Who's Laughing Now?

Chapter 13

**

It appears that a natural fool couldn't rid themselves of their office when they tired of it and was to serve until royalty freed them from their obligation. Although an artificial fool could abandon their role when he eventually grew weary of it or it no longer suited him. –The History of the Fool

~*~

"The BAD news is, the router is dead." Barbara didn't know HOW the router was dead, it should have had it's own back-up power source. "I could have worked around it, if I was mobile," she added bitterly. They now lacked a connection with the other networked resources in the cave, in addition to the outside world.

"And the good news?" Alfred was hardly an optimist. He considered himself pragmatically by nature, but at this point, he was looking for SOME sign of encouragement.

"The good news is that both grids that the cave is on are out. The house is probably out too. I have no idea why the backup generators haven't kicked on." It wasn't really good news. Actually, it was probably worse news.

They'd abandoned the idea of turning off the cave's computer in order to disengage the magnetic locks because they didn't wish to leave the cave completely defenseless, in light of whatever was transpiring above them. There was also the issue of the shear magnitude of difficulty involved in disconnecting the massive machine from its power source.

Alfred took off his coat jacket. "Then I need to start looking for alternate ways out of the cave." Which would be exceptionally difficult—the cave's security magnetically sealed most of the usual entrances and exits incase of just such an occurrence.

He hated rock climbing.

* * *

In his sleep, Tim could hear movement in the house. His eyes snapped open, hoping it was some figment of his imagination, but knowing it probably was not. As he did so, there was the faintest of movements in the air, and he raised his hands, just before trouble struck.

A wire closed around his jaw, and barely refrained from tearing into his neck by the presence of Tim's right hand. The thin metal dug into the left side of his neck, and the pressure tore into his glove and the flesh of his hand. His knuckles were doing just as sufficient of a job of cutting off his air supply as strangulation alone. He could only be glad his head was still attached, briefly thinking of the young man at the diner.

His free hand reached behind him and grabbed the hair of his assailant, but he lacked the leverage to do much about it. "Damned little kids…" a voice muttered in his ear. "Shoot the big one, and he gets another brat. I kill that one, and then he gets you. Don't do ANYTHING to you, and he gets the girl…"

During his tirade, Tim managed to get his feet under himself enough to almost stand. Unfortunately, his head was exploding, and he was finding it difficult to get his bearings. He let out one strangled grunt of protest, and then went limp, hoping that the Joker would let go. Regrettably, it was very close to not being an act.

"He thinks this is about you," the Joker pointed out, not easing up in the least. "It's not about you. This is about how it's not about you!"

"Leave him the fuck alone!" cried a gravely voice, tearing from the bedroom.

'Great', Tim thought as he lost consciousness… 'Dick's going to get himself killed trying to save me.'

"And YOU!" The Joker hollered, turning with Robin still in his grasp. "You're running out of limbs for me to shoot you in!" He throttled the boy once. "You like this? I wanted to rip his head off like a lump of clay. Mold me something outta a lump of Rob--"

Using his only weapon left, Dick hurled himself at his adversary. His broken body gave painful cries of protestation as their masses collided. Just before they crashed to the floor in a painful heap, the Joker let go of Robin, and the boy slid down the wall, his own body bleeding and bruised.

The Joker kicked Brat Number One in his already fractured ribs, pushing the body off of his. "That's it. I've HAD it! We do NOT treat our elders like this, young man." Drawing out a knife, he knelt next to the broken heap that was Dick Grayson. The boy didn't know whether he was a bird or a bat, but the Joker didn't think he looked like much of anything, his ribs and arm disfigured by the struggle, his nose and mouth bleeding profusely. He'd make something out of the boy that the Bat wouldn't soon forget…

The blade was as long as his forearm. It flickered and danced with evil intent in the moonlight. Grabbing the young man by the hair, he hoisted his stunned and blinking victim slightly off the ground. The tip dug into the boy's chest, producing a thin trickle of blood. "And here's what I am going to do about it." Grayson's eyes closed, and what little rigor was left in his body melted like margarine on a summer's day. "Fine. Be that way. But there's no rule that says I can't mutilate your body." Tightening his grip on the knife, he prepared to twist the blade into the boy's chest.

"I don't think so," a snarling voice ground out from behind the boy. How'd that window get opened?

Releasing the knife, the Joker realized that the fun was just beginning.

"I've gotten three Robins, and I'm almost two for two on the Batgirls," Joker pointed out with an innocent grin. He dropped the limp figure in his hand, and it fell to the carpet with a thud. Backing up, he laughed, thinking of the good times he'd had. "Now if the stupid girl hadn't gone scampering off, THEN I could call it two for two. The ladies are so much more… hospitable when they're pumped full of…urk…" Batman's hand had grabbed hold of the Joker's throat.

