Follies of Fate
Chapter 6
The car wouldn't start.
It grumbled, stuttered, whined then stilled every time I turned the key, which was something I was doing over and over again with increasing frustration and desperation. I needed to leave.
I needed to not be here anymore.
The car had been running fine before the Joker had crashed into the windscreen, but somewhere between him grabbing me and me putting a fist into his nose, its engine had mumbled to a stop. I'd noticed as I climbed back into the drivers seat that there was quite a bit of rubble denting the hood of the car, but in the rush to get the hell out of dodge I hadn't even contemplated that the damage would be enough to stop my escape attempt.
The car gave another whir-click noise and went silent, leaving me to bask in the sound of the cracking fire devouring the manor house on the other side of the shattered windscreen.
I wasn't sure what to do now.
If you had told me five years ago that I would be sitting here, dressed as Harley Quinn with bruised knuckles after punching the Joker…well, I would have packed my shit and moved to Antarctica, because who wants to tempt that kind of fate?
But there was no going back in time. There was no redoing what had been done.
So here I was, with my knuckles spilt, my face smeared with white paint, waiting to see what the universe was going to throw at me next. The fire outside was spreading, casting long, twitching shadows across the remnants of the garden as it took apart the building in ever increasing chunks. As I watched it with a detached sort of interest, it occurred to me that sitting in a super villains car out the front of a building under siege by the Batman probably wasn't a good plan.
This thought was solidified when the doors of the manor were thrown open and several armed, though rather gaudily dressed, goons streamed out. Coughing and choking on the smoke that poured out after them they stumbled forward before rounding on the inky blackness of the house and opening fire.
I dropped lower in my seat, wincing at each staccato gunshot that punched through the night. The fact that I had come to a point in my life where gunfire only caused an involuntary clenching in my jaw and a desire to duck, instead of an all encompassing need to scream, was a sad state of affairs.
Anyone who wished for a life amidst the superheros could send me their resume, I'd give their application serious consideration for my current position.
But this wasn't the time to wallow in self pity. Now was the time for action. Reaching out I popped the drivers side door open, shimming out of the smallest gap I could possibly make and dropping to all fours alongside the car. Behind me, the gunshots were petering out and I could hear the faint thumps and grunts that came with fists colliding with jaws and kidneys. It was a pretty safe assumption to make that the one throwing the winning punches was the caped crusader, but I wasn't keen to stick around to find out.
I scurried to the back of the car, pressing myself to the boot and peeking around one last time to see if anyone had started a mad dash for an escape vehicle. No one had, most seemed to be flat on their backs with the only few remaining now swinging wild haymakers at the dark.
It wasn't a perfect situation for make a run for it, but I figured it was the best chance I was going to get. I knew making it to the road would see me taking a long walk back to Gotham, but from where I was perched currently, the driveway was the only solution leading away from the conflict.
I had no desire to hang around here for one of the major villains to make it to their car, and if Ivy was still up and angry after the explosion, heading into the garden seemed a lot like a death wish.
I could wait around someplace inconspicuous for the Bat to come and fetch me, but that would mean loitering around with him until the police arrived. Which would mean giving statements and drinking bad station house coffee.
It would also mean telling everyone why I had been caught. What I had been doing when I had been caught.
I had no desire to have that conversation with anyone.
So the driveway and a long walk back to Gotham seemed like the lesser of many possible evils.
I took a breath, steeled myself and without pausing long enough to debate my stupidity, pushed off from the car into a full sprint down the gravel of the driveway.
I had never really been an athletic person. Exercise had become a necessity for my survival now but it didn't mean I had to like it. Of all the possible forms of exercise, I hated running the most. I hated the way my legs would begin to burn and the air I was dragging into my lungs would start to taste dry and acidic with each inhale. I hated how coordinated you had to be not to trip over your own damn feet. While I didn't think that was really a problem most other people had to consider, fear was a common attendee when I was running.
Fear did strange things to your ability to move. Fear, and in this case too-small clown shoes.
I had made it halfway down the remains of what I presumed was once a stately driveway when my ankles started to ache. Stupid Bruce and his stupid throwing-me-out-the-window theatrics. I was probably sporting some impressive bruising.
But that didn't matter.
I couldn't slow down, any thought I had of pausing flew away from me as my eyes adjusted to the moonlight. I could better make out the trees, could hear the rustle of the vines and overgrown hedges that lined the driveway as they pulsated. Pulled and pushed towards the manor, called by a force more demanding and violent than the wind. Perhaps it was my imagination, perhaps it wasn't real, but I pushed my legs to move faster, run harder.
My lungs were starting to burn.
That didn't matter either.
What mattered was that I could see the gates of the estate
I knew that getting out of the gates didn't matter, but it was a goal post. Like seeing a water station when you were running a marathon. You carved it down into little bite sized pieces that made the coming exhaustion easier to swallow.
It was like tricking yourself.
Gunfire rattled off behind me. It was too far away to be anything more than cracks against the night air but I recognised it, dipped my head instinctively.
Maybe a hundred feet to the gate. I could see the bent and warped iron of it now, thrown open into the property by force.
Quinns shoes were killing me.
