"Dad?"
She wheeled herself into the small house leaving the insecurities of the dark, loathing
city behind her. She heard the frenzied squeal of tyres as the Taxi pulled away from the
kerb and into the damp night.
It was good to have company on a day such as this.
Especially a night like this.
Gotham was lonely. The 'Bat-Family' scattered on various assignments across and away
from the city - all aside from Bruce who refused to say what he was up to. It was as if by
sharing his secrets to so many, he had to create even more secrets - just to balance things
up.
Even Dick was away tonight. She grunted. Tonight of all nights. It couldn't be helped, in
fact, it was her choice. He was under a lot of pressure lately, too much in fact. No, Dick
shouldn't have to carry her burden as well. She had insisted he got away and do what
needed to be done that night. She would be fine with her dad.
To be honest, She knew she wouldn't be fine - especially with her dad. His burden on this
day was as big as hers. In someways, it was as much to go and comfort him as much as it
was for him to comfort her.
She had noticed the new security device by the front door. That was good. You needed to
keep your security devices up to date, especially in Gotham.
She glided her chair into the living area. She adjusted her glasses. "Dad?" she called.
There was a smell.
That smell. She covered her nose.
She tried to place it but she couldn't - yet she could feel her muscles tense of their own
accord. Her body knew that scent - her mind was having to play catch up.
Something was wrong.
The lights went out.
"Dad!" she screamed. Not tonight of all nights. She could feel perspiration begin to tickle
her cheek. Her blue pullover began to itch and the logo 'Weezer good' just didn't seem
funny anymore. Her body began to feel like a lump of granite.
"Buck up Barbara!" she chastised herself. "What's wrong with you? You used to deal with
situations like this all the time. Get a grip!" Talking to yourself now. Great.
Of all the days. Not today. Not today of all days.
"Barbara, honey, is that you?" Came a gruff voice from out the backdoor.
"Dad?" She enquired. She moved slowly through the house. Tense. Carefully. It was his
voice, but something was wrong. Very wrong.
She opened the door to the back of the house.
A figure sat scratched into the shadows. He was sitting on a garden chair in a long dark
coat. Dad's trenchcoat. He remained still.
"Dad - what's wrong?" She brought herself down onto the patio.
"What's wrong?" He asked sharply. "On a day like this? This very day?" The figure stood
up, carefully remaining shrouded, as if for dramatic effect. Barbara's heart dropped like a
lead weight into her stomach. She was going to be sick. Not here. Not today. Fear and
anger congealed in an untidy concoction through her veins.
"Where's my father?" She asked angrily. Damn. Her voice was shaky. She now knew she
was very scared.
"Papa Gordon was called out on urgent business!" the swung his arms into the arm with
overdone theatrics "As has his Batacular Bat Brady Bunch!" The rough tones were fading
with each word. The voice was getting higher and higher - to an almost fevered cackle.
The figure's breath was audibly getting very excited.
Bile leaped into her throat and she rubbed her eyes. She looked up and to her horror, the
figure was gone - as fast and quietly as Bruce. She backed the chair up feeling for her
utility pouch she had stored under her seat.
Her neck felt warm. Gentle, irregular breaths of air tickling the back of her neck. The
smell - how could she have forgotten the smell?
Because she had to.
She forced the chair forward away from the door and into the garden.
"Opps!" Declared a voice, uttering an apology for an act not yet committed.
Then the chair was forcibly tipped and Barbara Gordon was knocked onto the grass.
She felt cold hands press her into the earth and a face rubbed up against her cheek. The
smell was nauseating.
"Tonight," the Joker whispered, "I'm going to take us both onto a trip down memory
lane!" He laughed maniacally and deliberately into her ear, deafening her. Barbara's body
was frozen with a fear that she had thought she was long since supressed.
"It will be fun!" Declared the voice. There was a pause - a deliberation. Then an evil grin.
"Well, it will be fun for me anyhow!" he chuckled nonchalantly.
***
"Holy break ins!" Declared the boy.
"What is it Robin?" Batman pulled the Batmobile round one of Gotham's many tight
corners. His fingers gripped the wheel firmly.
"Barbara is in trouble!" Robin exclaimed.
"You sure?" Batman glanced at the batphone. It was not flashing and Robin hadn't picked
it up. Nevertheless the timing couldn't be better. Just heading back to the cave after a
hard nights work. "How do you know?"
"Because you know too."
Robin's voice had changed. Familiar, but different. Not Dick.
But then Dick wasn't Robin was he?
Batman kept his fixed on the dark street-lit road. Robin continued - same tone. "You've
been worried all day."
Had he? Yes he had. How could he have forgotten?
