XI
Turns out I was right about uptown being a risky place for the Joker to pull his usual shenanigans. The sirens sound louder the moment we leave the room, and they quickly build as we move fast, retracing our steps back to the alleyway. By the time we burst out the door, they've reached a screaming crescendo.
As he pauses to check the alley entry to see if it's blocked, I sing, "Someone's in trouble—" more to bother him than because I'm feeling particularly playful at the moment.
He completely ignores me, just gestures to his employees, waving them towards the van. "Take that," he instructs them, sounding perfectly calm despite impending law enforcement. "Get outta here." I take the opportunity to take another healthy slug from the champagne bottle.
Gumby and Wight appear to exchange looks—it's hard to tell, they're still masked up—and Wight says, "Boss, are you—"
"Now!" the Joker barks, loud enough to hurt my ears, and I scowl, lifting my bottle hand to press my wrist against one ear in dramatic protest.
"Inside voices?" I suggest as the henchmen, clearly knowing better than to argue, break for the van, Wight still hauling the unconscious lawyer.
The Joker continues to ignore me. He pulls me towards a building across the alleyway, his grip communicating keep up or get dragged without him having to say it, and tries a door, which appears to be locked.
The van peels out. I turn to watch, lifting the bottle to my mouth again as they slingshot their way out of the alley, and I don't see any cops yet, but the sirens are deafening—they have to be close by. I wonder how the henchmen feel about being used as live bait, because there's no way they'll be able to leave the area without catching the police's attention, which was doubtless the Joker's intent.
Speaking of the Joker: he's dropped my hand, and as I turn to see why, I'm met with the sight of him slamming his shoulder against the locked door, presumably reluctant to waste the effort of sending the henchmen off without him by shooting out the lock and drawing attention to himself. He rams the door once more, twice, his process unflinching and effective—on his third attempt, the frame splinters and the door gives way. If I didn't hate him so much right now, I might be impressed.
He grabs my hand again, scowling at the champagne bottle. "Drop that."
"Oh, absolutely not."
Fortunately for me, he's in too much of a hurry to insist. He rolls his eyes, just a flash, and drags me through the newly open doorway, and even as I rush to keep up so I don't lose my footing, I take another triumphant pull from the bottle. I'm under no obligation whatsoever to take this seriously—the cops being after him is his problem, not mine. Matter of fact, it'd probably benefit me more if they did catch him: right now, I know where Gordon is, and if the Joker was in custody I'd have a chance at getting a team sent to rescue him before a bright henchman got the idea to move him.
A chance, but not a guarantee. If Detective March was any indicator of the Gotham PD's general attitude towards me right now, they probably won't believe a word I say. Additionally, intentionally sabotaging the Joker's chances at escape seems a little suicidal, and would certainly prompt him to retaliate if he manages to avoid capture. It's too much of a risk with no assurance of payoff. I'm not going to actively hinder him, but I'm damn well not going to help him either.
The broken door leads to some kind of cleaning area for the building, and he hauls me through the room at breakneck speed—I get it, it won't be long before the cops form a perimeter, a perimeter that'll only be expanded if they discover the busted door and surmise that he escaped through it, but it's still a pain trying to keep up with him.
The cleaning room runs into a corridor, and I swig champagne as the Joker pauses for a second to look around. We're in some kind of office building, it looks like, and even as the thought crosses my mind, some poor drone exits the room just ahead of us. He's got a handful of papers, is looking down at them to start with, but as he draws closer he glances up and literally trips over his own feet when he realizes what he's looking at.
He falls backwards, papers flying, and the Joker lets go of my hand so he can freely bear down on the unfortunate soul. He's crouching over the worker before the guy can scream or recover, one gloved hand tight over his mouth and the other gripping his tie, and I hear him say "Shh, shh. Quiet, now. Parking garage. Where is it?"
He lifts his hand so the guy can speak, after stammering for a second, he manages to get out: "Just follow this hallway. Turn left at the end. Go till you reach the door."