Fifty feet.
Nearly to the gate. Just make it past the gate Kate. We'll make a plan from there.
Just make it past the-
Lights. Bright lights. Red and blue lights and sirens, cars squealing through the gate and throwing gravel up in a hail of dust as they roared onto the property.
Their headlights were blinding and I stumbled, throwing my arms up to shield my eyes as they whipped past me.
But they didn't all pass me. Tires and brakes squealed, several of the cars swerving to a stop just before they slammed into me.
Then came the screaming, the doors opening and the guns clicking and the screaming. I had never been on this side of the screaming, not as the one they were screaming at. But I was familiar with it, far too familiar. It was almost a pleasant change not to have a gun pressed to my temple and an arm around my throat while they were screaming their one lined demands.
On the ground! Get on the ground! Hands behind your head! Kiss the dirt!
"Down on the ground, Quinn!"
I must have been borderline hysterical, because the voice that sang out through the several currently yelling at me made me laugh a little manically between the gasping breaths my sprint had left me with.
This, this is what I had wanted to avoid by bailing out on the whole thing and not waiting for Batman to put me in a car back to the police station.
Gordon. It was Commissioner Gordon. He'd stopped to collect Harley Quinn. I would recognise his voice yelling at me any day.
I did what I was told without argument, dropping to my knees and holding up my hands. It had the effect I had hoped for, since Harley was never one to go quietly. Perhaps the laugh didn't so much work in my favour but the officers who had pulled up with Gordon paused long enough for me to take full advantage to yell something of my own back.
"I'm not resisting!" I called out, attempting to explain myself as I pulled at Harley's headpiece. With a few yanks and an undone zip it came off before the first officer reached me and I had just enough time to remove the mask before I was forced face first into the gravel.
It stung, but I let the officer yank my hands down behind my back into the cold click of handcuffs.
"Not Harley! I'm not Harley! But mainly not resisting!" I yelled out again, listening to the crunch of shoes as more people rushed forward.
"Kate?!" Gordon's shoes were in my line of vision and the pressure on my hands and back lessened. I strained my neck to look up at him from the ground, attempting a smile that was really more of a grimace.
"Hi, Gordon." I wheezed out, sucking in a deep breath when the officer holding me down was shoved away and the pressure on my back disappeared completely. I was hauled unceremoniously to my feet and someone undid the cuffs.
Gordon grabbed my shoulders and stared at me.
"What are you-" He looked and sounded tired and I attempted a ill-timed smile despite my better judgement. He made a face back at me that was definitely not anything positive and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You know what. I don't even want to know. In the car, quick."
I didn't want to get in the car. The car was going back towards the manor. I wanted to go away from the manor. But Gordon sounded pissed and my feet really did hurt and now that he was here the familiarity and fatherly sight of him was making me wonder why I was so concerned about ending up at the station house.
He didn't really give me a choice in the matter anyway, marching me to the passenger door of his squad car before rounding the vehicle and throwing himself behind the wheel. As he slammed the car into drive again and started up the driveway towards the rising flames on the horizon he glanced at me curiously.
"What are we dealing with?" He asked, sirens wailing behind us as the few squad cars that had stopped alongside the commissioner roared up behind us.
"Joker and Ivy for sure." I answered quickly, falling into the familiar routine that usually came along when I ended up in Gordon's car. "I think Killer Croc, Scarecrow and Dent as well. Harley is unconscious in the cellar that you get to through a second story secret entrance. Its in the portrait gallery behind a picture of a woman with a red Joker smile painted on it."
Gordon didn't ask me why I was wearing Harley's costume, or why Harley herself was unconscious in a cellar. I kind of hoped all that was self explanatory.
"Joker was pretty unconscious when he bounced off the hood of Dent's car for the second time though. So I don't think he's really a threat at the moment." I tacked that last bit on as an afterthought, watching as the manor loomed into view.
"Second time?" Gordon looked like he regretted asking the question the minute it came out of his mouth but I didn't give him time to cut me off and answered almost before he'd finished asking.
"First time was when he was blown out of the second story of the manor by the explosion. Second was when I punched him in the nose." I was still proud of that. I sounded proud too. Gordon did not look proud or pleased, but I couldn't make everyone happy so I didn't let it hurt my feelings.
But the Commissioner looked like he'd just bitten into a lemon at my proud little announcement. He swore, slamming on the brakes when we reached the wall of police cars that had already pulled up alongside the inferno.
"I'm too old for this shit Kate, too fucking old!" He announced, throwing open his door. He paused before he got out of the car completely and turned back to me, pointing a finger in my direction accusingly. "Don't. Leave. This. Car."
I nodded, deflating into my seat and trying not to look like I was upset with my current situation.
I had been fifty feet from the gate. I had nearly made it.
Now all I could do was sit and watch as the cluster fuck before me unfolded to its inevitable conclusion.
People were running in all different directions. Goons were being hauled up and handcuffed. People were yelling, obscenities being mixed with demands for the dropping of weapons and compliance with the police. In the distance, somewhere near the back of the property, there was still gunfire and from where I was sitting I could see that part of the manor had been overgrown with vines and branches in what looked like an outward explosion of weaponised flora.
