Disclaimer:I do not own any Batman Begins/Dark Knight characters. All other characters are mine.
Fluff ahead, you have been warned :)
Thank you for reading, stay amazing! XOXOXO- Improbable Dreamer
Commissioner Gordon sighed, and closed the door on the District Attorney.
Several armed guards nodded at him, a vision out of place in a local hospital. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and glanced once more into the brightly lit hospital room.
Harvey Dent was heavily bandaged and hooked up to many beeping machines. He was a broken man, and not only because the left side of his face was completely destroyed in the bombing attempt, but because he was saved instead of Rachel. Gordon should have seen it coming, that Joker would lie about the locations and kill Rachel Dawes, it was more his fault than he would care to admit.
As if sensing his gaze, Harvey turned to the rectangular window and glared at Gordon. The left side of his face was blackened and shrivelled, white molars gleamed through the remains of his cheek and his once handsome grey eye, was nothing but a ball and socket.
Harvey Dent had warned him about his men, that they were crooked and working for the Joker, but Gordon had shaken this off and now Dent was paying the ultimate price, after Rachel and Dent were both easily picked up and taken to remote locations to be killed.
"This craziness, it's too much."
Gordon looked up to acknowledge the murmur, his face twisting into a scowl when he recognised the gang leader, Salvatore Maroni.
"Should've thought about that before you let the clown out of the box." Gordon spat at him, causing Maroni to shift his hands out of his pockets awkwardly. The two were strangely equal in this place, a cop and robber standing eye to eye and conversing like regular civilians.
"You want him?"
Gordon paused, halfway down the corridor, and stared at the mob leader in confused accusation. Maroni sighed, heavy with regret. "I can tell you where he's going to be this afternoon."
"The hell would you know about it? My men have you under constant surveillance."
The Italian let out a short, hollow laugh, fidgeting with his golden watch. "Surveillance? It's protection. If I wanted to leave you couldn't stop me."
Gordon had no answer, and could merely avert his gaze in shameful realisation.
"You made a mistake." Maroni murmured again, as If to himself.
"I know I did, Dawes is on me."
"Who?" Maroni frowned, quizzically, and walked up to Gordon. "Oh, you mean Dent's girlfriend." He waved a hand in disregard. "That one was dead the minute she met Dent, no I mean how you let Joker's pet live."
"Caterina?" Gordon asked. "Joker still got her on a leash? I thought he'd be done with her by now, ended it, a horrible thought but it makes things simpler for us."
Maroni laughed again, his eyes widening in fear. "You cops don't know nothing." He shook his head and trailed off, gazing at a spot over Gordon's shoulder. "I thought it was the way too," he continued, slowly. "The clown is insane, he gets himself a new toy and breaks it in a heartbeat, like a junkie looking for a fix. I hired him to do a job, and I let him have his fun with Morgan because she was a porcelain doll if I ever saw one. But we were all wrong. She's crazier than he is, more than that, she's vindictive. She's a killer with conviction, and that makes her more dangerous than you can possibly imagine."
An involuntary shiver ran down Gordon's spine, and he remembered finding the two medics in the ceiling. Morgan hadn't just killed them, she'd tortured them. "Tell me where to find them." Despite himself, his voice was strong and commanding. Maroni shrugged a shoulder and turned on his heel, facing Dent's room.
"You'll see." He called over his shoulder, throwing a phone with an address to Gordon, "Monsters may not be real. But Caterina Morgan sure as hell is."
Caterina had never imagined what a billion dollars would look like. Perhaps a duffel bag full of bank notes, like in the movies, but seeing the real thing was so much more incredible, and yet disappointing.
There it was, a mountain of bound banknotes in the centre of the rusted hulk. It filled the entire hold, casting a monstrous shadow under the overhead industrial lights. The pile had to be at least thirty feet high. And yet, in this abandoned dock, Cat had never been more disgusted with society. This is what all those crooked businessmen and rapacious-based careers were all fighting for, their very value of person was defined by this hollow crap.
