Behind Enemy Punchlines
Chapter One
Some people find God in their last moments, but you just find the end of your patience.
Not that you expect much truth from someone called the Joker, but this was supposed to be a safehouse. Bullets aren't supposed to start flying until you're masked up, heart in your throat, with at least some hope of holding your own. Dying in a condemned building behind the world's rattiest couch? Not part of your five year plan.
A stray bullet pierces the dusty fabric a foot from your nose, burying itself into the wall by your head.
You don't know any of the guys here, so you feel nothing but relief when one of them collapses near enough to your hiding place that you can reach his gun. Finally, some fucking luck. If the growing puddle of his lifeblood is anything to go by, he won't mind if you just—
The moment you reach for his weapon, a gloved hand scruffs you, and your nose is hitting the bare floor before you can react.
"Don't move," barks a modulated voice.
The pain in your head is immediate and eye watering. This asshole is gonna think you're crying from fear, though, and you're not dying like that.
"Buy me—dinner first," you grunt as hands roughly pat you down, checking for weapons that you don't have.
You're flipped—none too gently—onto your back, and then you almost shed fearful tears for real.
"Sorry, sweetheart," the Red Hood says, leveling a mirthless barrel at your head, "I don't find clowns very funny."
No, you think as a gunshot rings through the room—
No, you're not laughing at all.
Several Days Earlier
It's not the liquor or the pot or the roiling feeling of ineptitude that convinces you in the end—oh no. To your eternal shame, it's a fifteen question internet quiz and Tony-fucking-Billings that tips the balance of your life.
"C'mon," he slurs, knobby legs stuck through the railing of your deathtrap fire escape, "what've we got to lose?"
The answer is, of course, everything, but at the moment all you can think of is your lost job, your two roommates, and your checking account with barely enough for a Happy Meal and a pack of gum. You're living at the bottom of a great cesspit, and every time you try to claw out by your own power, someone up above starts dumping more shit. Hard to keep your grip with shit hands.
So maybe, you start thinking, Tony—Tony, who you no longer lend money to, because he hasn't paid you back since… ever—maybe he's onto something when he suggests borrowing someone else's power. Maybe there's an elevator somewhere in this cesspit, and you just need to pay your dues to take a ride up.
…And maybe the crossfading has you waxing poetic about becoming one of the Joker's goons.
"You're stupid as shit," you say on an exhale, smoke curling around the rusty bars before dissipating into the equally fresh Gotham air. "He treats his people about as bad as he treats his enemies. You see that write up in the Gazette last week?"
"You read th' paper?" Tony asks from his place on the metal grating, head pillowed on his arms.
"It's free on the app—y'know what, never mind." You pass the dwindling joint. "Point is, he killed a whole bunch of his guys in a warehouse explosion. The police aren't sure if it was collateral damage or what."
Tony's brows are furrowed up, and you wonder if he's still stuck on "collateral damage."
"They were pr'bably double-crossing him or somethin," he says finally, waving you off with one languid arm. "My cousin—y'know Mikey?"
"Two grades above us, got expelled for threatening someone with a weapon he made in woodshop?"
"Yeah, Mr. Han was a real asshole for that. Anyway, he's been with him for years. Says he's not as bad as they say."
You look at him askance, waiting for him to catch up to the irony, but he never does.
"I'm sure he's got a real nice 401k." You snatch the joint back to his muzzy protest.
"Like you had one at th' place that just sacked you," he says petulantly when you take a long, angry drag.
And okay, ouch. Touché.
"Didn't get sacked," you mumble. "Just didn't get hired on after the temp contract ran out."
Tony just laughs.
For that, you take one last pull and then toss the remainder of the joint over the edge, watching it spin into the darkness. You half hope it catches something on fire, but all that's down there is wet garbage.
Tony groans when you stand, brushing off your jeans, and you don't offer a hand up when you step over him, back to the apartment.
It's inside that your fate is sealed.
"God, you smell like a skunk," Ledge says from the couch as you wrestle the window most of the way closed, leaving a gap for when Tony unpeels himself from the fire escape.
It's true that whatever flower Tony got his hands on this time smells rank, but you've seen Ledge get fucked up on way worse shit and haven't curled your lip like that. You almost flip them off, but Layla is tucked under their arm, and you like her more than your shitty second roommate.
She waves, giggling like Ledge's observation was a joke.
"Sup guys," you grit out and make to shut yourself in your closet of a room.
