Disclaimer: I do not own any Batman Begins/ Dark Knight characters. All other characters are mine.
As always, I hope you enjoy and favourite/follow/review, it really helps me out :)
XOXOXO -Improbable Dreamer
The room was quiet, much too quiet.
Crane stood behind the dark-caramel coloured door and weighed his current options.
Option 1: Walk the other way, let the door remain closed, and hide behind a delusion of safety.
Option 2 (and his least favourite): Get the information he needed at the possible price of his own life. Unfortunately, he was fairly fond of his life.
He continued to create excuses in his own mind as the minutes ticked by, but he knew that there was far too much at stake now; there was only so long someone could be tied down by their own fears.
The door creaked open slowly, and Crane stared into the darkness, his stomach somersaulted with apprehension.
"Hello." His tone was hilariously light, and yet no laughter ensued.
The only discernible thing in that cold, dark, square room, was a pair of eyes reflecting the hall light with tiny pinpricks. Crane straightened and casually slipped his hands into his pockets; maybe if he emitted an air of confidence, it would slow his racing heart.
"Crane."
His name came out like a predatory growl, and Crane found himself clearing his throat in unease.
"Joker." He replied with a small nod, neither of them looked away.
The air around them was absolutely dripping with tension, oozing with anticipation and aggression. It was almost animalistic, the way the two men were staring each other down, waiting for each other to crack.
"I seem to recall," Crane entered the room at a leisurely pace. "Us making certain arrangements."
There was a scoff, or a bark of hollow laughter, and Joker grinned up at him.
"Is that so?" He mused. "And is that why you're so afraid?"
Crane clenched his jaw involuntarily, everything within him was begging him to run.
How could someone tied to a chair evoke so much fear in him?
"We had a deal." Crane growled with much less restraint, he was now using the tactic of masking his fear with anger.
"No, you threatened me, remember? Brave move, I'll give you that, you've got balls."
Joker hummed, almost absentmindedly, and gave a half-hearted tug on his arm restraints.
"Or, maybe, maybe you're an idiot who took a very miscalculated risk. Either way, we both knew the truth-" He leaned forwards with a wolfish grin, his fringe of green curls falling in front of his eyes.
"-We both know you were all bark and no bite."
Joker sank back into the chair with a satisfied smirk, he raised his eyebrows as if daring Crane to deny it, to fight back. "You've gone soft."
Crane frowned in response, finally he had mustered up the courage to argue.
"You're one to talk" Crane nodded angrily at Joker, referring to his short hair, lack of makeup, and strong form; he was barely even Joker.
Joker cocked his head slightly, more curious than condescending.
"You really think all of this is me going soft?" He asked incredulously, Crane merely glowered at him in response.
"I'm not trying to be Joker anymore, that's no longer my job."
"Then what the hell are you doing here?" Crane asked bitterly. Joker didn't have a purpose anymore, so why was he acting like he still had a part to play.
"Funny story actually." Joker grinned again, though the expression didn't quite meet his eyes. After Crane made no objections, Joker took his silence as willingness to hear the 'funny story'.
"Well, you know me, I've always got the best pieces on the board. I've always got a killer punchline. That was Napier, he was my…my golden girl. My last laugh, a new, younger, crazier threat for Gotham, isn't that the funniest thing you've ever heard?"
Crane didn't so much as smile, and Joker shrugged with an expression of 'ah well, everyone's a critic.'
"It's a bit like a monarchy," Joker continued. "One king replaces another. One Joker replaces another and Gotham welcomes him with open arms, after all, we're the only thing making life interesting, making life bearable. In the zoo, you don't just keep the tigers in a metal box with periodic feedings, you need to make the environment exciting and stimulating, you need to make it hunt. Otherwise, that tiger goes insane and destroys itself."
Joker paused, chewing his lip in thought.
"-Let's say, we're Gotham's obstacles. Without us, it would burn to the ground. Batman, Joker, Scarecrow, Penguin, Harley Quinn, Morgan; All of us, we're Gotham's cure, Gotham's saving grace. You, Jonathan, you of all people should know the healing power of fear."
Crane found himself nodding in agreement, after all, everything Joker was saying made perfect sense to him.
"But you still haven't answered my question."
Joker shook his head with a laugh, his eyes strangely wide.
"Yeah, you're right, I haven't. After Napier was…well...built. I had a single, easy plan. I was in police custody, exactly where I wanted to be, I had the public's eye, I was the lead, I had my men smuggle in a fuck-ton of explosives; real overkill."
