I genuinely want to thank each and every one of you who has left positive feedback! Some of the notes were left anonymously, but please know that I appreciate it greatly when someone not only reads this story, but drops me a note about it.

In honor of The Joker's birthday (God bless you, Heath Ledger)… the story continues.


* BRACING FOR IMPACT *

Chapter 53

. . . . . . .

Noise surrounded her. The whirring of helicopter blades overhead produced a loud mechanical whining sound, nearly drowning out everything else. Lois pressed the top of the policewoman's hat on her head to secure it, for the downdraft threatened to blow anything away that wasn't tightly fastened. Lois wore only the Gotham police uniform. There had been no coat, which she sorely needed. The night temperature was already near freezing, made much worse from the drafts from the helicopter.

Fighting to keep her eyes open against the strong downdraft, she looked across the tarmac to see an impeccably dressed man who appeared to be in his mid- to late-thirties, standing next to a small airplane. His presence was strangely intimidating in the way he stood completely composed and still as he watched them. Despite the chill of the night, he wore no hat on his head, which appeared to be clean-shaven. She wondered if that made him as cold as she felt.

Something about the man seemed distantly familiar. Everything seemed to feel that way right now. She rested her hand on the side of the tumbler to steady her faltering balance.

The Joker came over to Lois, his green-tinged blond hair blowing wildly about his head in a comically leonine fashion. With his back to Lex Luthor, he pulled out a handgun, shielding it from the view of the man behind them. "See this, Lois? I'm putting this in your holster, on your hip." He tucked the gun in and looked her squarely in the face. "For our game, you are playing the part of a policewoman. Can you do that for me?"

She looked down at the gun. "Is it loaded?"

He rolled his eyes and smiled broadly. "Well of course it's loaded, Sweet Tart!" (smack) "What fun would this be if it weren't? Look, you're going to pretend to be a cop. Cops are the good guys, right?"

She nodded.

"Cops protect people from the bad guys. Do you know who the bad guys are?" He looked over his shoulder at Lex Luthor, then turned back to her. "That man behind us… he's a bad guy."

Lois peered around the Joker's shoulder. "Then why are we meeting with him?"

"Well, sometimes in business you have to deal with people who aren't very…" his hands fluttered about as he searched for his words, "…savory fellows. I have a business arrangement with him, so that's why we've come here."

She shook her head, not understanding. "I thought we were here to play a game. A game with Batman."

"Oh, we are, Lois. This meeting is part of that game, but I need you to remember who the bad guys are. That's the role you're playing, and it's part of the game."

Lois swallowed. "That man over there is a bad guy?"

"Yep. You know who else is a bad guy?" He tilted his head to the side. "The Batman."

Lois wrinkled her brow. "But… I thought he was trying to save—"

"But he didn't save you, did he? He didn't! And Batman won't. The people who tried to save you, failed. That makes them bad heroes. And bad heroes are bad people."

Something about this felt wrong. "I… don't know that it does…" Lois' voice trailed off.

The Joker took her chin and turned her face up toward his, his black eyes boring into her. "They're bad people, Lois. They're bad-ah. And you know what cops do to bad people? They shoot them."

Lois' concentration was wavering and she swayed on her feet, all the mental and physical torture she'd endured catching up to her. He grabbed her shoulders to steady her. "Did you hear what I said? They. Shoot. Them." He licked his lips. "So, when I tell you to shoot someone tonight, you shoot them. That's what the police are supposed to do. But you don't shoot until I tell you to, and you don't tell anyone that this is our secret game." He winked at her. "Okay, toots?"

"Okay." Her voice had more conviction. She had a role to play, and she wanted to play it well. For the sake of the game.

His tongue snaked out and swept lasciviously across his bottom lip. "Atta girl!" He straightened up and motioned behind him with his eyes. "Now, let's get down to business."