Layla calls you over before you can slide out of view. "Come take my Uquiz! It's for a class."
You don't want to do anything that puts you in the same room as Ledge; their reaction upon hearing about your job situation was to ask if you were still good for the rent. Apparently a friend of theirs is looking for a place. Asshole.
"Nah, 'm just gonna—"
Ledge pulls their eyes from the TV to resume their glare. "It takes two minutes."
Layla waggles her phone toward you.
You roll your eyes up to the ceiling, but take it with a thin smile. After entering your name in the text box, you're hit with a series of increasingly detailed questions until you're hunched over, trying to decide whether you support hypothetical child torture.
Layla finally leans over to see what has you stuck. "Oh, that last one is just a fun freebie."
You look up, haunted. "What class is this for?"
"Intro to PoliSci!" She takes back the phone, eyes flicking over your results. "Oh, another anarchist." She pouts. "Everyone's an anarchist."
Still reeling from the prospect of legalized child torture, you manage a vague, "Yeah?"
"Mhm, Tony and Ledge were, too. I'll have to get some people from uptown to take this if I want varied results." She laughs. "Bet I'll find less radicals where the system is working."
A grating sound cuts off your response, and Tony comes tumbling in from the window.
"S'rry, s'rry," he mumbles, staggering past the screen that no one—except maybe Ledge—has been paying attention to. "G'night, Layla."
You're pretty sure all your roommates like Layla better than you like each other.
"Hey, guess who else is into anarchy?" She says it like it's hot gossip, which maybe in her nerdy social circle it is.
You expect Tony to shrug out of the conversation and slump to bed, but instead his head turns toward you on a swivel.
"I fuckin' told you," he crows. "The system wasn't built for us. It was built for them!" He points to the ceiling emphatically.
"The Sundarams in 9B?"
"The elite!"
You look past him, to Layla. "You're teaching him words. Don't do that."
She laughs again when Tony blusters, but there's a twinkle in her eyes, like her favorite show's just come on. She gets like this sometimes, and you have to wonder why little miss schoolgirl is out here slumming it with the lowlifes of Gotham. Is this like an interactive museum for her, to see and touch the lives of the less fortunate? Or is Ledge just that good in bed?
"You were discussing politics?" She looks intrigued, like she can't imagine what that must've sounded like.
"No," you grunt, and back up another step to be on the edge of the room. "Tony was talking about dumb Joker shit."
If anything, this makes her eyes go wider.
"My cousin works for him," Tony says, not seeing the looks on Ledge and your faces. "I was just sayin' that since we're both outta work, we coul—"
"Oookay," you say loudly, grabbing him by a scrawny shoulder and pushing him toward his room. "Night, bud."
He looks confused for a moment, but seems to realize that he's said something he shouldn't have and staggers into the bathroom without complaint.
Ledge hisses through their teeth and squeezes Layla until she squirms and smiles. "Don't listen to him."
She looks unconvinced, though, knuckles white around her phone. "The Joker, though? Really?"
"Don't be ridiculous," they say, and their scowl says that you better keep your mouth shut regardless. "No one here is stupid enough to fall in with the clown."
A crash from the bathroom has you all flinching, looking toward the crack of light under the hall door.
"Right," she says softly, but she still looks unsure.
Layla, you'll realize much later, is much smarter than you ever give her credit. And you?
You're so much dumber.
Mikey's on your couch the next morning.
"Hey, you remember Mikey?" Tony says as if you aren't standing there in ratty sweatpants, hungover, eyes still crusty with sleep.
"Sup," you croak.
Mikey is a beefy guy with neck tats that have already gone sorta green and fuzzy around the edges. You remember him having similar hair to his cousin—kind of a dishwater blond, always a little greasy—but it's buzzed now, and his scruffy beard is darker than you'd expect. He raises a trashcan lid of a hand in greeting.
"Heard you got fired yesterday," he says, voice surprisingly soft. "Sucks, man."
You glare at Tony. "Nah, my temp contract just ran out. Gonna find some new work today—maybe at that resale place by Razzo's."
Razzo's is the nearest bar—absolute shithole of a place, but great food. Bring your own utensils.
Mikey nods amiably, but Tony pulls a face.
"Aw, you didn't hear? They got hit with a sonic blast. Lost two storefronts, an' Razzo's is closed for repairs."
You stop in the middle of rustling through the cupboard that acts as your shared pantry.