"I know Jason. She's meant to be visiting Jim today - she must be at his place. Typical
Joker. To the day."
He swung the car round, just as Jason said something that made his heart stop.
"The anniversary of the day he shot Barbara."
It was as if all his senses rang out at once. He supressed them. "Exactly." Replied The
Batman through gritted teeth. His eyes wavered down to the Batphone. It was no longer
there. He frowned. Puzzling. Then again, it was a while since he had actually kept a
batphone in his car. In fact, had he ever?
He floored the accelerator and the mighty vehicle leapt forward.
"Be prepared Jason. The Joker will be ready for us. No heroics like.." He stopped.
"Like when I went after my mother?"
Batman's hands began to shake uncontrollably.
"No, I mean.." He stopped. What did he mean? Jason was here. He hadn't gone after his
mother.
He hadn't died after going after his mother.
"Everyone's going to want a piece of the Joker, after what he did to Barbara."
When had he said that?
His hands. They were shaking. Yes, he had said that. Just before Jason had died. He was
talking about Barbara to Jim. That was years ago. It had been a double blow in the space
of a few months. He shot Barbara through the spine and then beaten Jason to death.
He turned to his companion, confusion turning to irritation."You can't know about the
anniversary, Jason, you died shortly after she was shot." He looked back towards the road
and then suddenly grabbed at his chest.
Pain.
He slammed the breaks on the car and removed the canopy. He stumbled out onto the
dark, wet pavement. "You died." he gasped. "What's wrong with me?"
Jason leapt out of the car and landed by Batman's side. "What's a death among friends, eh
Bruce?" he said brightly. "You must be getting used to it by now. Should make Barbara's
easier - if he let's her die, of course."
Batman looked up. "You don't believe that!" he exclaimed as he dabbed his nose. It was
bleeding. "I would have died if it would have saved you and I'd do the same for Barbara!"
Jason's features were grim. Locked tight. His eyes burning with hatred. "And if it all got
in the way of the crusade? Just another death in the family." Batman started to cough.
Passers by stopped and watch as the Dark Knight fell to the floor. No not Barbara as well.
He had been keeping an eye on the Joker's movements just in case something like this. So
how did he let himself get caught of guard - driving casually back to Stately Wayne
Manor with Jason.
Stately Wayne Manor? When had he ever called it that?
"You're dead!" He yelled at the top of his voice. His companion didn't flinch. Instead he
knelt down towards his mentor and wiped some of the blood from Bruce's cowl.
"I know." He said softly, trailing the blood he had collected on his finger down Bruce's
lips. "Soon you will be too."
***
She struggled with frenzied panic, trying desperately to dislodge the evl creature, but like
a stranger in a dream - and she had met this stranger in many a dream - he was
impossible to remove.
Smiling, laughing, cackling. Limbs moving of their own accord. Unpredictable, but
always resulting in the same firm grip on her body. She could feel his frenzied
excitement like a young boy finally unwrapping his new toy.
She squirmed under his pincer grip. "Oh come on four eyes!" He snarled. "You can dance
better than this!"
She tried to scratch him, but was unable to get a firm grip on his silky white skin. "You
know," he reflected, "I was due for a vacation, but I said, no Joker, you have
commitments to think about!"
His face suddenly changed from deliriously ecstatic to deadly serious and his neck
suddenly craned back into Barbara's face. "So be appreciative!" He growled, his lips just
millimetres from her own. His foul smelling spit caught on her bared teeth. She managed
to force his face away but it was only replaced with the firm grip of a gloved hand across
her mouth.
She struggled as her lungs began to burst with the need for air. Joker watched from above
with disinterest.
"See you when you wake up!" he teased. Joker's grin and the rest of the world behind it
faded to black.
***
Batman stood up and pushed Robin aside. He rested his hands on the bonnet of the
Batmobile, it's motor was still purring. Jason was already sitting in the driver seat, his
body ensconced in the leather seat. Batman tumbled into the passenger side. His
breathing laboured. He knew the symptoms - but never had them himself.
This was some sort of panic attack.
What was wrong with him?
"Barbara needs your help Bruce." Jason said, started revving the motor. "You've been set
up. Set up big time."
Bruce watched the canopy close. He removed his mask, sweat and blood smeared across
his face.
"This is so cruel." He whispered.
"It's the life you chose for all of us." Jason replied with a shrug as he took the first corner.
"You are closer to being beaten Bruce. Your new group has been manipulated, giving
Joker the space to do what he wants without being threatened."
"I'll stop him." Bruce spat, rage boiling from within. "I always stop him." It was a rage he
hadn't felt for years, surging through his body like acid through paper. "Drive me to
Gordon's house and alert Nightwing."