Lex Luthor was watching the Joker like a hawk. The madman's intelligence was irrefutable; the orchestration of the disaster Lex had witnessed just while flying to Gotham from Metropolis was impressive enough. For all the theatrics of face paint and a manic demeanor, Lex suspected there was far more going on in the clown's mind than anyone knew.

That's what unsettled him.

Now, he was trusting this madman, just as the Joker was trusting him. Both men had a shared ambition: to break their rivals. Lois was key to all of it. The only course of action now was to allow the plans to unfold, hoping that neither of them double-crossed the other before their plans came to fruition.

Lex knew that Superman would come exactly when he needed him to. He wondered how the Joker planned on drawing the Batman to their location as well.


His voice was gravely: "Location."

The black pick-up truck plowed down the sidewalks with the ferocity of a freight train, using the walkways as a makeshift detour around the traffic back-up onto the main thoroughfares. The occasional newspaper dispenser was dinged and municipal trash receptacles randomly went airborne when clipped by the front bumper, but none had any mitigating impact on the vehicle's speed. That was, until a motorist crept out of an alley a mere 200 feet from the approaching truck.

The Batman yanked the wheel to the left and laid on the horn hard, narrowly missing the front end of the vehicle in a deft slalom. Taking a hard right where the sidewalk dropped off, he arced onto a side street. It wasn't taking him directly to the airport, but the road was nearly devoid of cars, offering him straight and swift passage for the next several miles to make up for lost time, to close the lead the Joker had on them. Them… on him and his unnamed new accomplice.

Death turned his head to the driver. "How's it you know where he's gone to?"

His eyes were fixed on the road. "He told me his plan, back in that room. It's the airport."

Death didn't blink. "He's fixin' to blow up planes, isn't he? Just like he tried to blow up the ferries we was on last year."

"He has plans to hurt more people than he could have on those ferries."

Death swept his gaze through the windshield and out his passenger window, at the pockets of city blocks burning unchecked. "He already has, Batman."

"And he's not done." He squinted his eyes as if straining to focus on something. "Location," he repeated. Death looked at him quizzically.

They flew over a dip in the road at too high a speed, and the truck was momentarily airborne before hitting the pavement hard. For his colossal size, Death's head was already solidly resting against the ceiling of the truck's cab. The momentum of the impact caused his massive skull to push hard enough into the ceiling to warp the top panel in a head-shaped dome. He seemed unfazed.

"How's you gonna know where he is? There's too much ground to spot him by sight."

Batman fixed his jaw. "I know exactly where he'll be." Demonstrating, he turned his head and made eye contact with Death. "Location." Then he pointed up toward the side of his head and nodded, before turning back toward the road again.

His tumbler was fitted with a GPS tracking device. A female voice speaking in the Queen's English delivered measured, calm sentences as the navigation feed came through an earpiece on the inside of his cowl. Only he could hear the voice, as the system updated the location of his stolen vehicle. "He's arrived at whatever destination he left for. His coordinates haven't changed in the last few minutes."

The giant regarded him again with stoic curiosity. "The Joker wants you to come find him, don't he? That's why those cuffs opened back there. So you could chase him."

The dark figure didn't speak. He was preoccupied forecasting everything that could go terribly, terribly wrong once they caught up to the Joker. His mind kept returning to the Joker's taunt, dangled in front of him as a vague reason for his not being killed outright back in the row house. He'd been baited to give chase: "You've got more failures to realize, Batman." He had also mentioned something about meeting someone. What had he said? "A new pal"? Who was the Joker going to meet?

Death leaned over toward him. "Batman." Batman flinched at the movement, fighting instincts to defend himself as he allowed the behemoth unadvisedly close. The illumination from the streetlights on the passenger side of the truck was eclipsed by the sheer size of the man. A massive arm reached across him and tugged at something over the driver's left shoulder. "You forgot your seatbelt." Death leaned back, pulling on the metal buckle to stretch the strap across Batman's chest. Batman took his left hand off the wheel to facilitate the closure. A resounding click filled the cabin as the belt fastened in place.