"Razzo's was hit?" You kind of figured the owners were involved in some shady shit, and that's why they're always up and running, even when other places regularly get blasted.
"Yeah," Mikey agrees. "Real shame."
No, the real shame is that your friend at the resale place would have given you a job on the spot. If it's in pieces, then you have almost no hope of landing a gig before rent's due on Tuesday.
"Yeah." You hope they can't hear your voice crack.
"Since that's a bust, Mikey here was just talkin' about his work, and—"
"His work with the Joker?" you say flatly, looking between them.
Mikey has the decency to look abashed.
"I know what you're thinkin, but it isn't as bad as all that." Then he amends with a, "Not if you're smart about it."
"You're really selling me." The box of Froot Loops rattles when you shake it, meaning Tony didn't reshelf the empty container (again.) You eat a handful dry.
"It ain't for everyone," he agrees, but then he leans forward, elbows on his knees, "but it's quick cash if you can stomach it." He spreads his hands significantly. "And you sound like you could use it."
"Gee, thanks." The hand that reaches back into the cereal box is suddenly clammy.
"He says we could have a job tonight," Tony says, and actually sounds excited.
You pull a face, but Mikey is nodding, looking back over his shoulder at his dumbass cousin.
"Yeah, that's not usual procedure, but I could vouch for you. It'd be a minor job, anyway. Grunt work."
It's just the black hole of your checking account that's making him sound reasonable.
"What does 'grunt work' for the Joker involve?" you ask, still not buying. "Collecting kneecaps? Torturing kittens?"
Mikey doesn't look impressed. His jaw tightens, chin jutting out, and suddenly he doesn't seem quite so polite and harmless.
"Like I said," he repeats, slower, "it ain't for everyone."
Tony cuts through the rising tension with a, "God, calm down, she's didn't mean nothin' by it."
You hold Mikey's gaze, unblinking, until your eyes start to water. He looks away first, with a loud sniff.
"Yeah, well," he says, slapping his thighs and standing with a grunt, "if you and the princess want a job, I'll text you the address." He looks you over, considerably less friendly than before. "And a word of advice?" He crowds you as he makes for the door, close enough that you can smell the soap and metal scent of his clothes. "Mind your manners—cause this shit?" He motions between you, thick finger coming within a centimeter of your nose. "This'll get you killed."
When he slams the door of the apartment, you hear a muffled "what the fuck" from Ledge's room.
Tony leans over the pass-through to snatch your cereal. You don't have the energy to protest as he loudly chews the last of your breakfast.
"Y'know," he says, showing you the colorful mash in his mouth, "you can be a real bitch."
Yeah, maybe, but better a breathing bitch than a moron in a ditch.
No amount of money is going to convince you to work for the Joker, and if he thinks he can persuade you otherwise, Tony is kidding himse—
Evening finds you sweating behind a clown mask.
Tony is saved your glare by the little eyeholes, but your eyes bore into him steadily the whole time Mikey's associate fumbles with the door code.
"Didn't know you guys bothered with locks," you can't help but snipe, shoulders hunched as if that will make any difference if the police arrive and block off this alley.
"Shuddup," the guy snaps, and finally the light on the code box flashes green. "I work here. We can get in quiet."
You get the feeling that this is already an abnormal Joker job. Mikey's been agitated since he picked you and Tony up from the abandoned skate park on Bleaker street, and the third guy is way too jittery to be a seasoned vet.
Figures that you wouldn't even get capable clowns for your first rodeo.
You follow them into the dark building, arms crossed. "Yeah, 'cause 'quiet' is the word I'd normally associate with—"
A hand catches your elbow and suddenly your back is flush with painted cinderblock.
"What did I tell you, princess?" Mikey hisses. You can't see his expression through the cheap plastic, but the clown face is already pretty threatening. "Lose. The mouth."
Your kneejerk response is to tell him to get an original nickname, but you button it up and traipse after the three stooges, brooding.
The hallways of the office building—not the nice, uptown kind, but the same type of squatty, concrete-and-brick place that kicked you to the curb yesterday—are silent, the muffled design of it ensuring each closed room is its own bubble of isolated purgatory. From what you can make out from the red glow of exit signs, there are as many companies renting space here as there are locked doors—and there are a lot of locked doors.
"Call center's four floors up." From the tone of his voice, mister "I work here" is feeling particularly bold. He must really think he's something, breaking in here after hours like some kind of Party City spy.