"That's very helpful," the Joker assures him, letting go of his tie and standing up. "Thank you. Run along now." The guy doesn't need to be told twice, practically crawling away now that he's free, vanishing into the same office that he came from. The Joker turns to grab my hand again, and then we're hurtling along once more, following the office worker's directions. The Joker doesn't seem worried by the possibility that the guy was lying, directing him to a dead end, and I'm not particularly concerned, either: it's a lot of pressure, having the Joker stare you down like that, and I don't think a lot of people are effective liars under that much pressure.
(Of course, I'm not particularly concerned by a lot right now. I've taken the bottle down by about halfway in the several minutes since I managed to get it open, and surprisingly—or perhaps not so surprisingly, given that my stomach is otherwise totally empty—it's hitting me pretty hard. I'm starting to feel pleasantly heavy, and the things that bothered me so much ten minutes ago don't seem to matter in quite the same way anymore. Alcohol is truly the solution to all the world's problems.)
The Joker is vocalizing softly to himself as we go along, "ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum," and if he was anyone else, I'd say it was nerves, anxiety about the presence of the police, but even lightheaded with champagne, I can't talk myself into believing it. There's no way he's worried. He coasts through life knowing he'll make out like a bandit, get away with whatever he tries. Maybe it's even his relentless confidence that does it. Maybe it tricks us all into thinking there's no way someone that sure of himself could possibly fail, and maybe we just let him get away with it. Maybe his whole existence is my fault.
Or maybe I'm just buzzed and stupid right now, I think as we reach the end of the hallway and he turns a hard left. I'm a little slower to realize that we're turning, and bounce off the wall using my elbow. "Ow," I complain. The blow got my funny bone.
"Well," the Joker says superciliously, "you've got one hand tied up, what did you expect? Boo." This last is said almost as an aside to a woman who's heading down the hallway, and she screams and scrambles into the nearest doorway.
"These people you keep scaring are gonna tell the police you're here," I say, a little reproachfully.
"I hope they do," he says, sounding about as sincere as he can manage. By now we've reached the door to the parking garage, and he yanks me through. It's the middle of the work day, so the garage is pretty empty, and he looks around quickly before settling on an anonymous green sedan close by, circling around fast to the driver's side before letting my hand go. I know this game, I've seen it before, so I don't watch with particular interest as he starts yanking pieces to a slim jim from his pockets. Maybe I drink a little more from my bottle.
"What's going on?" I ask once I've swallowed back the booze.
He doesn't appear to be paying much attention to me. "We… are running from the cops," he says lowly as he concentrates on putting the lock pick securely together.
"Yeah, no shit, I mean before that." This time he deigns to look at me, eyebrow drawn up skeptically like he's got no idea what I'm talking about. I should know better by now than to ask him anything without exhaustive clarification, given how much he likes to play dumb. "The lawyer massacre, you talking to that one guy, with the notepad—what, what did he write in the book for you?"
He seems to deliberate for half a second, then he's got an answer ready to hand over: "Prizewinning salsa recipe," he says, then returns his attention back to picking the car lock.
I tilt my head back, making a noise that's halfway between a groan and a scream. "You think you're so goddamned funny."
"Well," he mumbles with a twitch of his shoulder, "it's in the name."
"You need a new name."
"…I think it suits me."
"Freeze."
The voice doesn't belong to either of us, so naturally, I immediately disobey it, turning to see Detective March, on the ramp just above us, gun drawn. He looks a little rumpled, a little bloodshot after the gas attack, which gives him a sort of deranged mien—not that he needed it—and that's about all I'm able to see before the Joker grabs me from behind, winding his arm around my throat and putting me between him and the gun. He hasn't bothered to drop the slim jim; the cool metal bites into the side of my neck.
"Oh, god, and who says chivalry is dead," I mutter reflexively, though it mostly gets drowned by March's shout: "Joker, right now, let her go and put your hands up."
"I thought you said freeze," the Joker says, his voice coming from somewhere around shoulder-level. He must look hilarious crouched down to try to fit behind my frame, although I'm sure the sight is wasted on March. To me, quieter, he hisses, "What do you think, Em, I put a gun to your head and he'll let us walk?"
"Not likely," I say, not bothering to keep it down, tightening my fist on the bottle I'm still holding—I still haven't ruled out using it as a club.
