Disclaimer:I do not own any Batman Begins/Dark Knight characters. All other characters are mine.
Thanks for reading, that's all :)
The ash fell like cool flakes of ice, however they branded her skin with incongruous heat.
Cat watched the world crumble, the warehouse walls lying in ruins at her feet. It was an odd feeling, then, that met her heart; a tugging and pulling sensation. Time seemed to gelatinise around her and even her own heartbeat was echoing lethargically in her ears.
He was standing a little way before her, with a grin beyond all others, and leaning over what appeared to be a smoking pile of shattered wood and fabric.
It wasn't like her to feel a wave of nausea upon seeing a dead body, and yet her stomach churned violently.
She rubbed the smoke from her eyes, a last reminder.
"You didn't tell me." She wheezed, again, these words seemed to be parroting from her.
"You didn't tell me about…the other bomb."
Joker began to dance his way over to her, humming a bright tune and clicking his fingers.
"My dear, dear, dear Cat." His hands flew to the sides of her devastated face. "I told you, not everything is part of the plan
Caterina tried to find method within this particular madness, but it was as if months of repressed guilt and disgust were forcing their way down her throat, in a confusing haze that was; regret.
Rachel Dawes was dead.
The soon-to-be-engaged woman, with a gentle smile and a hope for love; Cat saw herself, before pain changed her into whatever she was now.
Joker noticed this odd shift in character and his smile twisted into a grimace.
"Don't tell me you're upset-"
"-no, I just-"
"-because as I recall, Dawes was the pesky intruder between you and that billionaire."
Cat sighed in frustration and tried to quieten the screaming thoughts in her head by biting her cheek. She hated the nausea and the ever-growing desire to destroy herself. She couldn't feel this, not now, not after murdering so many with so little of a thought. This much guilt would surely destroy her if she allowed it.
"Sweetheart?"
He was growing concerned, and even the faithful kiss-to-the-neck couldn't dissuade her. There was a dam in her mind, a dam threatening to collapse.
"I need you to hate me again!" She finally shouted, and shoved him from her so violently that he was thrown into the crumbling wood.
Joker sat, his legs crossing beneath him, staring up at her with bewilderment.
"H-hate…?"
Cat could only nod and felt tears prickle in her eyes.
"I…You managed to break me…"
"I actually think I fixed you."
She waved her hand nonchalantly.
"Whatever, I need that again, I need to be fixed, locked up. Anything that…stops the voices." She dwindled in her surety, and was suddenly faced with the fear of what she was asking. Joker was less hesitant, and was nodding with odd enthusiasm.
"I think I have just the medicine, sweetheart."
He grinned and sauntered back to the waiting van, muttering directional orders to the driver.
The drive was long and quiet, soon the sun peeked over the horizon and Cat felt her head nodding, she hadn't slept in a few hours and it only hit her that taking care of her health hadn't been on the top of her list in a long time.
They pulled up to a string of old country houses, a rarity in the apartment-ridden Gotham. A single white colonial house was standing proudly amidst a field of sunflowers, the rising sun painting everything with a beautiful golden shine. It seemed peaceful, the kind of house that you imagine growing old in, watching life from a rocking chair on the porch.
Cat stepped out of the car and waited, generally confused but pleasantly surprised.
"It's beautiful," she sighed, wistfully, "Do you own it?"
"If by own it you mean I killed the family that lived here," He drawled lazily, before smiling at her. "Then no, I don't own it."
The wooden stairs groaned under their weight and the splintering handrails told her that the house hadn't been maintained or visited in a long time. It seemed so out of place, and Joker's figure brandishing the front door to her stood out like a weed amidst a garden.
Beside the house and a falling picket fence, a droopy silhouette hung from a wooden stake and for a moment, Cat thought a person in ragged clothing was swinging gently in the breeze.
"Creepy." She nodded at the scarecrow, and decided to avert her gaze.
A few distant songbirds awoke, readying their morning call as Caterina and Joker entered the dusty home.
Slivers of sunlight peeked through the shuttered windows and illuminated the quaint wooden flooring and grey floral wallpaper. There was no furniture, nothing to indicate a resident and Cat guessed it had been emptied a long time ago.
"Well?" Cat asked, once they were standing in the centre of the small sitting room. "What are we doing here?"
"This is where I kept it."
"Kept what?"
He tapped his nose in reply, and motioned for her to remain while he ventured further down the adjoining corridor.
Something glinted in the sunlight and Cat's gaze was torn from Joke's retreating figure. It appeared to be some sort of plaque, ringed by splintered wood and rusting. She walked up to the wall and ran her finger over the indentation, mouthing the words as she read.
"…Circa 1929, Crane Family, who's the Crane Family?"
She turned again to Joker, who was watching her from the doorway with a strange metal object in his gloved hands.
"Just an old friend."
"Friend?"
"Enemy." He admitted with a chuckle and a lick of his lips. Joker proceeded to close the front door slowly, the hinges squeaking ominously until the two of them were isolated from the outside, the room thrown into sudden darkness.