The plan, as you understand it, is this: use the call center's system to tie up the nearest police precinct's phone lines, and replace the initial, automated message with something a little… funnier. Not exactly morally neutral, but it's also not the worst thing you'd do for quick cash. The fact that it's in the service of a dangerous madman is your biggest sticking point, honestly. You've worked for some shitty people, but none with a body count.
"Elevator?" Tony asks.
You all pause on your way to the stairwell at the other end of the hall.
The third guy looks between you, the diamonds under his sad, clown eyes ghoulish in the low light. "He serious?"
Mikey just pushes past his cousin with a grunted, "No."
The door to the call center is locked, but your inside man has… a keycard?
"Won't they know it was you?" you can't help but ask as he swipes you in.
Shoulders shrug under his washed-out black t-shirt. "I'll tell them it was stolen."
That sounds like a terrible plan to you, but it's his rap sheet.
The call center's office space is gray, cubicled, and entirely windowless. The maze of partitioned desks is broken up by the occasional fake ficus, which you can only assume have been gathering dust here since the mid-nineties. It is, if you had to describe it in one word, soulless.
"Right, I got the USB, hang on." Mikey reaches in a zippered cargo pocket, shirt lifting enough that you can see he's packing. "You know how to do this?"
Sad Clown nods, taking the little data stick. "Yeah, the boss's computer has access."
You're all saved the pain of watching him guess passwords by the little sticky note on the bottom of his manager's monitor.
"System makes us change passwords every couple weeks," he explains. "Pain in the ass."
He gives a rundown on how to log the phones in, and you and Tony start waking up computers.
"When do we start?" Tony asks when the room is glowing from several dozen screens.
"When I get the signal," Mikey says and leans against the wall of the manager's office. He's holding a flip phone, so you'd guess that the "signal" is just a text.
Is there a Joker gang group chat? This job is raising all kinds of questions, and not even the moral kind.
"What's the plan for after?" you ask, voice low. It feels wrong to talk at regular volume even if it's probably pointless to whisper.
"Barricade and rig the door. Got some gas canisters to set off once we're out." Mikey shrugs. "Pretty standard."
You want specifics about the Joker's overall plan, but goons who want to keep breathing don't ask questions. It takes an effort to keep your mouth shut, though, and you let the ache of your clenched jaw distract you from your mounting anxiety.
The text comes in at midnight.
"Let's go," Mikey mutters.
Sad Clown hits a single key, the dialogue box on his screen blipping out to be replaced by a series of cartoon Joker pop-ups.
The phones in the call center light up.
"That's it?" Tony asks, sounding a little put out.
Mikey's already pulling little metal canisters from his inner jacket pockets. "Get back to the hall."
You don't have to be told twice, and you yank Tony's elbow on your way past, pulling him behind you.
In the doorway, Mikey tosses the canisters underhand. They clank and hiss as they hit the floor, gas sputtering up in ominous clouds.
"Seal 'er up," he says, slamming the door. When no one moves, he goes still. "Who brought the chains?"
Having neither seen nor heard the rattle of chains on the way in, you have a bad feeling about the answer.
Sad Clown holds his empty hands out. "I thought you did?"
"Why the fuck would you—" Mikey growls, big hands fisted like they'd like to wrap around someone's neck. "Whatever. Fuckin' amateurs."
He pulls something else from his jacket—large pockets are a henchman staple, you're realizing—and you almost hit the ceiling when you see that it's a grenade. He wedges it so that opening the door would mean pulling the pin.
You can only hope that the police get here before management.
"Let's go," Mikey snaps.
Outside, the cacophony of wailing sirens—ever present in Gotham—is louder than usual. Your lungs stutter, but a panicked glance down the alley doesn't reveal flashing lights.
"What's going on?" You try not to sound shrill. If there's more to this plan, you need to know—and now.
Tony feels none of your alarm.
"Anarchy," he says with a growing smile. His mask is pushed up to his forehead.
"Mask on, you fuckin' idiot." Mikey reaches over. You hear the snap of plastic, followed by a yelp. "It's just the rest of the plan," he says to you.
"Does the rest of the plan," you say with heavy inflection, "involve us getting surrounded by those sirens? Because I didn't sign up to take the fall for a fucking clown."
You step up to him, mask to mask. Too late, you remember the gun in his waistband.