As if to make my point, March calls out, "I will shoot through her rather than let you two go. Do not test me."
"He's not kidding," I tell the Joker, then to March: "And he doesn't care. Neither of you actually give a shit if I live or die, so really, I shouldn't even be involved in this little standoff." Neither man backs down. It was a long shot anyway.
"Joker. This is your last warning, let her go and show me your hands," March says, thumbing back the hammer on his gun.
"Ah, well, fair enough," the Joker mumbles in an undertone that I'm pretty sure is only meant for me. As he speaks, I feel a weight settle into my pocket, the one that doesn't already contain the detonator—then his arm disappears from my neck, and he pushes me, hard enough that I stumble a few paces clear of the car, totally out in the open.
As soon as I regain my balance, I look over at March, who is glancing swiftly from me to the Joker and back again, though he keeps his gun trained on the Joker, having understandably deemed him the bigger threat.
I look back at the Joker, who obligingly lifts his gloved hands slowly above the roof of the car, still holding the long metal slim jim tight. I don't know why he let me go instead of making March shoot through me—except that's not true, I realize as I think about it for longer than a second; if he believed me when I said I was useless as a hostage, then splitting from me gives him the advantage: now March has to keep his eye on two moving targets instead of just one.
I see his eyes flash over March double-time, taking in his disheveled appearance, the badge hanging from his neck, and I can almost see him calculating how best to dismantle this guy. He doesn't miss a beat before saying, "Careful, detective. That gun goes off, and Commissioner Gordon dies in agony alone somewhere in the city."
"Well, that's not true, is it?" I say, almost laughing, and the Joker shoots me a quick sideways glance, warning me off, but the tides have turned with March's arrival, and the sabotage I was considering earlier now seems to be a much better bet. I'd promised Batman that I wouldn't choose the Joker over Gordon, and while I'm still not keen to see him get shot, I've also just been privy to another massacre by his hand, so maybe it's time.
I look at March and say, "Gordon's in a basement downtown. I'm not sure exactly where, but I can give you the rough area."
"Shut up," March and the Joker say in unison.
"Fuck you both, then," I say, taking another swig of champagne to hide the sudden surge of fury. I guess I can understand the Joker's annoyance at having a valuable secret betrayed (although in my defense, he should definitely have seen it coming) but March is just being a dick.
"Joker, drop what's in your hands," March orders.
The Joker practically pouts. "But it's delicate. And expensive."
"Drop what's in your hands," March repeats emphatically, "or I put a bullet in your shoulder."
The Joker sighs dramatically, then opens his fingers and lets the metal fall to the ground. Then he follows them.
March wasn't kidding—he opens fire immediately as the Joker drops to the ground behind the car, and I drop as well in some misguided attempt to put some distance between me and the bullets, scraping open the skin on my knees as they connect with the concrete, though I barely feel it.
"Hands up! Emma Vane, show me your hands!" March is bellowing even as he takes cover behind a support column, and I think this is stupid, I'm not the one with like seven domestic terrorism events under my belt, but I finally abandon my bottle and lift my hands up.
March is talking rapidly into his walkie—calling for backup, probably, though I can't really make out the words—and from behind the car, the Joker yells "FORE!"
Something flies over the top of the car and lands between me and March with a noisy clatter. I've seen one of those motherfuckers before. That's a classic grenade, and despite the bullshit with the flag gun earlier today (or maybe because of it—he doesn't usually try to pull off the same joke twice, at least not in such quick succession) I am not willing to bet that it's a fake. "Bomb," I scream at March even as I stagger to my feet and run, the heels of my hands pressed hard to my ears. I could take cover with the Joker, but my half-addled mind is pretty furious with him right now, so I dive behind another car across the aisle just as the grenade explodes.
It's plenty loud even through my blocked ears, but I don't think it's as strong as the grenade he threw that night last winter, or maybe he just threw it further than I expected: I don't really feel the shock of it, at least not the way I expect to. My ears are still ringing, but not too badly, definitely not badly enough to obscure the sound of screeching tires echoing loud through the whole parking garage as the car the Joker was trying to break into veers out of its parking spot, clips the bumper of a van, and zooms away as fast as the tight corners of the garage allow. (It's a little easier, I think, when one doesn't care whether they're hitting other cars or not.)
