Bernie," said the one who had unknowingly described the dark knight and the clown prince with the term assfucking, "no sense in anyone gettin' hurt, righ'?" The one still struggling with Gotham and his bleeding hand shot him a glare. "Er…anyone else, sorry, Flynn."
"Who put you in charge, Wes?" Flynn barked above his attempts to keep Gotham still in his grasp, which was quite impressive considering the way she wriggled like a trout in his arms. "You ain't gonna get no fuckin' AIDS from yo' hand bleedin'! I say no money ain't worth dis, go ahead, Bern-"
"Hey!" Wes stopped Bernie's crowbar again. "If y'want, I'll take d'kid, you take care o'ya boo-boo." The others sniggered at Flynn's expense, but he was just glad to get the squirt off his hands as he passed her squirming body to Wes. "She's jus' a little scared, is all," said Wes, lifting her to meet his eyes to hers that seethed hatred and contempt. "I'm sure if we all jus' calm down, we'll get dis all over wid, and she'll play nice so she can go back home to watch her queer daddies suck each other off-"
She spat into his face.
"Agh, what the-"
Kicked him in the nuts.
"YEEEAAOOOOWW-"
And ran like hell away from them.
Wes doubled over behind her, and Flynn was still clutching his bleeding hand, but the yells of her abductors were far behind her, and all Gotham could think about was putting as much distance between her and the shouts as possible. She panted, her heart raced, her entire body was screaming for a reprieve, but her gut told her she had to keep running down the alley. Just keep running, you'll get back home soon, just keep running-
Fire erupted on her scalp, and she screamed. She couldn't keep running; she was being dragged backward by her hair. She screamed again as a rough hand wrenched her arm back, whirled her around, lifted her off the ground by her wrist and the roots of her hair. Tears welled in her eyes from the pain and the terror, no matter how hard she tried to hide them from Bernie's menacing face.
"You little goddamn bitch!" he bellowed at her face, and flung her into a pile of trash at the far wall of the alleyway. She whimpered as she felt something wet drip down her temple, and looking at the stain on the wall she realized it was blood.
Spotting a small, hollow crate, she hid inside it, though it did nothing to shield her from her attackers' eyes. Bernie was at the head, thumping his crowbar into his hand repeatedly as he advanced on her, his five mates behind him, including Derek at the rear, knives and other assorted weapons in their hands.
"Daddy…" Gotham whispered in a hopeless prayer through her tears as Bernie raised his crowbar high.
The weapon slammed down, hitting its mark as blood sprayed everywhere.
Gotham looked up from her wince, from the impact that had never come.
It hadn't, because Bruce and Joker's had hit first.
Bernie's dark blue shirt pooled with a darker maroon as the knife puncture tore through to his front, and only before the blade's tip slid through a button hole did Joker withdraw it from the thug's torso. Bruce knocked the convulsing body to the side, either not noticing or not caring that it was going to be dead soon, and with roars of the deranged the two met the blows of the other five with a flurry of attacks only the two of them could have conjured up.
Watching them fight off the single mugger with the gun earlier had been a strange mix of frightening and fascinating to her, but they hadn't moved quite like this. Nor had they screamed this wildly. They hadn't taken quite so keenly to the promise of violence with the gunman, nor had such a penchant for smashing her assailants into brick walls before pummeling them senseless.
Before may have been alarming yet intriguing, but this…
Maybe her brush with death had something to do with it, but watching her parents' current motions was consuming her.
She cowered in the wooden frame of the crate, as much out of harm's way as she could manage, quaking as Bruce's fist, this time perfectly formed, crushed a thug's nose with a sickening crunch. His gaze at the floundering man glared a merciless black, then rose to the next victim as he leapt over the nose bleeder's half-conscious form to kick his buddy into the ground.
Derek attempted to raise his pistol at Bruce's back as the vigilante's foot met ribs over and over again, knocking the other ruffian into the wall. He never got the chance to fire, however, as Joker yanked him by his short and scraggly hair and used his head to whack it against that of a comrade's, with such force their skulls were most likely more than just fractured before he dropped them both against the opposite wall.
Snarling like a rabid dog, Joker tore after the last man standing between him and Gotham, easily dodging the knife swipe to his chest and, half-grinning like a fool, lurched to the hooligan's throat with his bare hands. Hooligan, however, was smart, and arced his knife through the air, to Joker's face.