"I can't." Jason casually remarked. "Hmm, nasty junction that. Forgot about that one." He
powered the car through the city streets and into the outskirts.
"Wait." Bruce paused. Part of himself believed he was playing along with these bizarre
circumstance, the other part believed it. "How are we being manipulated?"
"Joker has set this up months in advance. Created scenarios which have pulled your new
Robin and bat companions away from the city."
"How do you know this?" Bruce asked. "And why did he not try and manipulate me?"
"I know this because you know this." Jason itched his face with one hand still on the
wheel. He adjusted the rear view mirror. "As for you, well he's got you the best of all."
Bruce's jaw went slack and Jason smiled.
"Don't you remember Bruce?"
***
There is a warehouse.
Totally unremarkable, it was built twenty years ago in Gotham's most industrial period.
Now it sits there. An empty vessel, a hollow reminder of how profitable the district
property once was.
All the trails had ended there.
There was little movement from the building. Any passers wouldn't have even noticed the
Bat shaped figure drift in through one of the broken windows. He was too good to be
spotted.
Even now, six hours later, they would be unaware of any commotion or turmoil from
within the walls.
If someone had looked and gone into the grounds, prised open the rusted metal doors -
they would have found something that no man could ever forget and should really have
never seen in the first place.
Sharp pieces of needle shaped projectiles scattered the floor. If the said person looked
even more carefully, he'd find little secreted projectile launchers throughout the shadows
of the inner walls.
Secluded.
Hidden - all covered in masking nets.
If such a person had gone to these lengths, despite the horror of the building's centre
piece, he may have concluded that someone had spent a long time setting up such a trap.
He would have also concluded that it was a very successful trap.
For lying in the centre of the warehouse, on the cold dusty dirt clogged floor, was a body.
The body wore the tattered remains of a vigilante's uniform, the cape riddled with tiny
holes.
It lay twitching.
Bleeding.
Sweating.
The mouth fixed with lines of pain. Covered in tiny sharp metal needles and pinpricks of
blood. Pieced, the man looked like a deformed cactus. Spines blossoming across his face,
his body, and his limbs, ready to flower with deadly intent.
The image of the bat upon the man's chest was torn to shreds, much like the man's mind.
Inside that mind, Batman screamed like a caged animal.
She wheeled herself into the small house leaving the insecurities of the dark, loathing
city behind her. She heard the frenzied squeal of tyres as the Taxi pulled away from the
kerb and into the damp night.
It was good to have company on a day such as this.
Especially a night like this.
Gotham was lonely. The 'Bat-Family' scattered on various assignments across and away
from the city - all aside from Bruce who refused to say what he was up to. It was as if by
sharing his secrets to so many, he had to create even more secrets - just to balance things
up.
Even Dick was away tonight. She grunted. Tonight of all nights. It couldn't be helped, in
fact, it was her choice. He was under a lot of pressure lately, too much in fact. No, Dick
shouldn't have to carry her burden as well. She had insisted he got away and do what
needed to be done that night. She would be fine with her dad.
To be honest, She knew she wouldn't be fine - especially with her dad. His burden on this
day was as big as hers. In someways, it was as much to go and comfort him as much as it
was for him to comfort her.
She had noticed the new security device by the front door. That was good. You needed to
keep your security devices up to date, especially in Gotham.
She glided her chair into the living area. She adjusted her glasses. "Dad?" she called.
There was a smell.
That smell. She covered her nose.
She tried to place it but she couldn't - yet she could feel her muscles tense of their own
accord. Her body knew that scent - her mind was having to play catch up.
Something was wrong.
The lights went out.
"Dad!" she screamed. Not tonight of all nights. She could feel perspiration begin to tickle
her cheek. Her blue pullover began to itch and the logo 'Weezer good' just didn't seem
funny anymore. Her body began to feel like a lump of granite.
"Buck up Barbara!" she chastised herself. "What's wrong with you? You used to deal with
situations like this all the time. Get a grip!" Talking to yourself now. Great.
Of all the days. Not today. Not today of all days.
"Barbara, honey, is that you?" Came a gruff voice from out the backdoor.
"Dad?" She enquired. She moved slowly through the house. Tense. Carefully. It was his
voice, but something was wrong. Very wrong.
She opened the door to the back of the house.
A figure sat scratched into the shadows. He was sitting on a garden chair in a long dark
coat. Dad's trenchcoat. He remained still.
"Dad - what's wrong?" She brought herself down onto the patio.