She had never been particularly rich, generally living paycheck-to-paycheck of whatever job she could land, and yet she felt like she hadn't missed out. Money was more overrated than wishing on stars, and infinitely more time wasting.
She picked up a bundle of notes from the outermost edge of the pyramid and studied it carefully. "This is what you wanted?" She looked up at Joker in disbelief, who was standing on the top of the pile with their bound prisoner. Lau was passed out again, he was a coward of a man and Cat had barely removed two toes before he was sweating and unconscious.
Joker pulled on the bonds again, paranoid that Lau would break free before they could have their little show.
"Wanted?' He muttered under his breath. "Such a broad term, there are many things I want, most of them contradict. I want war, but not scheming. I want freedom, but not peace. I want hate- "He looked down at her with a half-smile, his gaze trailing to her low neckline and exposed scar. The heart had closed a few days ago, and was now nothing but a tattoo of rippling and whitened skin. "Well, it's so often those two intertwine."
The sound of parking cars caught their attention, and before Cat could walk to the doors to welcome their guests, an object flew over her head and landed a few feet before her. She squealed in delight, bending down to pick up the metal chain.
"You found it!" Cat fastened the belt through the loops of her black jeans, and twisted her hips to marvel at it. "I thought it was secured at the MCU. Or did you replicate it? Buy it off the black-market?"
Joker seemed offended at her accusations, his hand flying to his chest in disbelief. "Me?" He scoffed. "I'll have you know I broke into that little tea party myself."
She smiled, and ran her hands along the chain, enjoying the familiar comfort. "Hey Joker?"
"Hm?"
"I feel like a billion bucks!"
He threw one of the bundles at her, narrowly missing her head. It was a godawful joke, but he couldn't keep the smile from his face.
"C'mon," Cat began to unlock the heavy padlock of the hulk doors. "The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I hit that." She winked at Joker as four men sauntered past her and up to the impressive pile. She was honoured by the way they pointedly avoided her eye; her reputation evidently preceded her.
A beefy European with a ponytail of greasy hair nodded at the Joker, a cigar held between his lips. He was obviously the infamous Chechen, a high-end thug who had a hand in the Mexican drug cartel.
"Not so crazy as you look." Chechen laughed, cautiously watching Cat approach him. She stopped beside his two enormous Rottweilers, standing guard with her arms crossed. He turned back to the Joker with a smile, just as Joker stepped off the pyramid's head and slid down the pile in a cascade of bank notes. He landed beside Chechen's bodyguards with a flair, his arms raised for applause. Cat clapped, giggling, and turned slowly to Chechen with a wide smile. It took him 1/5th of a second to bring his hands together in a half-hearted clap.
Joker lowered his arms and spun on the spot, surveying the crowd frantically. "Where is the Italian?" He addressed the missing Salvatore Maroni, and turned to Chechen with a questioning gesture, who shrugged in response.
"Dirty snitch." Cat growled, pulling her belt taught and glowering at Chechen. "He was playing for your team, you gonna give us trouble too?"
He shook his head slightly before registering who he was answering too.
"Keep your little puta out of this." Chechen bellowed to Joker, pointing his cigar at him accusingly. Cat knelt beside the dogs, scrunching their ears and cooing loudly.
"Next time you call me that," She planted a kiss over the dog's snout. "You're gonna lose something." She finished with a smile that drained the blood from Chechen's face. Joker grimaced at Chechen, swinging his hand across his neck in a gesture to 'cut it out'.
Cat seemed to select a favourite dog, and was scratching it behind the ears causing its stubby tail to wag furiously. Chechen stared at his war dogs, completely belittled in her company. "Please. Joker-man," He turned back to Joker and decided to ignore Cat's actions. "What you do with all your money?"