The killer clown maneuvered himself just in time, and all that the blade accomplished was tearing through one side of the latex. For an instant the thug rejoiced at slicing through skin, only to recoil in horror when he realized someone had beat him to the task years ago in a forgotten memory.
Joker took the man by the throat again, squeezing the breath and pulse out of him. It was when he was sure that the man placed his scars to his more famously-known identity that Bruce grabbed the man's arm, fractured both radius and ulna without a second thought, and threw the knife yards away before throwing the petrified and screaming brute down the alley.
He landed at the feet of Flynn and Wes, who had come pelting down the alley upon hearing the commotion to assist their fallen companions. Their eyes locked on the two tall men, then on the girl. As if in a silent agreement, they bolted for Gotham –
The two animals were on them in an instant with roars of protective fury.
Their meaning was clear: wrong choice.
The four men grappled in a duel of the highest stakes, two against two, Bruce and Joker shoving with their combined strength against the criminals of inferior rank. There was no conscious thought left in the city's lords; nothing remained but action and reaction, attack and counterattack. Defending their offspring individually, or banding together as one unit to block all threats to their Gotham.
Theirs.
Through no external communication to each other, they feigned relenting a tad, only to resurge anew with feral snarls and shove their opponents sprawling backward to the ground. A knife leapt eagerly into Joker's waiting hand, and upon seeing it Flynn scrambled to his feet and raced down the alley faster than he had ever run in his life, wheezing desperately and clutching his still-bleeding hand as Joker pelted after him in hot pursuit.
Gotham craned her head out of the crate an inch or two to watch her blonde father disappear further down the alley, but didn't expect to find herself nose-to-nose to Wes.
"Shhhh…" he mouthed, pressing a finger to his lips and grinning as he belly-crawled on the ground, hoping Bruce wouldn't see him. His hand clamped around Gotham's mouth before her dry vocal cords could muster a scream, as his other hand reached for his gun at his belt –
A dark chainsaw roar sent tremors through the night air, and before Wes could finger the trigger, a hand usually cased in black Kevlar for the task dragged him back by his ankle, before reaching to the back of his neck and slamming his head against the unforgiving brick. That wasn't the end of his agony, however. It was only the beginning.
Shrinking back into her crate, Gotham watched her father go berserk.
Something had snapped in Bruce. Holding his child's hand as a gun leveled at his own chest had been one thing. Hearing his child scream in the distance had been another. Racing against the clock as he watched six men with all kinds of pain-inducing weapons converge on his child had been another still.
But something about watching a man lay a hand on his child's mouth as he reached to pull out a gun to shoot his child was making him rain his fists down upon the man like he never had before.
Even more brutal than he'd ever envisioned dealing out to Chill in his teenage years, even harsher than some of his heavier fights with Joker. No matter how much blood gushed from the monster beneath his fists, no matter how much bone he crushed with his knuckles, no matter how many screams and whimpers and "please"s he could draw from that throat, it would always be one degree less than enough to placate him. Weariness was a forgotten concept to his body.
Would you have let her plead with you before you killed my daughter? WOULD YOU HAVE?
Hands feebly batted up to shield the raw meat of a face, but Bruce's assaults crushed the bones in the appendages without a thought. It made no difference. His face and chest now flowed as red as the vision of the crusader's, his flesh bruised as black as Bruce's eyes now swirled.
Yet somehow, Wes still managed to aim a kick to Bruce's face out of the blue, knocking him away. Wes staggered to his feet, bleating and crying, feeling his way up the wall to a standing position. He limped and swayed down the alley for a few feet, before stopping to turn around to the click he heard behind him.
It all happened with a blur of clarity to Bruce. He saw the man stumbling away from him, then his eyes were drawn to the gun he'd left behind – as magnetic to his purpose tonight as breathing. Fluidly his hand found the cooling metal, resting like home in his palm, and he pulled back the hammer, as easily as if he'd shot Chill that day and every day afterward. He raised the firearm, and as if by the will of fate the target turned to face him, so he could see his face, the look in his eyes as he died –
Wes gurgled on a scream, choking on his own blood, as the knife sheared through his throat just before Bruce's finger could close on the trigger.
A weight of cold lead dropped in Bruce's core as he watched Joker hold the corpse up, letting his victim drain of the rest of his blood, before throwing the body to the ground again. He could barely breathe in the newfound oxygen that tasted so much heavier than before. His eyes stared dumbly at the weapon in his hand, now feeling foreign and out of place.