"What's wrong?" He asked sharply. "On a day like this? This very day?" The figure stood
up, carefully remaining shrouded, as if for dramatic effect. Barbara's heart dropped like a
lead weight into her stomach. She was going to be sick. Not here. Not today. Fear and
anger congealed in an untidy concoction through her veins.
"Where's my father?" She asked angrily. Damn. Her voice was shaky. She now knew she
was very scared.
"Papa Gordon was called out on urgent business!" the swung his arms into the arm with
overdone theatrics "As has his Batacular Bat Brady Bunch!" The rough tones were fading
with each word. The voice was getting higher and higher - to an almost fevered cackle.
The figure's breath was audibly getting very excited.
Bile leaped into her throat and she rubbed her eyes. She looked up and to her horror, the
figure was gone - as fast and quietly as Bruce. She backed the chair up feeling for her
utility pouch she had stored under her seat.
Her neck felt warm. Gentle, irregular breaths of air tickling the back of her neck. The
smell - how could she have forgotten the smell?
Because she had to.
She forced the chair forward away from the door and into the garden.
"Opps!" Declared a voice, uttering an apology for an act not yet committed.
Then the chair was forcibly tipped and Barbara Gordon was knocked onto the grass.
She felt cold hands press her into the earth and a face rubbed up against her cheek. The
smell was nauseating.
"Tonight," the Joker whispered, "I'm going to take us both onto a trip down memory
lane!" He laughed maniacally and deliberately into her ear, deafening her. Barbara's body
was frozen with a fear that she had thought she was long since supressed.
"It will be fun!" Declared the voice. There was a pause - a deliberation. Then an evil grin.
"Well, it will be fun for me anyhow!" he chuckled nonchalantly.
***
"Holy break ins!" Declared the boy.
"What is it Robin?" Batman pulled the Batmobile round one of Gotham's many tight
corners. His fingers gripped the wheel firmly.
"Barbara is in trouble!" Robin exclaimed.
"You sure?" Batman glanced at the batphone. It was not flashing and Robin hadn't picked
it up. Nevertheless the timing couldn't be better. Just heading back to the cave after a
hard nights work. "How do you know?"
"Because you know too."
Robin's voice had changed. Familiar, but different. Not Dick.
But then Dick wasn't Robin was he?
Batman kept his fixed on the dark street-lit road. Robin continued - same tone. "You've
been worried all day."
Had he? Yes he had. How could he have forgotten?
"I know Jason. She's meant to be visiting Jim today - she must be at his place. Typical
Joker. To the day."
He swung the car round, just as Jason said something that made his heart stop.
"The anniversary of the day he shot Barbara."
It was as if all his senses rang out at once. He supressed them. "Exactly." Replied The
Batman through gritted teeth. His eyes wavered down to the Batphone. It was no longer
there. He frowned. Puzzling. Then again, it was a while since he had actually kept a
batphone in his car. In fact, had he ever?
He floored the accelerator and the mighty vehicle leapt forward.
"Be prepared Jason. The Joker will be ready for us. No heroics like.." He stopped.
"Like when I went after my mother?"
Batman's hands began to shake uncontrollably.
"No, I mean.." He stopped. What did he mean? Jason was here. He hadn't gone after his
mother.
He hadn't died after going after his mother.
"Everyone's going to want a piece of the Joker, after what he did to Barbara."
When had he said that?
His hands. They were shaking. Yes, he had said that. Just before Jason had died. He was
talking about Barbara to Jim. That was years ago. It had been a double blow in the space
of a few months. He shot Barbara through the spine and then beaten Jason to death.
He turned to his companion, confusion turning to irritation."You can't know about the
anniversary, Jason, you died shortly after she was shot." He looked back towards the road
and then suddenly grabbed at his chest.
Pain.
He slammed the breaks on the car and removed the canopy. He stumbled out onto the
dark, wet pavement. "You died." he gasped. "What's wrong with me?"
Jason leapt out of the car and landed by Batman's side. "What's a death among friends, eh
Bruce?" he said brightly. "You must be getting used to it by now. Should make Barbara's
easier - if he let's her die, of course."
Batman looked up. "You don't believe that!" he exclaimed as he dabbed his nose. It was
bleeding. "I would have died if it would have saved you and I'd do the same for Barbara!"
Jason's features were grim. Locked tight. His eyes burning with hatred. "And if it all got
in the way of the crusade? Just another death in the family." Batman started to cough.
Passers by stopped and watch as the Dark Knight fell to the floor. No not Barbara as well.
He had been keeping an eye on the Joker's movements just in case something like this. So
how did he let himself get caught of guard - driving casually back to Stately Wayne
Manor with Jason.
Stately Wayne Manor? When had he ever called it that?