He shoves you back so hard your jaw rattles. "Who's a clown, huh? Look at yourself, we're all fuckin' clowns." He hacks wetly, lifting the edge of his mask to spit. The glob lands centimeters from your shoe. "Y'think we were the ones with a special job tonight? I took you two because it's fuckin' babysitting duty. No risk. Dozens of places like this in Gotham, and we hit five of 'em with our guys. By the time they figure out where the calls are comin' from, it'll be chaos."
So all the emergency services in the city are tied up with joke calls. You're feeling worse about this than you expected.
You lick your lips, condensation and sweat dampening your face. "What's it a distraction for?"
The second the words leave your mouth, you know it's going to be a problem.
Mikey stiffens, head cocking. Tony starts to say something, but Mikey slaps a hand on his narrow chest and shoves.
"Stay out of it, man," Sad Clown mutters, but no one pays him any mind.
"Who's askin?" Mikey says, low and quiet. "You a spy?" He grabs your jacket by the collar and looks toward his cousin. "Your little friend a spy, Tone?"
Tony sputters a negative, and you wrench out of the bigger man's grasp, breathing hard under your mask.
"I'm not a fucking spy." You straighten your clothes, hoping to hide the tremor in your hands. "I just wanna know what I signed up for."
Mikey doesn't move, and for a moment everyone seems to hold their breath.
Then, he scoffs. "A fuckin' charity event, that's what. C'mon," he says—not to you—and stalks out of the alley.
The bat signal rises over the skyline, but from the swell of distress sounds, he and his fellow vigilantes have their work cut out for them tonight. Usually that's a vague comfort in the back of your mind, but right now it just makes you feel slimy.
Mikey's dark SUV is parked on a nearby curb, ostensibly in a surveillance blind spot. He hardly waits for all the doors to close before he's peeling out of the street, the SUV rocking with the force of his turns.
You slide into Tony, who hasn't taken off his mask despite the tinted windows. You guess he's still sulking from earlier.
"Mask?" you prompt, but he ignores you.
Of course, he could just be distracted by the scene outside, which gets messy as you move toward more populated streets.
"Shit," mutters Mikey when you get clogged in a jam of cars only a few blocks away from your crime scene.
Something up ahead is smoking, the confused chorus of sirens and honking vehicles competing for who can tip your headache into a migraine the fastest. When you squint through the front windshield, you can see what's causing the hold up; the traffic lights at the intersection are all flashing red, the whole system (presumably) down. If you were to see Gotham from a bird's eye view, you have a feeling there would be similar messes throughout the city.
The growing pulse behind your eyes stokes your temper, and you get careless. "What, this isn't a part of the plan?"
Hands slam down on the steering wheel, and Mikey half turns in his seat. "Get the fuck outta my car."
You hear Tony start to protest, but you're already opening the door. He wants to be the big, scary Joker thug? Fine. You're done with Mikey, done with clown masks, and done with the night as a whole. You'll worry about the matter of your payment later, when you can think, but for now you need out of the car.
"Get fucked, asshole!" You slam the door before he can finish whatever follows his red-faced "bitch—!"
And then you're alone.
Well, hardly alone—the street you're on is rapidly descending into a dystopian nightmare—but the SUV does a tight three-point turn and is gone before you can change your mind. It scrapes the side of a jeep as it squeals away, adding another angry horn to the mix.
You jog to the nearest sidewalk, feeling like you're taking your life into your hands for the second time tonight.
People are out in the street, car doors hanging open, or else they're swerving into oncoming lanes of traffic, still trying to get around roadblocks. You look up with the other onlookers, but the only thing you can see through the hazy air is the bat signal, stamped on the heavens. A beacon of hope, maybe, but otherwise useless.
You suck on your lower lip, short on ideas. Your phone and wallet are back at the apartment—not worth the risk while committing a felony—and the city's in chaos. You could hitch a ride, but on a night like this, all the creeps in Gotham will be out in force.
The scream of brakes shatters your thoughts.
You watch in slow motion as a truck, trying to get around the halt in traffic, slams head-on into a vehicle coming from the other direction. The sheer force of it sends the other car up onto the sidewalk and then further, into the side of the neighboring storefront.
Pedestrians scatter, shouting.
You only realize you've broken the skin of your lip when you taste copper. Ears ringing, you bite harder.
You did this. You. Did. This.
Not alone, and not knowingly, but not not knowingly, either. You knew when you put on that mask that whatever you did tonight would end in someone else's suffering. You just didn't expect to watch it with your own eyes.