Vomit rose in his throat, and he choked it back down, a task made easier as Joker pried the gun from his fingers and took it into his own possession. Where it now rightfully belonged.
His hands were still bloodied from Wes, and shaking so violently, but they stilled considerably as they grabbed Joker's when offered to him, lifting him back to his feet. He stood, for a moment just breathing, then they turned to the pounding little footsteps ricocheting off the walls away from them.
Gotham ran away sobbing in a rising volume, away from Bruce, away from Joker, away from the bloodied carcass between them. She wasn't sure of anything anymore, but most specifically what she was most upset about. Whether it was the fact that Joker had just killed a man, right before her very eyes, in her name…
…or the fact that Bruce hadn't.
She just knew she couldn't face them, couldn't let either truth sink in for her – either option was too much for her tender spirit to handle. The crunching footfalls behind her were fast approaching, and she broke into a sprint down the street, anything to shield her from accepting what her fathers had just done…
Bruce's arms were around her, and she struggled against him, screeching "No, no, Daddy!" until the last word was all she could say as she collapsed into his arms, letting him carry her to the car. She couldn't muster up enough coherency of thought to question why Joker didn't join them on the ride home.
Or why he had kept the gun.
xxx
Later that night, she was seated on the kitchen counter, sipping hot chocolate as Bruce stitched up the nasty cut on her head, while Alfred attended to a scrape on her leg she hadn't noticed before. She hadn't said a word since arriving back home, but neither guardian of hers demanded otherwise. Somehow they both knew that coaxing a child into speech after a traumatizing experience was not a process to be rushed.
She didn't remember very much of it, she realized after churning thought after thought around in her head. Most of her mind was suspended in a safety-net of chaos immediately afterward, and as the minutes wore on at home she seemed to be settling again. There had been running, and yelling, and something about a gun…but at the thought of the weapon she thought back to Joker, and her brain halted her train of thoughts and made it start the reel all over again. It was a frustrating process, so eventually she opted for the survival mechanism of blocking out the details for a time.
All she had to focus on now was that she was back at home, and out of danger. All thanks to her daddies, who she remembered had saved her life. How exactly was hazy in her memory, except that it had been fearsome. The fact that they had acted at all was unsurprising; the concept of saving the day had long since hardwired into her mind along the same wavelength as that of Daddy. They always had been, and always and always would be, her heroes.
Daddy had finished sewing up the cut on her head, and after putting the thread and scissors back in the medical kit he met her eyes. His eyes were back to their gentle blue, exactly like hers as they transmitted and received comfort from each other.
Bruce brought her into his arms again, wanting that final bit of proof that she really was there, just wanting to hold her. She hugged back, closing her eyes, squeezing past a flash of memory involving her daddy's hand around a gun…
"You're okay, aren't you?" she heard his whisper to her. Unable to muster speech still, she just nodded. As long as she could stay in Daddy's embrace just a little bit longer, she would be okay. It would take her mind off guns…or maybe would keep reminding her of them, whichever option was better…
Bruce held her tighter, and she could somehow sense the same object was weighing heavy on both their minds. But Bruce was having a different reaction to it than she. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she finally managed to whisper.
"No, no, don't be," he reassured her. "None of this is your fault. None of it."
"These things are never anyone's fault," Alfred put in, "except those who attacked you." Bruce got the feeling that Alfred was referring to more than one incident of this nature, but let the remark go. The two nights had been eerily similar, and chiefly among the similarities was that it had been all his fau-
The clock chimed eleven down the hall, alerting Bruce to the window of time at hand that allowed him to continue tonight's earlier events, only this time under the mantle of justice. When he went back out there, it wouldn't be personal.
"I'd better go," he said, half-releasing Gotham from his arms. "Get some sleep, alright, honey?" She looked up at him as if he'd suggested she prove the Theory of Relativity on her own tonight. Sighing at her trepidation, he passed his hand down her face. "Things'll look better in the morning," he said gently, and pressed a kiss to her forehead before turning for the door.
"Is that what you do every night?"
He turned back, taken somewhat aback by her question. "What do you mean?"
"Fight all the bad guys."
He let out a breath he hadn't quite noticed he'd been holding, upon realizing she'd been asking about defending the right, not embracing the wrong to do so. He nodded.
Alfred scooped her up in preparation to take her back to her room for the sleep her father had prescribed. Before they left, she smiled at Bruce. "I hope you help more people, Daddy."
For the first time in hours, Bruce found his facial muscles could be willed into a smile again, and he beamed back at her. "I'll do all I can."