It wasn't moving or growing anymore though so I hoped, cautiously, that the stillness meant Ivy was out of the fight or at least on the run.
I settled into the familiar waiting period, phasing in and out as the adrenaline began to wear off and the aches and pains I had been ignoring began to make themselves known again.
Once upon a time I would have been terrified by all this. But I didn't have it in me anymore. It was like Gordon's car was the eye of the storm, and I was the casual observer who had been there enough times to know that you needed to rest while you had the chance and enjoy the view outside.
So I waited, and the yelling and the fire continued. At some point a fire engine pulled up, and they waited just long enough to be given the go ahead before they rushed in to try and extinguish the flames.
That was a good sign. If the supervillains were still on the loose Gordon would never have let the fire fighters near the scene.
Another good sign was that more of the cops were just...standing around now. There were a few casually but not so casually waiting by their cars while others where marching cuffed goons into waiting wagons. I hadn't seen any of the big bads yet, but two ambulances arrived on the tail of the fire truck and the paramedics were getting a gurney ready for someone.
I wondered if that someone was Joker.
The final sign, the clinching moment that told me it was all over, was when I spotted Gordon making his way back towards his car through the smoke and drifting ash of the fire. Behind him, looming out from the same smoke and shadows, was Batman.
They were talking, Gordon looking tired but focused and Batman looking stoic and straight backed like he always did.
Only he was sporting some bullet impact marks on his armour, his cape was most definitely singed in more than a few places and he was missing one of his pointy ears from his cowl.
Vaguely, through a myriad of more important thoughts, I wondered how expensive it must be to replace all his gear with the way he went through it.
But then again, he was a billionaire, so I supposed it probably didn't put much of a dent in the old bank account to buy a new pointy bat ear.
Speaking of pointy bat ears, there was one in my field of view now, the man attached to it opening the car door.
Gordon was the one who leaned in though, gesturing to the statue that was the Batman and giving a deep sigh.
"Batman has offered to drive you home." He said simply. "That alright with you or do you want to wait until we're done here?"
That was a hard question. One I was not prepared for.
Batman had never driven me anywhere. I had sat in his car before. Well, been locked in it more like, but I has never gone anywhere in it.
I wasn't sure I wanted to.
Looking up at Batman, I felt almost convinced it was some tactical decision of his so he could get me alone in a car and ask me all sorts of questions I didn't want to answer.
But the alternative was to wait here for hours and then go back the station and wait there for hours before giving a statement and having to explain to Gordon that he couldn't actually take me back to my apartment because it wasn't mine anymore.
I was between a rock and a hard place.
"I'll go with the Bat." I said finally, feeling deflated as Gordon helped me out of the car, talking as he did.
"You'll need to come into the station at some point, give a statement."
I nodded, pushing out sigh.
"Yeah. Yeah I know." I mumbled, crossing my arms defensively over my chest. "I know the drill."
The Commissioner obviously didn't like that I knew the drill, he made another face and dropped a hand on my shoulder comfortingly before nodding to Batman and moving away to a team of officers that were loitering while they waited for orders.
I watched him go, then glanced down the driveway longingly.
I wonder how far I would make it at a dead sprint.
"Don't even think about it." Batman's rasping voice made me jump and I snapped to attention, whirling around to glare at him.
"What?" I said bitterly, playing dumb as he watched me. He was missing another glass eye. I could see the blue of his iris again and it unnerved me.
"Car is this way." He said softly, pointing from beneath the smouldering remains of his cape.
I huffed, but followed him when he began to walk towards a thick patch of overgrown hedging. Presumably that was where he left the car.
The sleek black mass of metal had always amazed me. It was gaudy and huge and ugly in a cool, badass kind of way and I had no idea how its owner managed to hide it so well wherever he went.
It wasn't like it wasn't noticeable.
Yet there it was, in amongst the foliage. I had run right past the damn thing on my way to the gate and hadn't even seen it. It was like some kind of superpower.
Why did no one ever try to steal the damn thing?
I didn't ask, I just waited for him to unlock the multitude of locks through voice command and buttons on his armour, figuring that he probably had back up plans for his back up plans if anyone ever did try to steal it.
The roof that slid back so you could get in was really a bit much though. I wondered if anyone had ever told him that, but again, said nothing as I settled into the passenger seat.
The rumble of the engine as he accelerated away from the manor and onto the main road back to the city was far less noisy inside than I had thought it would be. It was almost...soothing...so far as noise went.
And it was better than talking.
The silence between us lasted longer than it ever really had before. I didn't mind. There wasn't much of anything I wanted to say to Bruce Wayne or Batman at the moment. I was quite happy sitting in silence.
Except I had no idea where we were going, except that he was heading back towards the city. I wondered if he was going to drop me back at the apartment. I wasn't sure what to say to him about that.
How did I tell him that I had slipped the keys under my landlords door as I was leaving that afternoon?
I was just about to pipe up and say something, anything really, that might lead to a conversation about where I was going to sleep that night, when he opened his mouth and broke the silence himself.
"Are you alright?" He asked, changing gear and swerving around a corner fast enough to push me against the passenger door.