March's column appears to have kept him safe; he emerges and gives chase, firing as he goes. If he's aiming for the tires, he's doing a bad job (although maybe he's just disoriented from the explosion—Lord knows I'm a little lightheaded, and I was further away from the grenade): the only shot to hit just blows out the tail light in a shower of sparks, and then the car swerves around the corner and it's lost to my sight.
March keeps chasing, but I need a minute. I sit heavily on the ground and lean back against the tire and regret drinking over half a bottle of Dom Perignon in about five minutes. My tolerance isn't too shabby, but I'm tired and stressed and hungry and it's all hitting me pretty hard.
"Oof, I hate it when he's right," I mumble, looking at the ugly gray ceiling of the parking garage.
March's voice reaches me again before March himself does: "—heading south on Liberty, I repeat, the Joker is in a green Sedan and has just left the parking garage for the Harkin Building and is currently heading south on Liberty. I need all available units in pursuit." By the time he gets to the end of his call, he's reached me, and practically glares down at me even as he asks, "Were you under cover? Can you walk?"
"As much cover as you can find in a parking garage, and yes, I'm pretty sure I can walk," I say sourly, bracing my back against the tire and starting to rise. March takes my arm, maybe worried I'll try to run (absolutely not, I feel too lead-footed to worry about bailing on him just yet).
"Come on. My car's just down on the next level. Come on." His hand on my arm is tight, and he sets a decent pace, though he's not as fast a walker as the Joker on a mission, so I don't have much trouble keeping up even though I truly don't feel like it.
"Why are you here, anyway?" I ask. "The trouble was in the building next door."
"Hunch," he responds tersely.
"Good hunch."
"Where's Commissioner Gordon?"
"I already… fucking told you," I say, my tone starting out high with frustration and then fizzling out into tired resignation. "Somewhere downtown. To the west of Trillium Park. It was the basement of something that looked like a project building to me. I didn't get street names or anything, but I'd know it if I saw it."
"Then we have to get you down there," he says, and keys up his walkie again. "Please respond, I have a potential report on Commissioner Gordon's location. I need SWAT and EMT to meet me downtown, on Hudson Street, immediately."
Someone on the other end of the walkie makes some incomprehensible sounds in response, but March seems to understand them, and releases his walkie as we approach an unmarked black car that I assume is his. He opens the passenger door, pushes me in, and then circles around the front, looking around in every direction like a particularly jittery terrier until he gets to the driver's seat.
"There aren't any henchmen around that I've seen," I tell him as he starts the ignition—too late to do any good, but maybe he'll ease up a little bit; he's so tense I'm afraid he'll snap.
"That you've seen," he repeats flatly, and takes off from the parking spot with a screech of tires and the start of a siren. I'd almost forgotten how untrusting March is. Still, he's at least less opaque about his feelings than the Joker is, and even if those feelings are outright dislike, after a day spent with the Joker, that feels like some relief.
We leave the parking garage to a glare of sunlight, and I wince, reaching up to block my eyes. My hand never gets there—March lashes out, fingers clamped around my palm even as he swerves around and approaches a cop car road block that's appeared since the last time I saw the road.
"Would you lay off?" I growl, trying to throw him off, but he just forces my hand down to the center console.
"Let's keep the sudden movements to a minimum," he says in a decidedly unfriendly tone. "You're not handcuffed because we're in a hurry, but if you push me—" He doesn't bother to finish the threat, just rolls down his window as he reaches the police block. It looks like the cops there are packing up to go.
"He's heading south, near Trillium Park," he barks. "Intel says that's where Gordon is. He's probably planning to get there first and move him, or shoot him or something. I'm heading there now. Follow." He doesn't wait for a response, just takes off south, and it doesn't take long before the other cars are completely out of sight.