"You see, I'm a guy of simple taste." Joker licked his lips in thought, bringing the handgun before him as he gestured his response. "I enjoy dynamite, and gunpowder, and gasoline-"
A nearby thug walked up to the Joker, a silver can of gasoline at the ready. After a nod from his boss the thug began splashing the gasoline around the base of the money-pyramid. Chechen was outraged by this and stepped forward to intervene, only to have Joker's handgun point towards his face.
"-Ah, ah, ah." He jabbed his gun at Chechen's forehead, leaning in close. "And you know the thing that they have in common? They're cheap."
Chechen was watching the handgun carefully, as it drew closer and closer to his temple, beads of sweat were forming over his face but he never broke eye contact with Joker.
"You said you were man of your word."
"Oh, I am." Joker plucked the cigar from his lips, rolling it between his gloved fingers and readying himself to throw. "I'm only burning my half."
A devastated expression crossed Chechen's face as he watched the cash burst into flames, casting a quivering orange glow over the company. Cat could've sworn she saw tears reflected in Chechen's eyes, his men were powerless to stop the defacing of currency and simply stood uselessly beside him.
"All you care about is money," Joker tutted, grinning at his work, "This town deserves a better class of criminal, and I'm going to give it to them." He shoved the handgun against Chechen's shoulder with a challenging smirk. "Tell your men they work for me now. This is my city."
At this Chechen smiled, the smile of a helpless and broken man. "They won't work for a freak." He snarled with a jutted jaw, and Cat stood to the Joker's defence with her belt at the ready.
"Freak." Joker mimicked Chechen's accent and brass voice, brandishing his favoured switchblade wickedly in the glow of the fire. "Why don't we cut you up into little pieces, and feed you to your pooches, hm? And then we'll see how loyal a hungry dog really is."
He nodded at Cat, who sprung on Chechen from behind and fastened the chain several times around his neck, hauling downwards to elicit a choking gurgle from Chechen's throat. From the burning pile of money, Lau's screams were growing louder and more desperate every second. Cat finally pulled the belt taut and felt it slice cleanly through Chechen's neck, wincing as his blood ruined what was a good 'makeup day'.
"It's not about money." Joker muttered, regarded the killing with mild disgust and pulled a cell phone from his coat pocket. "It's about sending a message." He looked over his shoulder again at the bonfire, a wistfulness filling his eyes. "Everything burns."
Cat watched the men slowly file out of the hold. Two dragged Chechen's body by his ankles, another carried his decapitated head. All of them made a pointed curve around Cat, scared to even breathe in her direction.
The bonfire was slowly dying; cash burnt brightly but not heartily, and flakes of white drifted lazily around the room carrying the smell of smoke. She hugged her arms around her chest and shivered in the cool September air that was curling its way into the giant metal container they were residing in; A good place to burn a billion dollars in, not so great for heat conservation.
She looked over to where the Joker was threatening the whole of Gotham on air; they were holding some sort of talk show and this first caller was threatening to blow up a hospital. Cat felt an overwhelming wave of affection at that moment.
Coleman Reese, a small businessman who Cat vaguely remembered from Wayne Enterprise, claimed that he would reveal the Batman's identity; how he learnt this was beyond anyone and yet with the absolute chaos that met them now, Gotham was ready to believe in miracles.
"If Coleman Reese isn't dead in 60 minutes," he was saying into the phone, "then I blow up a hospital." Joker hung up in a flourish and threw the phone into the smouldering remains of the fire, chuckling quietly to himself.
"According to plan?" Cat asked, casually, and strode around the fire to stand beside him.
"Always," he laughed, "I should be blowing up a little hospital in an hour."
She linked her arms through his elbow and watched the last remaining embers die in the hazy light. "An hour," She repeated slowly, "That's a lot of time to kill."
"Is it?" He seemed distracted, even slightly nervous, and he kept tapping his knife against his thigh.