I nodded. "I'll be fine."
Apparently he was either far too impressed with his car or liked playing corners with me because he took another turn almost on two wheels before he spoke again.
"You were smart back there."
I glanced at him, aware that in Batman-speak he'd just stumbled pretty close to singing my praises.
"Thank you." I said with a frown. I was a little pleased that he'd noticed my ability to avoid death all on my lonesome, but my aching ankles stopped me from being too grateful for the compliment.
The quiet that followed our short exchange was only filled by the rumble of the big car catapulting us through the city. It took me a little while to dredge up the courage, but eventually I asked the question I hadn't really wanted to ask.
"Dent was there, wasn't he?" I mumbled.
Bruce didn't say anything. He just went tense, which was all the answer I needed. I sighed and curled my legs up to my chest, closing my eyes and resting my head on my knees.
"I had hoped..." Bruce trailed off and I shrugged.
"We all hoped." Another moment of heavy silence followed my reply before Batman changed the subject.
"How did you get caught?" He asked from beside me as I stared blandly out the window. The world rushed past at far above the legal speed limit.
I figured it was hard to write Batman a speeding fine.
"Bus." I mumbled, wiping my face on Harley's sleeve. A long smear of white and black followed my faces path on the fabric and I sighed. "I was leaving."
It had seemed like my only option really.
"If you were leaving, should I assume you've decided to turn down my offer?"
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, looking up to see we were almost outside city limits again. He must have skirted around the city centre. This wasn't the way to my apartment. I probably should have been worried about that but I was finding it hard to really care as my mind tripped back to the phone conversation I had had with Bruce earlier the previous afternoon.
It had taken him almost a week to get in contact with me again after I'd debated trying to throw him out a window of his office. But when he had called, it had been him on the other end of the phone. Not his secretary, not his butler, not some staff member in charge of employees.
Him.
That meant something to me, and it was the only reason I didn't hang up the phone as soon as I realised who was on the other end.
Then he'd presented me with an opportunity, an offer. A possibility that I wasn't sure was a lifeboat or a lead weight...
Just but not Quite a Day Ago
"You want me to do...what?" My hand was shaking as I paced my apartment. My very clean, very empty apartment.
Seeing Batman, Bruce, in the flesh had been the final straw for me. The snapping point for my frayed nerves.
I couldn't do this anymore. I couldn't stay here anymore. I had tried to tough it out initially out of determination not to be run out of my home. Then it had been the fear that had kept me here, fear of going out, fear of being noticed, fear of being taken.
Then finally it was the realisation I had left it too late. That I was too well known to go anywhere else and not be recognised by someone. No matter where I went, no matter how far I ran, there were always going to be hero's, there were always going to be villains.
I was the Lois Lane of Gotham.
But that couldn't keep me here anymore. Not here in Gotham, not in the epicentre.
I had to get out, I had to leave.
Or at least die trying.
"I want you to be the face of a new Wayne Industries department, Kate. A support network for the survivors of supervillain activity and violence." Bruce's voice was low and more Batman than he sounded in his interviews on TV. I guessed he was probably calling me from somewhere isolated. Somewhere safe.
Somewhere he didn't have to worry about being overheard or about people noticing a slip in his mask.
I stopped pacing, eyes falling on the luggage sitting by the door. In the end, I only had a suitcase and a duffel bag worth of things I wanted to take with me. That was what my life had been distilled into.
I'd sold off everything else.
The cash in my wallet was enough to buy me a bus ticket out of Gotham. It was just enough.
I had just enough money to make a desperate run for the city limits, and Bruce Wayne was sitting somewhere safe. Somewhere he could talk freely without worry or concern for the consequences.
Bastard.
"I don't...I don't get it." I mumbled down the line, trying to stop my anger from becoming more tears. "Don't then already have those sorts of things?"
"Wayne Industries has always funded rehabilitation and support programs for the people of Gotham who have been affected by crime. But it's not enough." He paused, and while it might have been an issue with the phone line I thought I heard a slight hitch in his voice, a break.
A slight moment that I wasn't sure was an act or a sign of actual emotion.
"No. It's not enough." I snapped back, slumping onto a chair and letting out a long hissed breath through my teeth. "So, this job offer. What would I need to do?"
"It's a position that would see you working closely with the police and asylum, focusing on supporting people who have been targeted or experienced things similar to your own situation. I have the proposal on my desk. Why don't you come in and we can discuss it."
I was still staring at my suitcase.
"I don't know if I'll be able to do that." I said softly. It wasn't meant to be mysterious but I was feeling both physically and emotionally disgusting, leaving my voice just a touch on the side of raspy and tired.
Wayne seemed to pick up on that.
"Why?" He sounded immediately concerned, which made me bristle indignantly. Somewhere deep down I knew he was actually worried, in his own detached kind of way, but the last week had shattered any faith I had in the Dark Knight and it was a little late for a drop of concern to change my opinion now. "Kate, are you in danger?"
I let out a bark of laughter and rubbed my eyes.
"Oh please," I mumbled softly, standing from the table and walking towards my bags. "When the fuck have you ever cared about that."