His princess left with Alfred then, back inside the walls of her castle, safe and sound where he no longer had to directly defend her wellbeing. Indirectly, however…
A biting voice at the back of his mind leered that, for all his progress these past sixteen years, he was no step closer to defeating his denial than he'd been when he'd started.
Out there, no matter whom it was he fought for, it was always personal.
xxx
As the elevator deposited Bruce inside the faintly dripping walls of his cave, he was realizing with more and more certainty just how terrible an idea tonight had been. He knew what kind of a city they lived in, the one he had named his own child after. He had seen its very best, true, but people like Alfred and Commissioner Gordon were hard to find on the late night streets of Gantry. Those locations were usually populated at this hour by those they had encountered tonight. Both the criminals and the vigilante who fought them, and the terrorist who preyed upon them and everyone else for pure sport.
But – he walked over to his monitors, oddly unsettled to discover that nothing out of the ordinary had transpired in the rest of the city; life had gone on in the wide world – not many people would have taken the route through the streets that they had tonight. Was that to blame for their misfortune? The perilous path they had chosen to walk that night, or was it the path he and Joker had always chosen, and had unintentionally set their daughter upon by default?
Perhaps what nagged at his mind the worst as he reached his armory was that tonight's events were a signal of what was to come.
He realized he couldn't shield Gotham from the world forever, as much as he wished he could. She would grow older, and grow up, and eventually yes, live her own life, taking her own chances with the world as she saw fit. He knew from both her heritage and her observed character that she wouldn't be content to let life just happen; she would be out there on the front lines, making life happen according to her.
What those wishes of hers would be was another issue entirely, one he didn't feel like bringing up with himself tonight. But at least things did seem somewhat promising at the moment. She had even told him tonight: "I hope you hurt more people, Daddy."
No, it was help. She had said help. She had.
…hadn't she?
He could barely remember anymore, his mind was so drained from the night's experiences.
But had tonight been merely a tragic mishap…or a preview of the inevitable?
The fact that he was even considering the latter made his stomach churn as he divested himself of his clothes, reaching for the mesh that he wore beneath his armor.
At least focusing on tonight's implications concerning his daughter brought his mind's focus away from what it meant about himself. He'd go out in the night air first, refresh himself, catch a few criminals and pummel a few faces – with restraint – to redefine his purpose in his mind. Then he could meet the earlier events with a clear head, and put the incessant subject to bed for good.
All plans of putting the mental reflection off for another time, however, faded the instant the door opened behind him. He didn't turn around to see who it was; he didn't need to. Only one person would know he was down here and not use the common courtesy of knocking first.
The door slid shut again, and Bruce continued suiting up. Gradually he prepared himself for any sort of confrontation, snide remark, anything at all from his other half, when he realized that Joker didn't actually possess telepathy, and the whole process was only making him think back to the night's events in full force. Such was the effect the clown always had on him, making him relive his worst moments. Yet it was a behavior he many times secretly thanked the man for urging out of him – Joker made him confront his failures.
Joker, meanwhile, wasn't saying anything. From all Bruce could tell, he was just standing there behind him, watching him dress in his armor. Yet Bruce had the vivid image in his mind's eye of Joker's arms folded, a grim look on his face, staring holes through the knight's back.
"So."
The single word made Bruce pause in attaching his right gauntlet, for it sounded so…accusatory. As if he were a deviant lover who had just been caught unawares in bed with the other woman, and the wife was about to drop the bomb.
"…what?" he asked, probing for more to be divulged from the clown's mind than just "so."
Joker, however, was not a scorned woman, and didn't waste time beating around the bush when so much was at stake for him.
"Do you not have one rule anymore?"
Bruce froze cold. Of course it was that.
The man beneath his fists, then he'd kicked him away to escape, the gun…
It had been so familiar in his hands, like he'd killed a thousand times before…
Cool metal like a stress ball, just waiting to be squeezed to satisfy his rage, then the man's face…he'd wanted to see his face as he…
The man who had wanted to kill their baby.
Bruce continued with his left glove, letting his thoughts slide together. He considered, and Joker waited, breathing silent breath while wondering which would be his last in the world he'd always known.
"I still have my one rule," Bruce said quietly. He still didn't look at Joker, still worked at sliding on his glove. He reached to the remaining gauntlet.
"Then what was tonight?" Joker put in. He still didn't move, still remembering Bruce's fingers curling around the metal currently in his own palm, how they had looked so right there but felt in his heart so wrong…
"Tonight was…"
A pause. Nothing. Waiting.