Crane tried to piece together the information he now knew, though, if it was possible, he was even more confused than he had been before this cryptic speech.
"How would blowing up half the FBI in DC help you? I thought you wanted Gotham."
"Mhm," Joker nodded in agreement. "Gotham is much more entertaining. They have this way of….running towards danger, it's hilarious. But that's not the point, I wasn't just going to blow up the FBI, I was gonna have a front-row seat."
The reality hit Crane like a tonne of bricks. He couldn't keep his jaw from falling open slightly.
"You-?"
"Yup." Joker replied, popping the 'p' between his lips. "Kaboom!"
"Jesus Christ." Crane muttered under his breath. "I thought you were saner than that."
Joker glared at him accusingly. "Come now, don't tell me you've never thought about it, never considered it. I mean, it's the ultimate show, right? The big event, broadcasted on every station for the next 50 years, that's more publicity than I could achieve by killing a few people. So, Joker becomes the topic of conversation, and, simultaneously, a Joker steps into the light to pick up the city's grieving heart; win-win."
His smile was a little too wide, a little too compensating.
"And yet, unfortunately, you're still here." Crane folded his arms against his chest.
The smile slowly faded from Joker's face, and was soon replaced by a darker, more menacing expression. Crane struggled to stabilise his breathing as sudden fear constricted his chest like a snake; Joker was acting uncharacteristically, and Crane couldn't predict his next actions. He had so many questions, so many unclear calculations.
The big one; why didn't Joker kill himself?
Joker leaned back against the metal chair and exhaled through his nose, his eyes fell shut and he made a low hum of a sigh. He remained silent, and for the next few minutes Crane stood in awkward indecision; to pursue an answer or to leave while he still could.
Eventually, self-preservation won out, and Crane left with the little information he was able to obtain.
Joker watched him leave through slits of his closed eyes, a cocktail of emotions raging within him. He was angry, afraid, relieved, and confused, all at once.
Why was he still here?
The truth was that he had been closer to death than anyone knew; he had been wearing the vest, he had a thumb on the trigger. And yet, when the time came, he couldn't activate the bomb, he physically couldn't flip the switch.
Not fear, no, he didn't care about his own life; after all, what was a little more blood on his hands?
It was something else, something deeper and more painful, like a dull ache in his chest, or a drumming in his ears.
Joker would prefer to call it fear, at least that was simple and marginally understandable.
It wasn't, and whatever it was, he was sure he hadn't seen the last of it.
His feet landed heavily on the ground, sending gravel and dirt flying like shrapnel. He kicked off and met the night at a run, head first, arms and legs pumping with adrenaline.
Before him, he could just make out the outline of a man taking an impressive leap between two buildings. Soon, they would run out of roof.
Bruce readied his arms at his sides as he replicated the man's jump, with the added addition of his specialised 'gliders' that gave him more air time.
The man threw his head over his shoulder and risked a glance at the Batman, unfortunately, this caused him to slow down and Bruce was able to gain a few more steps on him.
He swerved around a vent opening, kicking dust behind him in the hopes that it would inhibit Batman's vision.
Bruce reached for his utility belt and unfastened the grapple gun. He held it up to his eye and aimed at the man, who was still at least 20 feet away.
It was a move he had learnt from Caterina.
The head of the grapple went zipping through the air, before impaling itself painfully in the man's left leg. He screamed in agony and fell to the gravel in a tremendous crash.
"No! NO!"
The man was screaming and squirming, trying to pry the grapple from his leg as Batman closed the distance between them. He grabbed the man's throat and hoisted him into the air, a thin line of wire still extending from his belt to the man's knee.
"Stop struggling." Bruce growled in his synthetic deep voice. He reached low and detached the head of the grapple from the spike, another trick he had developed after Caterina, and easily pulled the device from the man's wriggling leg.
"Y-YOU MONSTER! LET ME GO!"
He tried and failed to kick away the Batman with his good leg, Bruce just inwardly sighed and wrapped the man's hands firmly behind his back.
"Answer my questions, and I won't have to hurt you."
He took the man's silence as compliancy, and brought him unsteadily and roughly to his feet. As the man applied pressure to his injured leg, he screamed in anguish, Bruce pressed on with little compassion.
"I know Caterina's alive, I know you use to work for her. Tell me what you know."
"I-I don't know shit! You think they tell someone like m-me these things?"