I hung up on him. Which I suppose was dramatic and rather underhanded, but I had no desire to continue this conversation and almost all of our conversations up to this point had been on his terms, so it seemed fitting that I get the last word in at least once.
He called me back straight away of course, and I rejected the call.
Then I turned the damn thing off.
Removing the sim card wouldn't stop him tracking me with it, it was the phone he had given me, after all. I had no doubt he would have something in the phone itself that kept a log of my position. So the phone would have to stay in the apartment.
I set it on the hall table beside the door, collected my bags, and walked out of my apartment for the last time.
There was a certain...breath of fresh air, that came with those steps, it was like letting go of a weight. I wasn't out of the woods yet, but it was like I was finally making the right moves for myself. It felt pretty good.
I dropped the keys off on my way out of the building, sliding them under the landlords door with a note saying I was not renewing my lease. I was paid up for the rest of the month thanks to the money I had gotten from the silver platter, so I didn't think it would be a problem.
Besides. What was he going to do about it? Come find me?
He'd have to get in line behind the Joker.
It was a drizzly day, cold and wet and slippery. I pulled my cap low on my head and flipped the hood of my jacket up. It was significantly easier to hide behind your clothes in winter than it was in summer. Everyone was dressed suspiciously when the weather was nearing freezing.
I headed the two blocks to the subway, took a train in the wrong direction. Got off and walked to another subway station that was going back the other way.
Anyone watching me would have thought I had lost my mind, but there was method in my madness.
If you wanted to know if someone was following you, you just had to act like an idiot who had no idea of where they were going. Stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Cross the street at random. Stop when the green light said to walk and walk when the red light said not to. Go into a subway station and come back out again without getting on a train. Get in a cab only to get out three blocks later.
I looked bizarre and it felt wrong on every level but it had saved me on more then one occasion and I wasn't about to leave my last jaunt through Gotham up to the fates.
So I meandered my way to the main bus terminal, catching a cab the last few city blocks and heading inside when I was confident I wasn't seeing any one face more than once on my travels.
It was crowded inside, and for once that suited me just fine. I bee-lined for the ticket booth and waited in the shortest line, tipping my cap back just enough to smile at the woman behind the bullet proof glass when I reached the front.
"Where to?" She asked in a bored drawl, barely looking up.
"Whats the next bus leaving the city?" I asked plainly. I hadn't done any research ahead of time, I hadn't left any record of where I was going. It was impossible for someone to track you when you yourself had no clue where you were going to end up.
The lady behind the counter didn't look the slightest bit phased by the question. She shrugged and checked her schedule.
"Bus leaving for DC in ten minutes. Terminal four, so if you run you could still make loading. You want that?"
"Yeah, sounds good." I fished my wallet from my pocket and paid in cash. She didn't even ask me if I wanted a round trip, just slid the one way ticket through the small gap in the glass and motioned towards the right hand side of the terminal.
I reloaded myself with my bags and booked it to terminal four at a jog, yanking my cap down as I went.
The driver was just finishing with loading the other passengers luggage when I got there, he looked pissed when I showed him my ticket but said nothing as he took my duffel and suitcase and loaded it into the undercarriage while I climbed the stairs onto the bus.
I kept my head low, pulling my hood back up over my hat as I found an empty isle seat. Always sit in an isle seat. Sitting on the window side closed you in if you needed to make a run for it. A bus was never the best option for travel if you needed to get away from someone, only one way in and one way out, but it was one of the few affordable and reliable ways to leave a city without passing information over ahead of time.
I settled into my seat as much as I could allow myself to settle. I still had to make it out of the city, but so far so good.
Except...why wasn't the driver getting on the bus?
I tilted in my seat, trying to peer out the window.
It was my first mistake.
If I'd kept my eyes on the isle of the bus, I may have seen the gas canister just a second sooner. I might have been able to kick it away, or cover my face and eyes.
I may have been able to make a dash for the door while the people who had thrown it in were taking cover.
But I didn't have a second longer, and when the canister exploded and spewed its inky green gas into the air all I could do was suck in one last lungful of clean air and hold my breath as people screamed and clogged the exit trying to run.
It started as a giggle, someone trying to get out of the bus giggled.
Then another laughed.
Then another, and another, until the bus was filled with hysterical, maniacal laughter. I peered through the smoke as one by one they teetered on their feet, giggling and stumbling off the bus and back into the terminal. Some didn't make it, falling to the floor in a fit of painful, uncontrollable laughter.
I couldn't hold my breath for much longer, my lungs were already burning, I would have to make a run for it once the last body had hit the floor. I didn't have time to sympathise with these faceless people caught in the laughing gas.
How the Joker had found me, if it was actually the Joker, what he wanted and why he had come after me again were all questions that could be answered later.
Now I just needed to survive the shit show.
There was a thump as the last person standing toppled down the stairs and onto the platform outside and I took that as my cue, swinging out from my chair and stepping quickly over the few people convulsing on the floor.
I made it to the stairs when a figure stepped up to greet me.
"Ooooh Katie-poo!"
The universe had to be fucking joking.