Even with the siren on to warn other drivers of his presence, March's driving leaves a lot to be desired, and I find myself having second thoughts about being in a car with him behind the wheel. His warning about cuffing me makes me wary of saying anything too quickly, though, because it has brought to my attention an important fact: he hasn't searched me, doesn't appear to know that I'm carrying a detonator, and probably doesn't know about the ultimatum I'm facing. It's not much of a surprise, given that the Joker only filmed the video for it about an hour ago and I imagine there's some kind of processing that needs to be done before it's ready for the news, but I'd almost forgotten about it myself in all the excitement.
Now that I remember it, the detonator feels like an ember in my pocket, burning away against my leg. I consider telling him about it—and almost immediately ax the idea. I don't know how he'll react, and I don't trust him with the responsibility of the secret. (I might not be the most responsible person, either, but the Joker gave it to me so it's mine and I get to decide what to do with it; everyone else is just going to have to deal.)
Now that I've reached the decision to conceal the detonator from him, I'm pretty eager to avoid giving him cause to search me, so I'm careful to announce, "I'm going to put my seatbelt on," and wait for him to give me a wary nod before I move.
As I pull the belt across my chest, I fight the near-irresistible urge to reach into my other pocket, the one the Joker slipped something into just before shoving me away. I'm dying to know what he stashed on me—from the feel and weight of it, my best guess is a phone—but if I pull it out now, March will definitely take it, and I'm pretty sure that would defeat the purpose. I can't even risk reaching into my pocket to see if I can figure out what it is by feel, because that means betraying to him that this dress has pockets and will definitely make him curious about their contents. Until I'm confident I can figure it out without March noticing, the Joker's secret will have to wait.
Once my seatbelt is secure and I feel less like I'm about to die in a fiery and painful accident, I take a better look at March. He seems a little… not okay. He keeps coughing periodically, in that quiet closed-mouth way that I take to mean he doesn't want me to notice, he's got a burst blood vessel in his right eye, and his skin looks yellow to me. I can't be sure, but I think he's wearing the same clothes he was wearing two days ago when we met.
"Sooo," I start, and okay, that beginning is a little too casual, I blame it on the alcohol and move on: "Have you been to the hospital since the attack, or…?"
He looks suspiciously at me out of the corner of his eye. "Why?"
"Don't take this the wrong way. You look like microwaved garbage."
He snorts. "So do you."
"I am allowed to look bad," I tell him loftily. "The Joker has been dragging me around the city all day, and I'm drunk."
"Wait—you're drunk?" he asks, incredulous.
I wince. I hadn't meant to let that slip. "Ehh," I say vaguely, though the damage has already been done, wiggling a hand back and forth in front of my face and squinting one eye. "Buzzed is probably more accurate, but y'know."
"Perfect," he says bitterly. "How'm I supposed to know this isn't just some wild goose chase you cooked up as a drunken prank?"
"What am I, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Not everybody turns into a pathological liar just cause they had some alcohol."
"You'd be surprised."
I stare at him for a confused second before realizing. "Oh, right, the… cop thing. I guess your study sample would be skewed. No, I don't have the Joker's shitty sense of humor and I'm not trying to trick you. I want Gordon safe and sound as much as you do."
"I doubt that." He takes a turn around the corner that has me bracing against the door so I don't crack my head against the window, nearly clipping another car on the way, and as he straightens out, he asks, "You see him?"
"Who? Gordon?" He makes an affirmative noise, and I say, "Yes. He's beat to shit. Good call on calling EMTs to the scene; he'll need them. The Joker or someone smashed his ankle up really badly." I'm irritated to find my eyes welling up as soon as I tell him this. I'm not even thinking about it that deeply, certainly not on a level that warrants tears, but here they are.
It's too much to hope that March doesn't notice, or that he'll just let it pass without comment. "Are you crying?" he asks skeptically, glancing rapidly from me to the road and back again.
"Yep, I'm gonna need you to shut up about it," I say, trying my best to speak clearly past the thickness in my throat as I dab quickly at the corner of my eyes with my fingertips. "I get weepy when I drink; it is not a big deal."
He's almost sneering in disapproval, but he doesn't say anything else on the topic, just asks, "How bad is Gordon? Can a medic on site stabilize him, or are we talking an airlift to the hospital?"