"You're dead!" He yelled at the top of his voice. His companion didn't flinch. Instead he
knelt down towards his mentor and wiped some of the blood from Bruce's cowl.
"I know." He said softly, trailing the blood he had collected on his finger down Bruce's
lips. "Soon you will be too."
***
She struggled with frenzied panic, trying desperately to dislodge the evl creature, but like
a stranger in a dream - and she had met this stranger in many a dream - he was
impossible to remove.
Smiling, laughing, cackling. Limbs moving of their own accord. Unpredictable, but
always resulting in the same firm grip on her body. She could feel his frenzied
excitement like a young boy finally unwrapping his new toy.
She squirmed under his pincer grip. "Oh come on four eyes!" He snarled. "You can dance
better than this!"
She tried to scratch him, but was unable to get a firm grip on his silky white skin. "You
know," he reflected, "I was due for a vacation, but I said, no Joker, you have
commitments to think about!"
His face suddenly changed from deliriously ecstatic to deadly serious and his neck
suddenly craned back into Barbara's face. "So be appreciative!" He growled, his lips just
millimetres from her own. His foul smelling spit caught on her bared teeth. She managed
to force his face away but it was only replaced with the firm grip of a gloved hand across
her mouth.
She struggled as her lungs began to burst with the need for air. Joker watched from above
with disinterest.
"See you when you wake up!" he teased. Joker's grin and the rest of the world behind it
faded to black.
***
Batman stood up and pushed Robin aside. He rested his hands on the bonnet of the
Batmobile, it's motor was still purring. Jason was already sitting in the driver seat, his
body ensconced in the leather seat. Batman tumbled into the passenger side. His
breathing laboured. He knew the symptoms - but never had them himself.
This was some sort of panic attack.
What was wrong with him?
"Barbara needs your help Bruce." Jason said, started revving the motor. "You've been set
up. Set up big time."
Bruce watched the canopy close. He removed his mask, sweat and blood smeared across
his face.
"This is so cruel." He whispered.
"It's the life you chose for all of us." Jason replied with a shrug as he took the first corner.
"You are closer to being beaten Bruce. Your new group has been manipulated, giving
Joker the space to do what he wants without being threatened."
"I'll stop him." Bruce spat, rage boiling from within. "I always stop him." It was a rage he
hadn't felt for years, surging through his body like acid through paper. "Drive me to
Gordon's house and alert Nightwing."
"I can't." Jason casually remarked. "Hmm, nasty junction that. Forgot about that one." He
powered the car through the city streets and into the outskirts.
"Wait." Bruce paused. Part of himself believed he was playing along with these bizarre
circumstance, the other part believed it. "How are we being manipulated?"
"Joker has set this up months in advance. Created scenarios which have pulled your new
Robin and bat companions away from the city."
"How do you know this?" Bruce asked. "And why did he not try and manipulate me?"
"I know this because you know this." Jason itched his face with one hand still on the
wheel. He adjusted the rear view mirror. "As for you, well he's got you the best of all."
Bruce's jaw went slack and Jason smiled.
"Don't you remember Bruce?"
***
There is a warehouse.
Totally unremarkable, it was built twenty years ago in Gotham's most industrial period.
Now it sits there. An empty vessel, a hollow reminder of how profitable the district
property once was.
All the trails had ended there.
There was little movement from the building. Any passers wouldn't have even noticed the
Bat shaped figure drift in through one of the broken windows. He was too good to be
spotted.
Even now, six hours later, they would be unaware of any commotion or turmoil from
within the walls.
If someone had looked and gone into the grounds, prised open the rusted metal doors -
they would have found something that no man could ever forget and should really have
never seen in the first place.
Sharp pieces of needle shaped projectiles scattered the floor. If the said person looked
even more carefully, he'd find little secreted projectile launchers throughout the shadows
of the inner walls.
Secluded.
Hidden - all covered in masking nets.
If such a person had gone to these lengths, despite the horror of the building's centre
piece, he may have concluded that someone had spent a long time setting up such a trap.
He would have also concluded that it was a very successful trap.
For lying in the centre of the warehouse, on the cold dusty dirt clogged floor, was a body.
The body wore the tattered remains of a vigilante's uniform, the cape riddled with tiny
holes.
It lay twitching.
Bleeding.
Sweating.
The mouth fixed with lines of pain. Covered in tiny sharp metal needles and pinpricks of
blood. Pieced, the man looked like a deformed cactus. Spines blossoming across his face,
his body, and his limbs, ready to flower with deadly intent.
The image of the bat upon the man's chest was torn to shreds, much like the man's mind.
Inside that mind, Batman screamed like a caged animal.