Disclaimer:I do not own any Batman Begins/Dark Knight characters. All other characters are mine.
I don't know if you can tell, but I've been working really hard to avoid the dreaded 'Stockholm Syndrome' that these kinds of stories accidently fall into. It's been a long journey to this point, but I hope I have established that Caterina has fallen for Joker in a more natural way.
Stay amazing and slightly mad! XOXOXO -ImprobableDreamer
The nights seemed to be getting colder.
Bruce was, as ever, on a violent rampage through Gotham's underbelly to uncover any leads that might point him to the Joker.
Harvey Dent had called him after the funeral service, livid, announcing that he had seen Caterina among the crowd. She was alive, and for the time being, Batman was prepared to show the Joker mercy when he found him.
But further reports of that day confused him, greatly. A medic had his head smashed in outside a Thai restaurant, and the witnesses described someone who looked a lot like Cat, knock him to the ground where his skull split.
Bruce gave her the benefit of the doubt, perhaps it was someone else, or perhaps she was being forced to commit the murder; but something in the 'fit' she had at the party and her impulse to stab the Joker left him unsure.
The Batman tracked down Salvatore Maroni at a highly popular night club, 'Danza', where he knocked him out cold and dragged him unforgivingly to the edge of a bank rooftop; to say he was annoyed was an understatement.
"I want the Joker." He commanded, dangling Maroni over the city streets by his suit collar.
It was a quiet night, especially after the attacks, the streets were generally unpopulated after the sun set.
"From one professional to another," Droned Maroni, unfazed by the general threatening aura of the Batman, he looked down to the pavement. "If you're trying to scare someone, pick a better spot. A fall from this height wouldn't kill me."
"I'm counting on it."
Batman let him go, loud shrieks following the falling figure until he smacked into the ground feet-first. His legs crumpled beneath him and the shrieking continued, Maroni was clutching at his knees which were both severely broken.
The Batman glided down safely, a smugness in his gradual descent, before once again hauling him off the ground by his collar.
"Where is he?"
"Don't know, he found us!"
"He must have friends."
"Friends?" Maroni sneered. "Have you met the guy? The closest thing he has to a friend is that skank he keeps in his basement. Though I hear," He leaned in, his voice low. "That she isn't his prisoner anymore."
Batman shook him viciously, throwing his weight back onto his legs and causing another yelp of pain.
"What does that mean? Someone must know where he is?"
Salvatore Maroni wasn't the usual class of criminal, weak and blubbering in his presence, he looked up at Batman with a steely gaze and spat at his boots.
"No one's gonna tell you anything; they're wise to your act, you got rules. The Joker, he's got no rules. No one's gonna cross him for you. You want this guy and his girl, you got one way. And you already know what that is. Just take off that mask and let him come find you. Won't be much of a fair fight though."
"Why?"
"He's a two-man team now, his little pet killed someone to save his life."
Batman clenched his jaw and wanted to shake this thought out of his head. Cat couldn't be a killer, Bruce had made her his girlfriend and shared his life with her.
"Why would she help him?"
Maroni grinned again, but was pale and sweating with the pain, it wouldn't be long before he passed out and Batman was desperate to pry everything from his mind.
"Haven't you heard? That little stunt you pulled years ago is coming back to bite you. Joker knows it, more importantly his feline knows it."
The anger blurred everything around him, he was absolutely seething. He wanted to rip the Joker apart for doing this to Cat, for revealing the thing that could destroy her, destroy everything he had built 'The Batman' to be.
That night still burned him, visited him in dreams, fueled the rage that kept him fighting. Ashton Morgan, a few years younger than himself, lying lifeless on the pavement. His blonde hair was soaked in blood, the side of his handsome face, blown apart by the bullet, grey lumps of brain tissue trailing down the quiet street and a shout of despair, a shout of warning. Warning that Batman ignored.
He dropped Maroni to the floor and knew that if he continued to interrogate him, things would get ugly very fast.