I take a second to calm myself before trying to answer, breathing deep. "I don't think he's actively dying," I say in time, my voice a little stronger now.
"You don't think?" March is impatient for a detective, doesn't seem willing to let people talk and dig themselves into holes—he wants answers now, damn it. I can relate, but it seems like a trait that'll cause him trouble in his designated career path.
"I don't know," I say, my voice lifting a little in frustration, both in response to his impatience and because I'm annoyed by the holes in my own knowledge. "He wasn't in a terrible state when I got there, he was good, he was talking, and then the Joker jammed a syringe of some random sedative into his neck and I don't know what that did to him. He could just wake up a few hours later with a hangover, or he could… not wake up." I don't think the Joker would intentionally kill him before the deal he offered me expires, but again, he's the kind of guy that thinks deadly mistakes are hilarious.
March doesn't appear to have anything to say to that, though his mouth tightens into a frown. Watching him, I realize something. "Hey," I accuse, "you changed the subject. Why haven't you gone to the hospital?"
"Because I know what your boyfriend does to hospitals."
"He's not my boyfriend, and that's not a real answer," I say, ticking my points off on my fingers. "You think collapsing from massive internal damage is going to help Gordon?"
"It hasn't happened yet."
"Seriously, you didn't even get checked out? I heard on the news that a few people died from that gas."
He seems distracted by his mirrors, enough to actually give me an answer: "A medic looked me over. It's not comfortable, but I should be fine, thanks for the concern." Although the words are sarcastic, the bite I'm starting to expect from him is gone. I shoot him a quick, frowning look, heavy with the unspoken question: what's going on? It takes him a second to notice because his eyes are glued to his rearview mirror, and once he does, he just asks abruptly, "Is that SUV following us?"
I turn to look and spot the vehicle he's referring to almost immediately, because unlike the other cars nearby, which have timidly slowed (if not outright pulled over) at the sound of the siren, this one is traveling along at a steady clip in our wake. It's a beefy black Escalade, and any hope I might entertain that it's just a daredevil motorist risking a ticket by taking advantage of the briefly-cleared streets vanishes when I see that the windows are tinted so dark I can't see who's inside.
"Shit," I hiss.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," March mutters, and takes a hard right that slings me practically up against his shoulder despite my seat belt. I crane my neck to look behind us right as the Escalade screams around the corner, speeding up now that its driver realizes that it's been made.
I swear again, settling back into my seat. "It's not one of the force's cars?"
"Yeah, I'm just driving like this because I'm in a hurry."
"You don't have to be a little shit about it."
"You don't recognize the vehicle?"
"No," I admit reluctantly.
"No idea who might be driving?"
"Oh, I've got a ton of ideas. Could be the Joker himself—shit—" I spit as he twists the wheel again to take us without warning through an alley, sideswiping a dumpster on the way—"he could've lost your people, traded off cars, and caught up to us, it's certainly in his playbook. More likely it's just some of his goons. Could even be Victor Zsasz, he wasn't happy with me last time I checked. Spin the goddamn wheel, why don't you."
March's Evil Knievel maneuver failed to lose our tail—the Escalade is bigger and less agile, but its driver doesn't appear to care that it's getting banged up in the pursuit. Watching it through the side mirror, I exhale through my nose, annoyed, and start to take my seatbelt off. "Fine. Pull over long enough to let me jump out."
"Put that back on," March snaps.
"There's like a ninety percent chance they're following for me," I argue. "Drop me off, they'll stop following you, and you can focus on finding Gordon."
"You are out of your mind if you think that's going to happen," he says.
"Look, I'm not trying to escape, this is the same deal as what happened at the station! He's going to take me either way; you need to pick the choice that doesn't end with you—"
"We don't know who's in that car, I am not pulling over, and you need to put your seatbelt back on before I sling you out of a window."
"I strongly object to this decision," I tell him, just so he knows, but if he isn't slowing down, then I think it's best to obey him, so I put the seatbelt back on.
"Noted," he says, and takes another sharp turn.