Batman looked askance at Death, hesitating. "Thanks." His voice was gruff, but his appreciation was earnest.

Death returned to his side of the truck, not bothering with his own seatbelt. Though not a book smart man, he understood basic physics. If they crashed, frayed polyester webbing wasn't likely to hold him in place. He kept his right hand cradling the handle above the passenger door, and his left arm outstretched, hand on the dashboard to brace for any sudden stops.

They rode in silence as blocks of myriad low-rent apartment buildings grew further apart, their waxing distance the only perceptible delineation of where housing for the impoverished transitioned into seedy warehouses occupied by squatters. The airport was getting closer.

"The Joker is unpredictable. There's no way to know what trap he's likely set up for me to walk into." Batman's voice was strained. "You're putting yourself in serious danger by coming with me."

Death stared straight ahead, and quoted Psalms 34:7. "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them." His voice strengthened with conviction. "I's not afraid of the Joker, only the Lord almighty, and he will watch over me tonight. My name is Death, and I ride the pale horse."

What? Batman wasn't sure he heard his passenger correctly. Did he just call himself 'Death'? Thomas Wayne used to remark with levity that those in the Wayne family were "religious opportunists", identifying with Christianity more by default of geography than from true faith. Bruce had very little knowledge of the Bible through his upbringing, but he had recognized the reference.

"'Death'… you mean… like one of the angels in the Bible? The apocalypse?"

He was quickly corrected: "A horseman. War, Conquest, Famine and Death. We's the Horsemen. We bring the judgment of God at the apocalypse. The Joker needs the justice of God. I's here to deliver it."

Well, of course you are. This chase wouldn't be complete without a titan-sized, religious fanatic with delusions of grandeur aiding a vigilante fugitive who is hunting down a psychopathic clown. He certainly couldn't expect anything remotely rational, as this twisted night seemed never to end or make any sense. While appreciative of the man's willingness to help, he wasn't in a mood to nurse his religious delusions. "This isn't an apocalypse, or anything biblical. It's just the wreckage of a madman."

Death shook his head. "The book of Matthew foretells the judgment. There will be wars, famines and earthquakes—"

Batman tuned him out. He wasn't going to waste any energy going down this futile path, instead just letting the giant rant and air his beliefs unchallenged. He had to figure out what the Joker's next game was going to be. Why had he dressed Lois in a Gotham police uniform? Did that have any significance? How was the Joker going to trigger the chain reaction of exploding airplanes? What strategy could he employee to try to stall the Joker or turn his own game on him? Batman had with him only the weapons fashioned into his armor, which were relatively few. He had no resources or back-up from the GPD, since the Joker's mole Detective Murdock was carrying Gordon's cell phone after the commissioner's heart attack. Lucius Fox hadn't spoken to Bruce since the night of the near ferry disaster, and while their bond may not have been entirely severed, Lucius had made it clear that he wanted no more part of any of Batman's plans.

That left him with no allies. Just the man in the truck with him.

"—at that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of earth will mourn. That signal they used to put in the sky for you…"

That caught his attention. "What?"

Death's eyes narrowed and his voice dropped. "When they used to shine that light in the sky, with the bat on it… people need signs. They needs something to believe in. Gotham needs something to believe in, but you ain't the Son of Man, Batman. You ain't."

He was surprised to feel himself taken aback by the accusation of a messiah complex. Yeah, I never said I was. He held his tongue. He'd endured worse charges.

"But I believe in you."

Batman wasn't sure how to respond. Certainly he was appreciative of the vote of confidence, though he needed no one's validation. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

The horizon grew brighter from the lights of Gotham International Airport as they approached, yet somehow, an ink-black air of foreboding and destruction made it seem the darkest place in the city.