He hoisted the beast into the air. The clown weighed nearly nothing, Batman noted as he tossed its foul caracas down the steps. He didn't thrust the body towards the landing—he picked it up over the railing and sent it careening down the second flight of steps.

"Ok. That wasn't very nice," the Joker called out from the ground, rubbing his neck. The Batman landed on his chest, crushing him into the marble tiling on the first floor. "I did you a service!" The Joker cried out in a rushed breath as all the air left his lungs.

Slamming his head into the marble once, Batman picked the stunned maniac off the ground by the throat again.

The Joker's pasty, thin hands wrapped around the grief-stricken Dark Knight's glove, trying to relieve some of the stress upon his neck. "Uk…Bats…They weren't good for you! It's better with them gone…"

Batman rammed the Joker's back into the banister. How many times had Dick slid down or leapt over it as a child? Jason had been trying to follow suit once, and had landed on his head.

His voice ground low with bleeding pain, like chewing glass. "How DARE you touch what is mine?"

"NO!" The Joker cried out angrily. "How dare you RUIN what we had!"

Batman punched 'it' in the face, trying to make 'it' shut up. But the clown persisted.

"I did all this for you! For us! So you'd see that you belong to me. And I belong to you."

Grabbing the clown by his magenta shirt, he hoisted the foul thing into the air, and then paused. "WHAT?" some part of him, beyond the rage and agony wanted to know why this was happening.

The blood-smattered cheeks of the Joker pulled back in an even wider grin than usual. "See, you know it's true. This wasn't about them. It's about you and me. And they got in the way of something beautiful." Still Batman remained frozen. SOME reaction would have been nice. "We had it good. You and me. We had the ultimate two-man act. You were the straight man, I was the funny man. Abbot and Costello. Lucy and Dezzie, but we don't sleep in twin beds. But we were better than that! The World's Greatest Detective, and the World's Funniest Villain, in a battle to the death! It was drama! It was comedy! And then those damned little brats showed up. And I couldn't get rid of them. It was worse than cockroaches, rats and lice, all rolled into one. So I did it. I did it all. ME. All by myself. It's amazing what the right contacts, a LOT of time, and a butt-load of Ritalin can do."

Suddenly, Batman's other hand snapped out, grabbing the Joker by the throat, instantly ceasing the airway, stopping the evil clown's incessant blather. "You REALLY thought that this would go unanswered?" Now he'd do what he should have done a long time ago.

* * *

Alfred checked the battery-operated communications equipment one more time when he got to the top of the cave steps. The small lantern atop his helmet bathed the area directly in front of him in tawny illumination, about the only to be had in the cave at that time. He looked at the catwalk that lead to the elevator, and the shaft above it.

"Do you have me?" Oracle asked in his ear.

"I do," he confirmed.

Suddenly there was the cracking and breaking of wood on the other side of the cave wall. "You REALLY thought that this would go unanswered?"

"Oh dear," Alfred said mildly, but the fear was too evident in his voice.

"We have to get out there," Barbara's voice whispered into his ear via the communications system. She'd apparently heard the outburst via his microphone.

Alfred hastened his pace to the elevator and prepared to unscrew the bolts that locked the access panel to the elevator shaft.

Turning back to the computer, and her attempts at getting a connection with the outside world, she prayed they'd be quick enough. She didn't know what was happening, or what had already transpired—but she was the only one allowed to kill Dick. And if anyone else interfered… well, she didn't know what she'd do. How she'd keep going. "Please get there in time," she whispered as she initiated the archaic practice of dial-up.

Barbara just wanted to hurt him one more time herself. That's all she asked for.

* * *

Why wasn't the Joker afraid?

Bruce thought he should be. That jackal was, after all, moments away from death.

He hadn't remembered entering the study, but it seemed somewhat fitting that it ended where it all began. Still with the Joker's throat in his hand, he pushed the fiend's body onto the hardwood desk. He wanted to make this painful. Breaking every bone in the Joker's body would do.

An imagine flashed in his mind, Tim's figure, lying crumpled on the floor, his throat partially slit. Dick's inert body, and the puddle of blood. It was both of theirs, mixing on the carpet. Jim on the steps.

Breaking all the bones in the Joker's body before delivering him to higher judgment wasn't enough.

Bruce grabbed the Joker's fingers and sharply pulled them backwards. There was a snap and a pop, and the Joker's strangled, but somewhat satisfied cry.

It wasn't enough—but it was a start.



CONTINUED in Chapter 14

Once a jester displeased his master, he did not, according to popular belief, face the chopping block. A jester was only put to death after committing a crime. He then would have been burned at the stake or drawn and quartered depending on the offense performed. The block was reserved for those of noble blood and then only if they committed treason. There is evidence of fools who had displeased their masters and were severally beaten. In some cases, they were beaten to death. –The History of the Fool