"Or you want to let a couple more people get killed while you make up your mind? Wouldn't be the first time." Maroni sneered, resulting in a kick in the face that knocked him out again. Maroni's nose was bent horribly out of shape and it took everything in Batman not to just end it.
If the Joker wanted to make a killer out of him, he had found the 'Achilles heel' to do so.
"Alfred," He spoke into his arm 'com unit'. "I have new suspicions about that murder, Cat might be involved somehow."
"If you say so, sir." Came Alfred's almost sarcastic reply. He had been saying for hours how the evidence didn't lie, and that Batman was too blinded by his affections to face the truth.
It was a terrible pause that followed as Batman struggled to form the sentence they were both thinking, the sentence that altered everything. But there was no excuse for murder.
"I need to bring her down."
"Hold still," She complained, exasperated.
Bloody bandages littered the concrete flooring and make-shift surgical equipment covered every available surface. Turned out that the doctor had stitched up the Joker, but as an act of defiance he had left the bullet in him, which caused problems a few days on.
"Leave it, kitty, I don't want to play doctors anymore."
Joker was, as always, difficult when it came to his own health.
"I just need five minutes; can you manage for five minutes?"
He didn't hit her for the snarky comment, which was progress on all accounts, and even sat back in the office chair.
"Thank you." Cat sighed, unbuttoning his blue shirt to reveal the raw wound underneath. She had attempted to help him for hours, but had developed a theory that Joker couldn't physically sit still for more than 30 seconds. Always jumping up with a random phrase, strolling around the room, running a hand through his hair.
Another theory was that he didn't want to show when he felt pain, and tried to hide it behind his crazy.
The scissors cut smoothly through the stitches and Cat didn't even wince as the blood escaped freely. She had been following his gang of criminals to a few murders and wasn't fazed by the sight of blood anymore.
"You know," He muttered, his gaze pointedly averted from the wound. "I was thinking that we should promote you to a more…active member of the team."
She smiled, setting down the scissors, and playfully squeezed his thigh. "Oh, you mean like this?"
His hand twitched, but once again he didn't punish her for acting out of turn. Instead, he moved his knee and sharply knocked her hand away, with a grin of his own.
"Sweetheart, there's a time and a place."
Cat shrugged and picked up the tweezers.
"Your loss."
It seemed that, recently, flirting was permitted as long as it was purely…physically inspired.
"No, I was thinking more on the lines of homicide-" Joker's breath hitched as the tweezers entered the wound. Cat kept her hand steady as she dug around, finally catching a glimpse of brass and pulling out the deformed clump.
"I won't kill anyone." She replied, defiantly, dropping the bullet in a glass where it clanged against the base.
He frowned, sweeping his tongue over his bottom lip. "What about that poor ambulance driver?"
"That was different, I was saving us."
"You were saving me."
She waved her free hand in exasperation, the other sewing up the wound. Joker paused, leaning his head back into the chair and thoughtfully clicking his tongue.
"You're first should be meaningful." He finally concluded. "So, if you could kill anyone who would it be?"
"Ah-?" Cat shrugged, not wanting to even consider the answer. She was happy to remain silent as she mopped up the blood from his chest, but he had other ideas. Joker's hand flew to her own, tracing circles over her wrists with his thumb.
"Go on, sweetheart, let your mind go there. Who would you kill?"
She didn't even care that he was manipulating her so obviously. Despite his scarred face and chilling makeup, his hands were so soft and careful, gently guiding her mind to an answer.
"That bastard, Mark, if anyone deserves to die, he does."
Joker hopped up from the chair, clapping his hands together excitedly. "Well?" He grinned at her. "You coming?"
Cat shook her head, her heart and mind racing at doing something so horrible, so blood-curdling, and somehow so exhilarating.
"I'm not shooting him."
"A gun? Guns are so boring, no, I'm sure you'll think of something creative. It comes from the heart, you know?"
Cat found herself nodding in agreement, a strange smile polluting her face.
"Well, I think being buried alive is a horrible way to go."
Joker smiled, proudly, and pulled her into a warm hug. "It sure is." His eyes were shining as he stroked her hair affectionately.