Commissioner Gordon kept slipping in and out of consciousness. His gurney had finally been wheeled out of the hall and into a packed operating room that was serving as a holding area for the most critically injured from the multiple bombings all over the city. His head felt thick and his mind was foggy, and it took effort to fight for lucidity. Fortunately, he got the external jolt he needed when he looked up at the TV, and saw the Joker's face on it. All the other patients around him were watching the news, as it alternately chronicled the breaking discoveries of more bombings, the mounting casualties and the theories of how far the Joker was planning on taking his plan of vengeance, which all allegedly came from an unintended affront from a Metropolis Live "entertainment news" broadcast.

Gordon strained to hear the broadcast, but it was difficult over the cries and yelling out in the lobby of the emergency room. The news anchor put her hand up to her earpiece, and visibly strained to hear the feed from the control room. "We're getting word that another video made by the Joker has just reached all major news outlets."

Gordon's heart sank. Don't play it. For God's sake, don't air that for everyone to see. You'll be playing right into his hands. He wants you to broadcast it. It will just incite more panic.

He closed his eyes and tried to remember what he had been piecing together during the ambulance ride over from the MCU. Something about the Joker's appearance… something about the way he moved… the way he dressed…

Then it came to him, and he snapped to focus. It was the Joker's shirt collar. For all the physicality the Joker resorted to, which would be better facilitated by unrestricted movement, all of his shirts always buttoned up to his neck. Jim had the epiphany that the clown's choice of dress could be less about mocking the institution of business propriety, as the ensemble of his suit would suggest, but more functional as a camouflage, instead. There was a possibility that the Joker was hiding an indentifying mark. Likely a wound of some kind.

Jim nodded. Yes. He had remembered his last detective pursuit in trying to uncover more about this mysterious madman. It was critical that he reach someone to get resources on this line of the investigation. Gordon was hooked up to a heart monitor limiting movement, but fortunately his bed had a bell to ring for a nurse. He pressed the button furiously.

No one came, because no one noticed. "Hey! Hey! I need a nurse! Now!" A fellow patient noticed his distress, and started ringing her nurse bell as well, hoping to help draw attention in their general direction. It worked. I don't know who you are, lady, but I could kiss you right now. He smiled at the patient in gratitude, and she nodded in return.

A harried looking young man in scrubs came over. "Sir, are you in pain?" He raised the binaural of his stethoscope to his ears and attempted to place the diaphragm on Gordon's chest.

With the last strength he could muster, Gordon grabbed the nurse's wrist. "Listen, son. My name is James Gordon. I'm the Police Commissioner of Gotham. I don't know what you've done with my identification, but I need you to believe me."

His earnest expression finally found its receptive audience. "You're the head of police?!"

Gordon blinked slowly. "Yes. I had a heart attack after I gave a news conference earlier tonight regarding this city-wide emergency," he nodded in the direction of the TV, "and I need desperately to make contact with Mayor Garcia. Please give me a cell phone."

The nurse looked around in frantic sweeps at the bags of personal belongings stashed informally under different gurneys. He found a well-worn Nokia and checked the battery. "Here. It's juiced and it's not locked with a passcode."

Gordon took the phone and immediately started dialing. "What is your name, son?"

"It's Ryan, Mr. Gordon."

The mayor's phone started to ring. "Thank you, Ryan."

The call went right to voicemail. Gordon cursed his luck. It must be the phone number. Garcia has no idea whose phone I'm calling from, so he won't pick up. Gordon called over to Ryan, who was prepping a woman for stitches to close a nasty head wound. "Ryan, I need you once more. It's important."

Ryan hesitated, then apologized to the female patient as he set his instruments down and wheeled over on a stool to Gordon's side. The woman yelled at him for leaving her, then started to cry.

Gordon handed Ryan the phone. "My eyesight is poor, so I can't text. I need you to do it for me. Here's what I need to you type…" Ryan nodded that he was ready. Gordon measured his words carefully, speaking slowly to allow Ryan to keep up with him. "Anthony, it's Jim Gordon. In the hospital, borrowing cell phone. Have theory on Joker's identity. Call back on this number immediately."