The next minute or so is… well. I find myself thinking longingly of that time the Joker and I fled the police last Christmas—not that the Joker is somehow a better driver than March, but even then, I had faith in his commitment to keeping himself, at least, alive. March is the one who doesn't seem to have a real sense of self-preservation, so his driving makes me a lot more nervous. I glance over at him, wondering if I can persuade him to give me a gun so I can try to shoot the driver and end this chase early.
Nah, there's not a chance. I don't think he's the kind of guy would cry over a murderer shot and killed with no trial, but since he doesn't know who's driving the car, he won't give me carte blanche to fire into it. Besides, there's no way he trusts me with a gun.
We lurch through an intersection, and I take a moment to be grateful for the fact that—the recent incident notwithstanding—I have a pretty strong stomach. Otherwise, with a belly full of champagne, I'd be in for a bad time right about now.
Eventually, and kind of miraculously, March manages to lose the Escalade, though it puts us off-course, an inconvenience he responds to by driving even faster, though a little less erratically. He catches me side-eyeing him after he flies through the third red light without, in my opinion, taking appropriate precautions, and snaps, "What?"
I have no intention of letting his bad mood make me all shrinking and meek—if it only rarely works for the Joker, it sure as hell isn't going to work for this guy. I just say, "Again, you're not going to be much good to Gordon if you die before you reach him. Maybe take ten off her there?" I add, glancing pointedly at the speedometer.
"Shut up," he says, not bothering to lessen his speed.
"You're so charming. Are you single?"
"I swear to god, I will cuff you."
"I'll take that as a yes, and also I call bullshit, because you'd probably have to slow down and take one hand off the wheel to cuff me. That doesn't seem very like you."
His eyes narrow and his frown deepens, but he seems to finally catch on to the fact that snapping back at me is just feeding the flame. I've been in training for this shit for years now, taught by the Joker that shutting up and hunkering down only makes things worse: better to mouth off, quibble, crack jokes, because at least that way I've got a chance at making him laugh and finding my way to his good side (insofar as that's possible). It's my second nature in conflict at this point; March and I are just both unlucky that he has no sense of humor to speak of.
He doesn't have to pretend to ignore me for long: he turns another corner and screeches to an abrupt halt when he finds a construction crew and all their equipment blocking our way, though he doesn't quite brake fast enough to avoid hitting the bulldozer with his front bumper. The construction crew starts shouting over at him—not as aggressively as they might if his siren wasn't still going, but they still don't look happy.
"Jesus Christ," snarls March. He lifts a grudging hand, acknowledging the construction workers' complaints, and around this time, his radio goes off:
"0190, do you still have Emma Vane in custody?"
He shoots me a look and answers: "Dispatch, that's an affirmative, we're en-route to Gordon's last known location now."
I can't breathe. I know exactly what this must be about. Sure enough: "Copy that, 0190—March, be advised, GCN is reporting that there she has a detonator to a large bomb somewhere in the city in her possession."
March's eyes seek mine, and I look back at him, ready to protest and argue, you don't understand, but my eye is quickly drawn by something just past him: the Escalade, barreling straight towards us on the driver's side.
"Watch OUT—"
My words are drowned by the sound of crunching metal, and the world spins. My seatbelt cuts into my shoulder as it holds me back, something's booming, metal is screeching—
—I think I went out for a second there, because things were moving and now they're still, and I can't hear much beyond the tinkle of broken glass falling to the pavement. I'm still upright, and—I think—not hurt, and I pull in a breath, turning to see that March's side airbags have deployed and… I can't tell if he's all right. His eyes are closed, he's slumped over the steering wheel, and he doesn't look too torn up, but then, I can't see the bad side, the side that would have taken the brunt of the impact.
"Detective?" I say, trying to straddle the line between too quiet and too loud. "March? Are you okay?"
He coughs—no blood—and stirs just a little bit, though he appears to still be fighting unconsciousness, and I breathe a sigh of relief before someone yanks my door open, and I turn to see Victor Zsasz in all his ugly glory.
A/N - I... probably should have said this chapter contains two reunions. Hindsight's 20/20.
Next up: Victor's here to destroy everything. It's very not-cool of him.