Joker peered up at me from his bottom step as I glared down, not waiting for one of his witty one liners or smarmy comments before I planted my boot straight into his chest. The height difference gave me the advantage and I took it completely, swinging all my weight behind that one Sparta kick.
He went back out the door, landing on a pile of writhing, giggling bodies.
I didn't wait for him to get up, jumping the last few steps and aiming for the terminal proper at a dead sprint.
I made some head way too, before I was crash tackled from behind by someone much bigger and much stronger than I was.
When faced with an unwinnable fight, the goal becomes less about getting away and more about doing as much damage as you possible can. Do something noticeable, put out an eye, get skin or blood under your fingernails, bite hard until you feel their skin tear, take hair if you can. Leave evidence of the struggle.
Make it impossible for them to show their faces for weeks without someone wondering what happened to them. Most supervillains have at least a few goons, but if you mark up a couple of them, people in high places noticed and would put two and two together.
I figured that's about where I was here. So I fought. I lashed out with every limb I could get free, I jammed my feet and hands into any soft and yielding flesh I could reach. I bit and scratched and screamed and clawed until something sharp and cold was pushed deep into the meat of my shoulder and a plunger depressed.
The effects were nearly instant, my muscles getting lax, my world getting slow. I grit my teeth as I was pulled up by the impressively bruised lackey who had tackled me. By the time he had me up I was like a rag doll, barely able to lift my head from my chest enough to see Joker as he walked slowly into my field of view.
His fingers were cold and bony when he cupped my chin, lifting it so he could meet my eyes.
He looked...different. It took my drug addled mind a moment to work out why.
He had no makeup on.
He was still pale as ash, but he was without his face paint, no red lipstick. He was wearing a very stylish hat that covered most of his green hair, leaving what could still be seen of it looking almost black in the neon lights of the terminal.
He was dressed differently too, still dapper, still in a well cut long coat with neatly tailored pants and shiny shoes. A nice scarf. But none of it in his usual colours. All browns and greys. A touch of blue in his tie.
It would have been an outfit from a men's magazine had it not been for the muddy footprint square in the middle of his chest and the man wearing it.
He looked normal.
Terrifyingly, blend into the background, normal.
I hadn't ever considered that he could look that way.
He got in close to me, his face so near mine I could feel him breathing on my cheek.
"Katie, Kate, Kate. Oh I missed our little meetings." He inhaled deeply and I used the last of my strength to spit at him, his henchman's blood and my saliva splattering across his ear and neck.
He laughed, didn't even wipe it away.
"Now now, sweetums. Exchanging fluids in public? What will people think?!" He cackled, stepping back just enough to keep my head balanced on his fingers while he looked me over. "Dear me though Kate, you are looking a little weak in the knees to see me. Don't worry pet, it will wear off eventually. I wanted to make sure you didn't laugh yourself to death in the pleasure of my company so I laced a little antidote into the analgesic, but it seems to were a clever little mouse. Holding your breath! How...smart."
He said the last word like a curse, face twisting with malice as he stared me down with those hollow black eyes. He could do that, snap from clown to psychopath so fast his words almost couldn't catch up.
My vision was fading at the corners. Swimming with black dots.
"How..." The word didn't come out right, but it was my best shot and Joker seemed so intent in his focus that he not only heard me, but understood.
"How did I find you?" He was laughing again. The sound was monstrously loud and it rattled around inside my swaying skull. "I'm clever too Kate, or have you forgotten?"
His fingers squeezed my chin hard, hard enough that I knew on some level it would leave bruises, but the drug he'd given me made the pain seem far away and inconsequential.
"I was so disappointed when I couldn't get a hold of you. I knew you had a phone, but nothing I did could get a call through to you. So today, today I thought I would pay you a visit. I have a poker game to go to you see, and you're my lucky charm!"
He was touching me again. He'd knocked off my hood and cap and was running his fingers through my hair. My skin crawled and I wondered vaguely where Harley was. Why she wasn't stopping him like she always did.
"As if to prove how lucky you really are, the first day I do go to your apartment, you come right on out of it! Oh, it took a bit to follow you. You are so clever Kate. But you weren't looking for me the way I was looking for you. Oh, oh shhhh-" He pressed a finger to my lips, stepping in close again and grinning at me through yellowing teeth. "Don't worry Katie-Kate-Kate, I won't reveal all my secret methods of finding you. Long term relationships have to have secrets, you understand. How else would we keep things interesting..."
Everything was so heavy. My eyelids closed and the world went dark for a moment before Joker pried one of my eyes open again with his thumb and forefinger, whispering to me now as my consciousness faded in and out.
"Smile for my Katie-baby. You're going to win your puddin' a whole lotta green tonight."
The city lights were behind us now, leaving only a dull glow as we rocketed past unfamiliar scenery.
"I had planned on saying no." I whispered against the hum of the engine, shivering as the last of the memories before I woke up in the cellar came back to me. I still didn't know how I had missed Joker in the streets. I searched my memory, trying to recall every face, every jacket or scarf that might have picked him out.
Was he the man at the ATM? He'd looked vaguely similar in his overcoat and hat.
The business man who'd bumped into me three blocks from my apartment?