Ryan looked up at him, slack-jawed. "You think you know who the Joker is?"

Gordon pursed his lips and lifted his hand in a placating motion. "Here's the number I need you to text that to."

Ryan nodded and then handed the phone back. "Okay, it's done. Listen, I gotta get back to the other—"

"Go. I appreciate your help, Ryan. Could you please change the television station to a different channel, so I can see other news coverage?"

Ryan grabbed the remote, changed the channel, and then handed it to Gordon. "There you go – it's all yours."

Gordon smiled his appreciation, and flipped channels. He started to dial his wife, Barbara. God only knew what she'd been told so far about his condition. He needed to hear her voice, something good in this night of pure malevolence.


The teenager dropped to her knees on the sidewalk, coughing and fighting for air. All around the street, people were huddling in panicked packs, watching helplessly as their apartment building was consumed by a raging fire. Its proximity to a pawnshop the Joker had bombed had lit it up quickly. It was a shoddily constructed building, as most were in The Narrows, so it burned quickly like a tinderbox. Most people got out in time.

But not all.

The girl's soot-stained face had muddy tracks of tears running the length down to her jaw. She was sobbing, yelling for someone to help get her grandfather. She couldn't find him for the all the fire and smoke on their seventh floor apartment, and she had been pulled down the stairwell against her will by other tenants in their mad evacuation dash. She had her arm outstretched, pointing up to the window where the flames were now licking the outside of the building from the inside of the apartment. Everyone down on the street was too terrified to hear her pleas, screaming themselves over their own losses.

None of the crowds of people noticed her down on the ground. But one man up above did.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a blast of air even colder than the night enveloped the building, appearing to frost the outside in its entirety. The flames were extinguished, and most of the smoke appeared to have been blown away as well. The girl blinked a few times, clambering to her feet, starting to hiccup from her crying jag. It looked as if someone had taken a monster-sized fire extinguisher to the entire massive structure. Gasps and shouts grew in number, as everyone stared at the building in shock, trying to piece together what had happened.

Then, there was the sound of another small explosion, and shards of brick spewed up from the roof like the spray of a fountain. Everyone jumped back and a few more people screamed in shock, watching as something else came out through the roof.

"Grandpa!" The girl was pointing toward the sky, looking back at the other onlookers. The face of every person bore an expression of total disbelief.

Superman gently floated down to the sidewalk, cradling a frail old man in one arm, and an unconscious man in the other. With great care, he landed and let the old man find his balance on the sidewalk before letting go of him, then turned to lay the other man out on the sidewalk. The man wasn't conscious, but at least he was breathing.

As Superman stood up, the teenager ran to hug her grandfather with relief, both sobbing into each other's arms.

The scores of people in the street remained mute, completely dumfounded at what they were seeing.

Superman was in Gotham.

He turned his face to the sky, then shot upward in an arc over the rooftops. No one had thanked him for blowing out the fire in the building, nor had anyone verbalized appreciation for the two lives he'd saved. But he didn't notice, not that it would have mattered to him if he had. He never expected gratitude.

Wherever a fire or groups of distressed throngs of people happened to lie in the area where he was hopelessly searching for Lois Lane, he did what he could to help as many people as possible. As he hovered over the city, his gaze swept over the unending landscape of fires and untold pain in every direction around him.

He wanted to be able to save them all.

But not even someone with superhuman abilities could possibly save so many. He had to resign himself to accepting that he could only save as many as he could while searching for the person whose need for saving eclipsed everyone else's in the city.

His keenly perceptive hearing continued to pick up on anguished cries of countless people, as he swept his x-ray vision over building after building, hoping against hope that he would hear or see Lois before any more harm could come to her.


Barbara Gordon was still awake and frazzled, unable to sleep both from worry and a sharp burning in her diaphragm that wouldn't go away. She jumped when her cell phone rang in her hand. She'd been cradling it all night, praying for a call. Her face went blank at the caller ID. She didn't know who it was. She took the chance anyway. "Hello?"