Cat ignored the growing feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, and casually leaned against the peeling wallpaper. Joker pulled a green gas mask out of his coat pocket, and fitted it over his unruly hair. She held out her hand, but instead was given a simple shake of the head.
"What are you-?"
The metal cylinder left his grasp and rolled along the floor to her boots, where it sat for a moment before exhaling a puff of strange green smoke. Instinctively, Cat held her breath and brought her leather coat to her mouth, trying to filter out the gas. Joker shook his head again, already disappearing amidst the haze, and motioned taking deep breaths with his arms.
She was undeniably distrusting, and waited until her legs shook from the act before finally letting air into her lungs. The great gulps of oxygen were stale and tasted horribly acidic, burning her throat. An unpleasant light-headedness met her, and the floor began to tilt bizarrely. Cat tried to grasp the wall for support, but it seemed to melt under her touch and she instead came crashing into the psychedelic floor-boards.
Muffled footsteps echoed before her, and she managed to raise her head amidst the confusion. Except it wasn't the Joker who loomed above her. His head poking through the thickening green cloud, Ash stared at her with his wide brown eyes.
Blood soaked his golden locks, his strong cheekbones and light stubble were horrible scarred and deformed by the bullet wound and many scrapes. Cat screamed silently, grasping at the floor to find some form of support.
"Ashton?" She whispered, feeling her eye makeup run down her chin in a tear-soaked mixture. He didn't move or speak, a ghostly statue only existing to torment her. Cat finally found her movement, rising uncertainly to her feet and staring up at her older brother. He continued to gaze past her, his hand moving soundlessly to hold it out in front of her.
A single handgun was brandished in his grey palm.
"What do- "
His handsome face contorted into a snarl, and he shook the gun in front of her face to bring attention to it. Cat took the gun slowly from him, half-expecting it to be as ghostly and jelly-like as the wall was moments ago. However, her fingers closed around the hilt and felt the textured rubber solidly beneath her palm.
Heat exploded through her hand and she tried to drop the gun, in her panic the gun aimed itself and fired a sudden bullet that recoiled her wrist painfully. Cat looked up suddenly, her heart exploding through her chest and fear bubbling in her stomach like a poison.
Ash was no longer before her, instead the gas cloud was disrupted in the silhouette of his fallen body, where blood was pulling from a bullet wound.
"No." Cat shrieked, and rocked back onto the floor, hugging her knees tightly to her chest.
"No, no, no!"
A familiar, manic laughter erupted around her. She looked around for the well-known face, but Joker's laugh seemed to be coming from numerous figures surrounding her, a crowd of ghostly spectators. Among them were faces she recognised, pale grey and translucent but nevertheless she saw her mother's unnatural beauty and her father's resting smirk. Mark, and his wife Janine, standing hand-in-hand and holding a bundle of baby blankets. Bruce Wayne was dressed in his usual tux and was chuckling beside Harvey and Rachel, who both seemed to be dressed for a wedding.
The laughter condensed and developed into a sort of hypnotic rhythm.
A funeral march, clear as day.
The crowd parted, without making any form of physical movement, and they all turned to a particular spot on the crushed leaves. Cat's surroundings had melted into a dreary autumn hilltop, a Japanese maple was sprinkling orange leaves like acid rain over the crowd, and a nearby bird screeched to the funeral tune.
Cat walked up the hill, her footsteps crunching like broken bones, and she knelt beside the area of interest. It was a gravestone, crumbling, decrepit, neglected. No flowers were laid in respect, and the crowd around her had soundlessly disappeared. She pulled a large maple leaf off the stone in an attempt to read the name, it was barely readable as many years had worn down the name. A date jumped out at her, a date that she knew far too well.
'September 26th, 1990'
Cat no longer needed to read the name, and felt absolutely sick to her stomach until she read the remaining line.
'Beloved sister.'
And then she felt as if she would pass out.
That was it, all she was at the end of the day, her legacy and her story, all created around Ashton, all created around a lie.
And suddenly it all became clear.
She was no longer afraid and no longer filled with unimaginable regret, the gas ventilated through the open window and the funeral hill disappeared. Cat was back in the old country home, lying on her back and staring at the time-stained ceiling.
She felt remade, a new person, she jumped to her feet with a burst of energy and wiped the makeup from underneath her eyes. Joker was eating a green apple, almost obnoxiously, casually leaning against the front door and flicking open his switchblade.
"Feeling better?"
"Yeah." She honestly replied, and despite her trembling voice she felt extremely elated. Cat walked up to him and took the apple from his grasp, biting into it and enjoying the burst of sour.
"Let's go kill someone, please? I've got a stain to make on society."
Joker laughed at this, pulling her close by the waist.
"Absolutely," He sang, sweeping his tongue over his lips. "But first- "
He pulled her into a deep kiss, taking the chunk of apple from between her teeth and pulling away with it.
"-Don't eat my fruit."