"Does that make me selfish?" I asked eventually, setting the bus terminal aside for now as my tired brain began melding every face in my memory into someone with Jokers smile or eyes.
"No."
Blunt, as always. I curled up a little in my seat, letting my forehead rest on the window.
"I don't get to hide behind a mask like you do. I'm just me." I muttered out, then laughed bitterly. "No, that's a lie. I'm not even me anymore. I'm just...just the bones of who I was I guess. That sounds dramatic, doesn't it?"
"No."
"Sometimes I think I'm ok. But other times I feel like...like I'm just a walking skeleton. Like everything that made me who I am has just been chipped away and whats left is just coping mechanisms." I was mumbling. Talking to the window more than I was talking the Batman. I was running out of adrenaline now and the familiar fatigue was really coming in hard. "I know more about Joker and Harley than I ever should. I know that Mr. Freeze's wife is named Nora. I shouldn'tknow things like that, Bruce."
Silence. It was heavy and left me craving his monosyllabic responses. But really, what was there to say? What could be said right now?
I had always tried not to be caught up in the melancholy, but in these moments when I was really and truly safe, it leaked out of me.
"You're braver than I am."
I blinked, sitting up a little when his voice filled the cabin again, smoother and kinder than I had ever heard him speak before.
"What?"
He glanced my way, his one blue eye meeting mine for a brief moment before he turned back to the road.
"It takes a brave person to face the world without a mask."
The gravel was gone, the cruelty was gone. His words were almost soothing. I blinked hard, turning away sharply so he didn't see the tears threatening to drag themselves up from behind my eyes.
That wasn't fair. He didn't get to be nice.
I was angry at him.
"Maybe I want a mask too." I said, a little more sharply that I had meant to. I took a deep breath before I spoke again, not really thinking through what I knew was about to come out of my mouth but knowing I would say it anyway. "I'll listen to the proposal about the job. I'll think about it."
I didn't have much of a choice. I now had no money at all. No home to go back too. I didn't know if my luggage would ever get back to me so right now I didn't even have clothes or a toothbrush.
I had nothing but his offer.
Sure I could make him pay for a flight out of here, I could yell and make demands.
But I didn't have the energy to do that right now, and Harley's shoes were still pinching my feet.
Speaking of Quinn.
"Harley and the rest of Gotham underground think you and I are sleeping together." I said suddenly, realising that for me this remarkable concept was still kind of baffling. I'd admit that before all this started I was a classic Gothomite woman wondering after the Dark Knight, but after all these years of ducking and weaving in his world I couldn't imagine anyone getting the impression we were…well, whatever people were saying our relationship was.
Batman didn't say anything and I got a sudden sinking feeling in my gut.
"You knew didn't you?" I asked slowly, rotating in my seat to look at him through smudged clown make-up. It struck me then how badly I wanted a shower. How much I wanted to wash Harley's makeup and the Joker's touch from my skin.
Batman glanced at me again, I know he did because his chin inclined towards me and there was a tiny hint of a frown before he took another corner so fast it felt like my stomach missed the memo and kept going straight.
"Yes." He said simply, then he sighed a barely audible sigh and his shoulders slumped slightly. Just slightly. "There was no way to defuse the rumour. Once people get an idea in their heads it's hard to dislodge it."
The anger that bubbled hard and fast into my chest didn't go away at his explanation, but I had to concede he was right. Knowing about it didn't mean either of us could actually do anything about it.
"It seems unfair that I get all the consequences of our supposed romance without any of the perks." As soon as it came out of my mouth I couldn't believe I'd said it. It was probably the least appropriate thing to say in that moment. Then again, considering out long history it seemed only fair that I got to say whatever popped into my head at any given time.
With a huff I threw a side eyed glance at him, jabbing a finger in his direction accusingly and deciding that if I was going to dig this hole, I might as well aim for the Earths core. Perhaps I was going a bit mad, perhaps I had inhaled something I shouldn't have back at that bus terminal, perhaps for just a second I wanted to make light of the situation I had found myself in.
"You'd think that The Batman would have some better ideas on how to show a girl a good time. I'm telling you now, the hostage rescue date idea is getting old, and the only time you spent the night you hogged the bed and bled all over my sheets." I sagged back into my seat, then almost jumped out of it again when Batman laughed.
Actually laughed.
It took me a moment to realise he was laughing. I had to stare at him for a while to make sure I wasn't just going crazy. But there it was, his lips turned up in a smile that showed teeth in a remarkably non-creepy way and a chuckle resonating from somewhere deep in his chest.
I'd never heard him laugh before.
It was actually a pleasant sound, infectious it seemed, because without warning I felt the pressure that had been building in my chest all night leak out in mirrored mirth.
But the pressure, once tapped into and with a way to get out into the world, became too hard to hold back and my giggles quickly turned to actual laughter. Laughter that escalated to near hysteria when the usually stoic, terrifying man next to me began laughing in earnest as well.
It was like we were suddenly feeding off each other, like we'd just worked out some huge cosmic joke that no one else outside the car would understand. It wasn't funny, none of it was and nothing I had said was funny enough to be laughing this hard.
But some tiny part of my brain was whispering 'laugh, laugh or you'll go mad.'