"Barbara! Barbara!"

She burst into tears. "Oh my God, Jim! Oh my God, I've been waiting all night for some word from you! I've been so sick with worry!" The crying overtook her.

"Honey, it's okay. I'm in the hospital."

She coughed between sobs, "What—what do you m—mean? Why are y—you in the hospi—hospital?"

"I don't want to alarm you, Barbara. I'm all right." He couldn't chance putting any more stress on her than what she was already likely going through. "I had a little chest pain after my press conference, but it turned out to be just anxiety," he lied.

"Oh God, Jim." More sobs. "Are you okay n—now?"

"Yes. I want you to make sure you stay inside. And if you get a call from my cell phone, do not pick it up."

She blinked in confusion. "Why, why are you calling from someone else's phone?"

"It's a long story, Barbara. Someone else has my phone, but it's important that if they call you, you don't pick up. Keep the kids safe." He figured that Murdock likely had his cell phone, and he didn't want Murdock to reveal to Barbara that he'd actually had a heart attack. He also feared that Murdock might know that Gordon had been clandestinely working with the Batman for the last year, should the vigilante have called Gordon's phone again after his heart attack. No need for Barbara to hear about that, either.

She shrugged her shoulders, not fully understanding what was happening. "Okay. Jim, what's going on? Do they think the Joker is planning—" Suddenly there was no sound on the other end of the phone. "Jim? Jim?" She looked down at the phone's screen and saw the call had ended.

She collapsed down into the sofa, trying to muffle her sobs from her sleeping children upstairs, unaware that the growing pain in her chest was the symptom of a heart attack.


The call hadn't been dropped. Gordon had hung up on his wife. Inadvertently, of course, but it was the result of the instinctive reflex to tense up when confronted with something startling. Jim had been horrified to see that the news channel he had flipped to had chosen to air the Joker's latest video.

There he was, filling up the frame of the TV screen. The psychopath. The mass murderer.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of Gotham, it occurred to me that some of you might be having a bad evening…" The Joker was addressing the camera, making light of all the damage he was causing around the city. Then, in a disjointed manner, the clown segued into a joke.

But the punch line of the joke didn't make Gordon laugh. It turned his blood cold. The Joker, through the veil of a joke, had just revealed to Gotham that Harvey Dent, the vaunted late DA, was actually a murderer.

Oh God, no. No, no, this can't be happening. Gordon's head spun and nausea overtook him. All that he and the Batman had conspired to cover up for the good of the city… all the planning, the scheming, the reassurances he'd made to himself that they'd done the right thing… it was all blowing up. Along with the buildings, roads and citizens of the city that were literally being blown up, the very hope that Gotham clung to – that justice could prevail – was, itself, being blown up figuratively as well.

The Joker ended the video with some teasing promise of more details to be revealed, but Gordon didn't really hear the exact words. He was immobilized with shock.

No. How did he find out? How did he know? My God, of all the nights to do this…

Then… Gordon understood.

He understood.

When the city was in its greatest hour of despair, the monster chose to kill their hope as well. All the damage… all the pain… the immeasurable misery… it was all part of a big joke. The revelation of Harvey Dent's crimes was the final piece of the puzzle, revealing the larger scope of this wicked jape the Joker has masterfully constructed.

But the only one laughing was the clown.

The cell phone rang in his hand. Mayor Garcia was calling Gordon back.

But Gordon was too broken to even notice.


In a different corner of Gotham, another man was watching the same broadcast.

He had been in the midst of passing through the dank lobby of a shabby hotel, suitcase in hand, quite eager to leave the city and permanently disappear. But when he passed in front of the lobby's television, something compelled him to stop and watch the broadcast of the Joker's latest video, along with a pack of random drunks who'd been watching since the hotel bar had closed for the night.

It wasn't really a something that compelled him to watch. It was more of a someone. He could feel him finding solid purchase in his psyche, crawling out of whatever dark recesses he normally hid in.