He was white as a sheet and violently shaking, a few stray tears were running down his cheeks; Batman's victims were often reduced to such a state.
"Y-you want Napier, he's the one who's in charge now. If anyone knows about criminals in Gotham, it'd be him."
Bruce narrowed his eyes in irritation.
"Napier's a poster boy, where's Joker?"
The man let out a loud, unexpected bark of laughter, before the sound reverberated into a groan.
"You all need to stop underestimating Napier, that'll be the death of you." The man spat at him bitterly, and Bruce frowned as he tried to discern meaning from this statement.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm saying," The man leaned in close, the streaks on his face reflecting the overhead moonlight. "I'm saying that Napier's been through Hell, and he came out smiling. Watch your back, because he'll cut you open and spill your insides like a fucking dissection project. You though Joker was bad? He wasn't nearly as crazy or as livid as Napier is. I-I would know-"
He looked away, as if reliving a painful memory. When he continued, his voice was low and vibrating with fear.
"-I…I 'aint ever seen someone's eyeballs outside their head before. Napier laughed at it like it was nothing…all that blood…I-I could see the veins…"
He shook his head in an attempt to rid the memory; he was crying again.
Bruce struggled with this sudden display of fear; he had been following Napier's actions quite closely over the past few months, but he had heard nothing of such violence and bloodlust.
Napier was just a gangster, a glorified, violent gangster. And yet, this man was talking about him like he was the new Joker, or worse.
"He knows where Morgan is?"
The man shook his head timidly.
"N-no, no one knows where she is. We've all seen her, heard of her jobs in the MCU and Saussure's finances. She's…got her own operation now, but it's so far in the shadows that not even guys like me know."
Bruce sighed in frustration, but he got the impression that this man was telling the truth. Finding Caterina would be harder than he anticipated, and the hope that she would sought him out herself was dwindling into the impossible.
Bruce quickly tied up the man with a length of strengthened metallic wire, and started off in no particular direction.
For the first time in a while, he no longer had a lead.
Cat was on her way home from her visit with Napier, her stomach churned with unexplained unease. He had just let her go, when he could easily have killed her. Why?
She didn't understand it, and in all of this she had forgotten to spend time with Iris, her dying friend, the guilt was unimaginable.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket and Cat clicked it on.
8 missed calls.
"Oh fuck." Cat muttered allowed and scrolled through the history. Strange; they were all from Crane.
She quickly dialled his number and held the phone to her ear, chewing her lip in anxiety. As the phone began to ring she leaned herself against the nearest building; an unlit deli with faded grey bricks.
"Caterina?" Crane's voice floated through the line, he was loud and shaking with fear.
"Crane, what's going on?"
"It's…It's Yvonne!" He answered breathlessly. "She…the formula…I wasn't watching and-"
"Fuck." Cat swore, she glanced around quickly, as if hoping to spot Yvonne on the street.
"I told her again we couldn't do human trials, but something about Joker arriving changed her. She was angry…and she was gone…she took the most refined formula we had. Fuck, what do we do?"
Cat brought the phone down to her chest and dropped her head against the bricks; it was all falling to shit, everything she had built, everything she had treasured, she was watching it fade like water stains on a hot day.
"I-I don't know…I think we need to go after her. We have to stop her from doing anything with that formula."
"Obviously," Crane shouted into her ear, and Cat could picture him pacing the room in distress. "The side effects haven't even been estimated yet, chances are it will kill her."
"Okay, stay there," Cat tried to steady her voice. "Contact Douglass and Cherry, get them on the street. I'll go to the hospital in case Yvonne is headed there. Try to make a new formula, if all goes well, we'll find Yvonne and cure Iris safely."
"Could this get any worse?" Crane whined before hanging up the phone. Unfortunately, it seemed like his words had been an invitation for the absolute worst thing to happen.
Cat's phone rang again, the caller was the hospital.
She brought the phone to her ear with a shaky hand and felt her heart rise up to her throat.
"Miss Montgomery?" The nurse's crisp tone addressed her pseudonym. "It's Iris Huntley, I'm afraid I need to ask you in as her second contact, we couldn't reach her wife."
Cat took a long, shuddery breath. "What's wrong?"
The nurse took a moment before answering, and this silence was more terrifying than anything Cat could imagine.
"W-we're doing all we can, she's going into cardiac arrest, we can stabilise her for a few minutes but we think you should be here."
Cat hung up and looked around the street wildly; she needed a car, and she needed one fast.