But you just did what any Gothamite—any person—would do. You took a shitty job for a shitty person, hoping it would pay your bills. You had choices, sure, but none of them would have made any difference tonight. The "plan" would have happened with or without you—
But would it have? There could have been a way—if you'd tipped someone off—
The sharp smell of gasoline reaches through your panic and grabs you by the throat.
Your feet are moving before you make the conscious decision. Boots skidding over asphalt and broken glass, you sprint the distance to the crash. You only realize you're shouting when you see the shocked and bloody face of the truck's driver as he stumbles out of his crumpled cab.
"Move, MOVE!"
You can see the hunched shape of the other car's driver against the billow of their airbag. The toyota's hood is accordioned, half disappearing into the barred windows of a corner store. Another onlooker is near the driver's side, hovering as if unsure if they should touch.
You shove him out of the way. "Gas leak, move!"
The driver's side is jammed, and you have to brace a foot on the back door to yank at it. The plastic handle breaks off in your hand. You curl an arm through the broken window and pull at the inner one until it unlatches. Grunting, you force it open.
The woman inside is unconscious, bleeding from the head. You don't have time to second guess whether moving her is a good idea. You throw her arm over your shoulder, leaning sideways until her dead weight is out of the car.
You've got this—you've got this—
Two men approach from the other side of the road, but you wheeze out, "No, don't—" trying to move, trying to get clear—
The world turns to heat and sound.
And then, pain.
You've had a few near-death experiences, and all of them have involved some split second of clarity where you think, "huh, this is it" and make your anticlimactic peace.
This time you don't even have that.
The moment the car explodes, you think you lose consciousness, but your lapse is so brief that it's hard to say. One moment you're warning off the other bystanders, the next you're on the ground, wishing the blast had the decency to finish the job.
"—ver her—all som—an yo—"
Your senses come back in bursts.
"—re you—ear me—"
Voices float up from the bottom of a well, and after a few blinks, you're able to see the dark shapes of the surrounding skyline. The bat signal is still bright against the clouds.
"—on't move, we'll get—"
"No one's coming," you try to say, but the words feel gummy in your mouth.
Your head hurts so bad that you're afraid to lift it, lest you find half your brains pulped on the pavement. There's a sort of instinctive panic to your pain, the wounded animal parts of you sure that someone will see your guilt as you lay sprawled in the street.
Shaking, you scrape your palms under you until you can lever yourself onto your knees.
When a shadow falls over you, you almost topple.
"—ey, hey, it's okay, I'm here to help—" Hands grab your shoulders, holding you upright. "You hit your head, so I need you to—"
You flinch away.
"Don't," you croak.
The blurry shape before you comes into focus, and you almost start laughing when Red-fucking-Robin kneels to better look at your face.
"Come on, I just need to see—"
You jerk your chin away, swaying.
"I said don't," you repeat, louder.
A frown forms under his mask. "You're not thinking straight at the moment, but—"
"There's someone else." You try to look around him, but have to catch yourself on one hand as your vision spins. "A woman—from the car—"
Red Robin leans so that he's taking up all of your (hazy) line of sight. "You have a head wound, and possibly a fractured—"
"Fuck my head," you say, throat rasping at the strain. "Is she okay?"
His pause is brief, but your heart drops all the same. He takes a breath, and in that breath, you hear everything you need to know.
"She was dead on impact."
The ringing in your ears could be sirens or it could be brain damage, but either way you ignore it.
"Woah, don't—" he says as you struggle to your feet.
"Listen." You cross your arms over your middle like you're keeping yourself together—and maybe you are. "There's an office building a few blocks away—on Liberty, by the ice cream parlor." You wait for him to nod before you continue. "Fifth floor call center, grenade on the door. Joker's got a program running, dunno how to stop it." You hunch, panting. "Just pull the plug, I guess."
You squint at the toes of his boots, imagining the expression you're too cowardly to face head-on. Is he shocked, suspicious? Angry?
"Fifth floor?" he repeats, voice level.
You nod.
A hand lands on your shoulder, unexpected and heavy. When you glance up, panicked, he's just staring, eyes serious behind the mask.
"Don't move—there's an ambulance on the way." His mouth twists like he's going to ask further questions, but he just squeezes your shoulder lightly and says, "Thank you."
He's off before you can blink, a flash of red against the gray of Gotham, and then gone.
"Anyone would have done it," you mutter, broken, but only sirens answer.