"Hey," Cat turned his face with the tip of her index finger, resting her palm against his cheek. "It's gonna be fine, just relax."
Joker heaved a deep sigh and gently brushed his lips against her hand, seeking comfort. Cat smiled warmly and draped her coat on the cold concrete floor, settling into it with Joker in tow. He sat with his legs outstretched, propping himself up by his elbows and gazing into the smouldering pile. The warmth resonating from it was enough to fill them both with a sleepy comfort, she pulled her knees to her chest and rested her head on his shoulder with a small yawn.
"Strangely romantic." Cat murmured, nodding at the bonfire of money, he hummed in reply.
It was a comfortable silence, then, that enveloped them. A comfort only reached by great affection, and a silence that spoke for itself.
Cat nuzzled into his neck and closed her eyes, trying to memorise this moment in its entire pure form; the smell of the ash, the goosebumps that prickled her skin, the warmth on her face, the perfect way her head seemed to fit between his neck and shoulder like it was made just for her.
Three words were caught in her throat.
Three terrible, wonderful words.
She turned her head to glimpse Joker's expression; orange flames danced from his dark eyes and played across his scarred and painted face in a beauty that seemed unnatural, otherworldly, and impossible irresistible.
She opened her mouth, but the truth wouldn't come out, the blinding truth that could break everything like a bullet to glass. This moment was so fragile, Cat was terrified that these words would shatter it. Instead she rested her hand over his and swallowed the lump of shame in her throat.
Joker curled his fingers around hers and began to play with them gently, his thumb stroking over her knuckles. He traced every vein, every faded scar and crease, until she was sure he had it memorised.
Keeping her hand steady as his canvas, Cat curled her body around his and marvelled at how well she seemed to fit against him and how musical their mingling breaths sounded. No ballad, nor heartbreakingly beautiful love song could even come close to the way she loved the sound of them breathing in sync.
"I-I…" She trailed off, instead turning her face into Joker's coat to cut off the sound, and mime the remaining words against the fabric. It would anger him, revert him into the resentful and defensive man she knew him to be; ultimately, she would lose him and that was no longer even an option.
His hand moved to the back of her head, where he ran his hand through her hair and pulled away the tangles. Goose bumps formed along her neck and Cat shivered in pleasure.
The silence was broken, suddenly and unexpectedly. With barely any movement, Joker murmured under his breath for only her to hear
"I love you."
It wasn't dramatic, but soft, almost murmured absentmindedly. Not because they were in danger and had only a few seconds left together, but because it was a simple and unavoidable truth. Soft, but without a doubt, because it was long established that they loved each other a long time ago, in the kisses they shared, the looks exchanged, the roller-coaster of emotions that had Cat punching him one second and kissing him the next. Cat smiled and shifted her weight to press her face against his, sleepily, not attempting a kiss to cheapen the moment and was content with their foreheads resting against each other, noses brushing, breathing him in.
"I love you too." She replied quietly, merely confirming her affections.
It was incredibly sweet, the kind of scene in a movie that has cynics scoffing and romantics sighing wistfully; 'that will never happen' they both say, because despite what movies want us to believe, love is monumentally rare. Most that find it don't realise it, and those that do realise it too late. The rest settle for companionship, driven by the desperate need not to be alone.
It was sweet, until Joker decided to whisper an invitation against her lips that tingled pink into her cheeks.
"Really?" She shook her head, despite her sadistic nature she couldn't keep the shy smile from her lips, "You wanna ruin it like that?"
"20 minutes." He indicated his watch with smirk, but his eyes were warm and affectionate.
"Let me think about it." Cat teased, pushing him into the jacket with her palm, and leaning above him by her forearms. Her hair trailed down her chin and pooled in a swirl of blonde and black beside his face. Cat kissed the corner of his mouth, softly, their lips barely touching and their fingers intertwined.
In twenty minutes they would blow up a hospital.
But for the moment, they were both in love.