She chose the nearest vehicle, shot the window, hot wired the engine, and revved off in the direction of the hospital.
"Let me through, MOVE."
Cat pushed past a large family and a man in a wheelchair. She had made it to the hospital in just under 2 minutes, a feat made much easier when one ignored the rules of the road.
A large, bustling group of 10-or-so doctors and nurses were surrounding Iris's blue hospital bed. Cat had to stand on her toes just to see her face above the crowd.
"All clear."
"Clear."
And an elderly man dropped the defibrillator paddles over Iris' exposed chest, with a hum of electricity and a beep of a machine, Iris arched off the bed in a quick, jerky movement
Still, the monitor to her right blared, and a single, flat line ran across the screen.
"Still no pulse."
The doctors adjusted the machine, a number of tubes connected to Iris, and repositioned themselves for another attempt.
"Okay, again, 360."
"Charging." A female doctor glanced over, her face coated in a sheen of sweat.
"All clear."
"Clear."
A second jolt lurched Iris off the bed, Cat watched her fall back to the pillow.
"Come on." Cat muttered, chewing the inside of her lip. "Come on, come on. Don't do this."
"Still no pulse." The words rang out, and Cat winced.
"Baseline, 36."
"Ready."
"Charged."
"Clear."
"Standing by."
"Still nothing, no pulse, let's go again."
Cat watched miserably as again the doctors shocked Iris, and again she fell back, lifeless. She wanted to call Yvonne, to get her here, but she didn't want to tear her eyes away for a single second.
Yvonne was too fucking selfish, she was so obsessed in this stupid cure that she was missing her wife. Iris needed her now more than ever.
"No change, starting CPR."
The doctors pumped Iris' chest in careful rhythms, counting aloud. Cat was chewing on her thumb and trying to keep from sobbing out loud.
"Still nothing, again."
She chanced it. She brought her phone to her ear and waited for Yvonne's number to ring out.
Cat was automatically taken to her voice mail.
"It's Yvonne Huntley, leave a message."
"Iris is dying." Cat whimpered through the phone. "Her heart has stopped, she's not breathing; I think this calls for a fucking visit, don't you? Get your head out of your ass, come and see your wife."
"Nothing, again."
Cat grimaced and tried to blink away the hot tears that were flooding her vision.
"You heartless bitch," Cat breathed into the phone, she was clutching it unreasonably tightly to her ear. "You don't deserve her! I hope, for your sake, that you're dead when I find you-"
She was forced to hang up, as the room around her had suddenly gone very quiet.
The doctors were muttering to each other in low voices, exchanging information and observations. The single female doctor approached Cat stiffly and pulled her surgical mask from her face.
"I-I'm so sorry." She had tears running down her cheeks, tears for someone she didn't even know.
Cat couldn't respond, she was glancing between passing faces and trying to make sense of it all.
"I don't understand." She said softly, her chest heaving in long, low breaths.
"We did everything we could-"
The doctor continued to talk in her steady, calm voice, but all Cat could hear was the ringing in her own ears. People around her were talking, trying to get her attention, grabbing her arm gently, asking her questions.
It was useless, she couldn't understand.
Cat walked up to the bed and sat. She blinked, she breathed, she could taste her own mouth; yet everything felt fake.
Iris was the only thing in focus, her face was pale, her mouth and lips closed tight. Her brown hair hung in thin, un-brushed tendrils beside her face.
Cat couldn't help herself, she reached over and gave Iris' shoulder a small shake.
"Come on…don't-"
Her voice faltered. She squeezed her eyes tightly.
"Don't, please don't, come back."
Cat willed with everything she had, but when she opened her eyes reality remained the same. Iris was cold, Iris had her eyes closed, Iris' chest was unimaginably still.
Cat had seen corpses before, probably an unhealthy number of corpses; but why did she feel like she was seeing death for the first time?
"Sometimes love hits us unwillingly, despite our best efforts."
Iris was still in her head, laughing, smiling, singing, promising her a family and a future.
"Godmother, Aunty Cat. You would be the coolest Aunty, teaching the kid all the important life lessons."
They wanted to adopt, they wanted to start a family together.
Iris was a beautiful, 30-year-old florist, with a taste for classic rock, and impossible faith in everyone.
"Promise me you'll never be ashamed of who you are, or who you love."
Cat dropped her head low into Iris' shoulder, her entire body shuddering as she choked on the pain.
She sobbed.
She screamed.
She begged.
But Iris Huntley was lost forever.