"Tonight I still had one rule."
Joker's breath whirred audibly through his nostrils. He saw what Bruce was really getting at with that statement. "Which was…?"
Bruce stopped his progress on his gauntlet entirely, and turned to face Joker. His previous visualization of Joker's stance had been, unsurprisingly, entirely correct. He also noted that Joker was back in full ensemble, divulged of latex and back in suit, paint, green hair, and most likely a large number of weapons. His eyes never left Bruce's as green searched through the deep blue that was swiftly darkening to black again, a black he once would have died to see.
"No one. Harms my daughter."
A long moment passed. Batman and Joker watched each other carefully, sizing each other up to the truth. Judgment was cast, not on each other, but rather on themselves.
A corner of Joker's mouth tugged up in a half-smile. A single breath of a laugh left his nose. "That's funny," he murmured, then without missing a beat, he turned on his heel and made for the door.
Bruce was quite thrown off by what Joker could possibly find in the entire situation as funny. "What is?"
Joker stopped his tracks at his lover's question, and didn't move for a moment. His head then inclined over his shoulder for a time, looking almost-but-not-quite at Bruce. "For a while there, I could've sworn…" He trailed off, lost in thought. Then he breathed another laugh, and continued his step.
"Could've sworn what?"
Bruce wasn't leaving this alone, so Joker turned further, this time meeting Bruce's eyes directly.
"…that that was my rule tonight, too," he spoke softly.
The words sent an arrow through Bruce's core, one he knew wasn't in the usual metaphorical spirit of Cupid. They held onto each other's gaze for a minute longer, almost afraid to look away.
Joker then left, and Bruce turned away, back to spreading the kohl over his eyes and masking his face in his cowl. But as they went about their nightly tasks and escapades in the hours to follow, they knew that no matter how they tried to run from it with mantles of defender and destroyer, a part of them underneath would forever be set free from everything else they had ever known, and trapped instead in a rule of a different kind, that simple one rule that every parent puts before all others, at any cost.
A/N: So, AP tests are done, I'm almost done with my second-to-last week of school before finals week, so what does KitCat do? Pick up where she left off in like AUGUST or something and finish up one of the darkest chapters of this fic so far. How much more celebratory could you get, no? xP
And I know I suck at fight scenes (why then, you may ask, am I writing about Batman and Joker? Still haven't figured that one out :P), but I honestly wasn't planning on going as detailed on the play-by-play of the action. It just happened. :3 So if you think it wasn't up to par, don't worry, I'm well aware of it. But feel free to tell me so anyway.
And as an added trivia, here's a few links for ya. Both are maps of Gotham City that are useful to any Batfan. Map 1 is here: www(dot)alternaterealitybranding(dot)com(slash)tdk(slash)www_ibelieveinharveydent_com(slash)youinaction(dot)aspx and it displays the different neighborhood districts including the ones referenced in this chapter. And then for a comprehensive city map of comicverse's Gotham that uses the same geography as the first map and shows prominent locales, go to Map 2, here: upload(dot)wikimedia(dot)org(slash)wikipedia(slash)en(slash)a(slash)ae(slash)Gotham_City_map(dot)jpg
Though I relocated Crime Alley to more around Wayne Tower in Gantry, since in BB the Waynes took the train downtown to get to the opera house, outside of which was the alley they were murdered in. And besides, "Crime Alley" sounds more like a downtown, cesspit-of-the-city kind of place, not a high-brow uptown area where it's placed in Lemmars on the second map. But hey, what do I know about city planning :P
Though the Narrows should probably be where Merchant's Square is on Map 1, since that's where the island with Arkham Asylum is located according to Map 2. And the Narrows IS an island, not part of the island of midtown, right? Pfft, I'm getting so caught up with these discrepancies. Do your job better, Mayor Garcia! D:
Because why, oh WHY are there THREE ways to get off Arkham Asylum's island via the New Trigate Bridge, yet Blackgate Island only has ONE way on or off? We only give the normal prisoners one way back, but the CRAZY AND DERANGED SUPERVILLAINS WHO HAVE A TENDENCY TO BREAK OUT OFTEN…GET NOT ONE, NOT TWO, BUT THREE POSSIBLE GETAWAY ROUTES? INTO ANY AREA OF THE CITY THEY PLEASE? COME ON, GOTHAM. USE LOGIC.