So we laughed, laughed until my eyes were streaming with tears that deep down were attached to sobs and fear and the glow of the city had disappeared from the rear view mirror.
A few minutes later I was still giggling and he was still smiling.
It was a bizarre experience, but as silence fell back between us I felt somehow...better.
"It feels good to laugh." I mumbled, surprised by how uplifted I felt from that small moment of shared joy, or happiness, or maybe hysteria.
"It does." Batman said softly with a slight incline of his head.
We were back out in the expensive part of Gotham now, the one with sprawling manors and golf courses that were always green. I didn't recognise any of it.
"Where are we going?" I asked eventually, quietly, as Batman slowed the car slightly to take a corner onto what looked like an abandoned stretch of green way leading to nowhere.
For a while Bruce didn't answer me, just stared ahead as he drove past trees that were quickly becoming more densely packed and difficult to see past.
"I thought about what you said that day in the office. The people I help, the people who know who I am, they end up like me. Fighting, like I do." This was maybe the most words he'd ever said to me in one go.
"They end up like Robin or Nightwing, or they die and I realise I've failed them." He reached down as he spoke and pressed a button on the dashboard of the car. "I didn't want that for you."
I wanted to argue with him, I wanted to tell him how stupid his logic was. How leaving someone to fend for themselves was just the opposite extreme to taking them under his wing and making them vigilantes. But the words died in my throat, catching on the sharp intake of breath I managed to draw in when I realised he'd set the nose of the car hurtling towards a sharp rock face that rose from the ground amongst the trees.
I didn't have time to think, or yell, or ask what the fuck was happening before the rock peeled open and the car rocketed into the tunnel behind it, the neon lights of the roof strobing past so fast they left me feeling dizzy and disoriented.
"Where are we going, Bruce?" I asked again, voice strained as I lent forward to try and see something, anything other than the structured cement walls rushing past us.
Batman glanced at me, that little head incline that seemed to be the only way you knew he was really looking at you, but said nothing. I was on the verge of asking again, maybe yelling a little considering my frayed emotional nerves, when he put his foot on the brake and the car slowed to a stop.
There was a hiss, a woosh, and the roof of the car slid open.
Cold air rushed in, hitting my cheeks and nose with damp and old and new all at once and I strained up in my seat.
A vast cavern laid itself out before me, dark and cast in shadows, lit by vast banks of screens and interconnecting platforms that circled the natural curvature of the rocky outcrops. Stalactite dripped from above me, some barley peaking from the inky blackness of the unfathomably high ceiling, while others loomed like daggers seemingly withing reach of my curious fingertips.
It was cold, unwelcoming, yet there was something instantly recognisable to the place that whispered of strength and secrets, battles no one knew about and threats that had been faced in the dark.
From beside me, Bruce moved, stepping out of the car and making his way around to me. I watched him as he stripped away his mask, meeting my gaze barefaced and blue eyed as he reached out and offered me his hand.
As I clasped his finger in my own, allowing him to help me from the car and down onto the well lit metal platform beneath us, I was reminded of the moment so long ago when he had wrapped his arms around me outside of a beat up taxi, strong and made of Kevlar.
It had been years. So much had happened.
I was so much less, and so much more that I had been then.
I was angry alongside my fear, tough where I was once soft. Built on paranoia and stubborn and desperation.
I knew more than I wanted to know about people I wished I had never met. I had lost so many friends.
But the one constant was this man in Kevlar.
I wanted to ask him what this was, what bringing me here meant, but his blue eyes stayed on mine and his expression conjured years of sleepless nights and hopeless moments made both worse and better inadvertently sheltered under his cape.
With his mask off he was caught somewhere between the two side of him, neither Bruce nor Batman, yet familiar in a way only someone you've met nearly a hundred times or so can be to you.
Perhaps met was too strong of a word for the glances I had of him in the beginning.
But it was a long time since the beginning and things change fast in Gotham.
As I stared back at Bruce's blue eyed and bruised face, I wondered what more could come of my association with the vigilante king of Gotham. Paranoia, certainly. Insanity, possibly.
When he spoke again, his expression melting just enough to show flecks of something akin to kindness, I settled into the knowledge that for now, for now it was just paranoia.
What came next would have to wait until tomorrow.
"Welcome home, Kate."
END
Authors Note: When I started writing this, years and years ago, I wasn't sure if I was writing a hero or villains origin story, a love story or just the story of a regular woman caught in the crossfire of superhero's and bad guys.
All of the possibilities are still there I suppose. But as I was writing, I realised I was writing about a character that already sort of exists in the Batman universe. At least, I suppose that's what I ended up leaning towards in a weird, backwards kind of way.
I'll give you a hint, though I don't know if anyone will know what I'm babbling about, and if you do you might disagree thoroughly with me.
"Oh, Bruce. If only I could divulge my true face to you. How shocked you would be to learn that I'm actually someone you know quite well... someone who's been close to you for years. Sadly, revealing my identity will have to wait..."
But as I said, it's really open to what anyone still reading this see's happening to Kate. As her adventures by my hand end here.
I liked writing this, and it felt good to finish something.
As always, read and review, it makes me smile.