"Look at him, Jonathan. Look at him peacocking in front of the camera like a petulant child hungry for attention."

Dr. Crane didn't want to watch. He wanted to get as far out of Gotham as he could, specifically because of the man in the video. He tried to take a step toward the exit.

"Ah ah ah," Scarecrow rebuked, "you're not trying to run from that clown, are you Jonathan?"

It was easy for Scarecrow to ask that question. After taunting the Joker back in his cell at Arkham, Scarecrow had conveniently receded to leave Jonathan to bear the brunt of the Joker's reaction to the suggestion that Dr. Crane knew his true origin.

"You don't know how unhinged he really is," Dr. Crane said aloud. "I was the one who found that out first-hand, thanks to your doing." One of the drunks looked over his shoulder to size up the bespectacled man.

Now it was Scarecrow's turn to taunt Dr. Crane. "You're afraid of him, Jonathan. Fear is supposed to be your domain. Did you lose that command back in Arkham?"

The accusation stung.

"You can't just run away. You need to overcome this insipid fear of him. He's just a clown."

Jonathan scoffed. "'Just a clown'? It's the Joker!"

"No shit, Sherlock," one of the inebriates chimed in, taking another swig from a worn flask. Half of the drink found his chin and the top of his shirt.

Scarecrow would have his say. "Stay and watch him. Watch him and observe him. You may learn something more valuable than you think."

Jonathan considered the weight of the suitcase in his hand, as he felt his stomach tighten at the sight of the Joker. He wasn't about to let Scarecrow think he was a coward. If anything, he'd stay to watch just to spite Scarecrow. "Fine, I'll stay." He walked over to a grungy chair, considered sitting on it, then thought the better of it.

An obese drunk sitting in front of a tacky velvet wildlife painting belched with the delicacy of a water buffalo.

Jonathan sneered, as he crossed his arms and turned back to the TV. "This had better be worth it."

Scarecrow approved. "Watch closely. Look at what drives him."

The news footage unfolded, in an amalgam of disjointed news clips. But when Dr. Crane began to sort out the chronology of Lois' capture, he pieced together an epiphany that Jim Gordon would have given his right arm to be privy to. Dr. Crane's heart rate accelerated with excitement.

Scarecrow could feel it, too. "You see it, don't you, Jonathan?"

He nodded vigorously. "Yes, I see it." As much as it pained him to do so, Dr. Crane had to concede that this master plan that the Joker was unleashing was epic in scope, and brilliant in conception. Bloody, anarchic genius.

The Joker gained a second appreciative admirer in Scarecrow: "I see it, too: what he's done to that woman so far… and what he is going to do with her."

"If she lives," Dr. Crane cautioned.

"Oh, he'll make sure she survives this. We both know what he needs her for."

Jonathan nodded. "Yes, we do."


. . . . . . .

Author's Notes for "Bracing for Impact"

. . . . . . .

When Death is quoting the Bible, one of the passages referenced, "…the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky…", Death interpreted this Christ reference as the bat-signal, and cast Batman in the role of the savior. However, neither of them knows what's about to happen at the airport, and who is going to arrive: Superman. That casts that reference to the son of man appearing in the sky in a new light, yet parallels Superman to Batman.

In that same section, I made a reference to Lucius Fox, to tie up the seemingly loose end that was left at the end of TDK. As much as Batman needs him, I see Lucius (for this story line) wanting to put quiet distance between himself and Batman, for the role he felt forced to play in breaching the privacy of all Gothamites by listening to their collective cell feeds to locate the Joker at the Pruit Building.

It seemed fitting that, from the stress of worrying about her husband coupled with her weight gain (mentioned in Chapter 47, "The Mirror's Image"), Barbara would have a heart attack, mirroring the pain and ailment that her husband is also enduring, unbeknownst to her.

I just can't stop torturing these poor characters.

-4ofCups, 2016.04.04