Arc 2: Dark Knight

9 Months Later

Rebecca walked out onto the roof, smiling as she saw Detective Anna Ramirez already there beside Gordon, both holding cups of coffee.

"Don't you both have people you need to go back and look after?" She asked lightly as she walked up with her own mug of coffee.

Gordon just nodded at Ramirez, who explained quietly, "I checked my mother back into the hospital."

"Oh." Rebecca winced. "I'm sorry to hear that, Detective Ramirez."

"It's all right, Sergeant Dawes." Ramirez answered with a strained smile, before she looked back at the bat signal.

Nodding at the symbol shining brightly in the sky, she asked Gordon as Rebecca joined them, "So, he hasn't shown up?"

Rebecca also looked up at the signal while Gordon admitted, "He often doesn't. But I like reminding everybody that he's out there."

"Why wouldn't he come?" Ramirez asked with a puzzled frown, looking at Gordon.

Rebecca's lips twitched up into a wry smile while Gordon answered with a small smile of his own, "Hopefully, because he's busy."

Ramirez's eyes lit up with understanding, and she nodded while Rebecca sighed to herself as she sipped on her coffee.

'And hopefully, he's doing it without getting hurt.' She thought to herself as she, Gordon, and Ramirez stood in comfortable silence beside the 'Bat Signal' as the light had become affectionately known.

Meanwhile

Bruce let out a pained yell as one of the drug lord, Chechen's, Rottweilers bit him in the arm right where the armour was weakest. He threw the dog off, saving the Batman copycat that had been mauled by Chechen's dogs, before he turned around.

Chechen was already gone, the drug lord having escaped while Bruce was kept busy taking out the mobster's men - and saving the other dumb men who'd taken to dressing up and fighting criminals the way 'Batman' did. Only they did it with guns.

But Crane's van was still in sight; and Bruce leapt onto the side of the white van as Scarecrow tried to run him over in his escape. Bruce extended a small saw out from his suit gauntlet, before driving it into the side of the van as he started to cut his way inside.

However, Scarecrow simply moved his van to the right as he approached the spiraling tunneled exit ramp of the parking garage where the meeting with Chechen had been taking place. The movement took the van dangerously close to the approaching wall separating the exit from the rest of the garage, and Bruce tugged urgently on the saw to try and get free before he was squashed like a bug.

He barely got his arm out before the van reached the wall, and Bruce ended up smacking into the wall anyway but at least he survived the hit. Unfortunately, Scarecrow's van was also getting away, but Bruce simply grit his teeth as he forced his bruised and battered body up.

Moving over to the other side of the exit ramp, Bruce stood up onto the railings, peering down at the spiraling route that the exit ramp took all the way down to the ground level. He could hear Scarecrow's van as it screeched its way quickly down the spiraling route, trying to escape before Batman could catch up.

Bruce counted calmly, before he let himself fall off the edge of the railings. He landed feet first in a powerful crouch right on top of Scarecrow's van, the force of his fall and the weight of his armour crushing the van's roof instantly and smashing all the windows.

Scarecrow was forced to halt as Bruce smashed his arm through the shattered glass, before he hauled the former psychiatrist bodily out of the van.

Moments later

Bruce finished cuffing and tying up all the men he'd caught that night – including his copycats – in one line on the side of the parking garage, before he pulled the Scarecrow mask off of Crane.

Now having confirmed that it was indeed the man that he and the rest of the GCPD had been chasing for the past nine months, Bruce turned to his copycats as he said severely in his deep Batman voice, "Don't let me find you out here again."

"We're trying to help you!" One of them – a large man though he didn't look too fit – protested as Bruce turned and walked away.

"I don't need help!" Bruce answered harshly as he got into his Batmobile.

"Not my diagnosis!" Crane called after him, grinning wildly like the insane man he was.

Bruce ignored that quip, though he couldn't ignore the next one as his copycat yelled after him, "What gives you the right? What's the difference between you and me?!"

"I'm not wearing hockey pads." Bruce snapped back as he disappeared into the Batmobile, before speeding away and leaving the group to be found by the police.

In another part of Gotham

"I can't believe this is happening." Rebecca muttered as she arrived on the scene.

She'd been on her way home when Gordon had called her back in with the news that the Joker had struck again, this time at Gotham National Bank

The site was already secured, and a perimeter established around the bank and particularly around the large gaping hole in the doorway while people and news crew gathered around and tried to see what was going on.

"We're sure it's him?" Rebecca asked as she hurried up to where Gordon was just getting briefed on what had happened.

The officer who'd been speaking with Gordon nodded at her once in greeting, a gesture Rebecca answered, while Gordon turned to her with a sigh of his own.

"Yup." Gordon answered as he held up the single Joker card that had been left behind. "It's him."

"What are we looking at?" Rebecca asked, and the other officer explained, "Robbery; he took a whole bunch of cash. We're still counting the exact figure – but it's somewhere in the high fifty-millions. Possibly more."

"Well, at least we know he's not working for the mob." Gordon muttered under his breath, and Rebecca agreed. They'd been working on trying to narrow down mob-owned banks for weeks, and this had been one of them.

The other officer just shrugged as he continued, "Other than that, five dead, and one who's lost his mind. We managed to safely extract all the bank workers, who were holding grenades courtesy of this 'Joker'."

"Who are the dead and the crazy?" Rebecca questioned, and the officer answered, "Well, here's the even crazier thing – the five dead were his henchmen."

Neither Rebecca nor Gordon was too surprised while the officer continued, "All of them were wearing Bozo masks. We're getting them identified now, but it doesn't seem like they were any well-knowns. The bank workers have also confirmed they were definitely working with Joker, before they began shooting each other in the backs."

"They were probably trying to eliminate each other for larger share of the money again. He's good at manipulating them." Rebecca muttered, and Gordon asked, "And the one who went crazy?"

"The bank's manager." The officer replied. "He took a hit with some kind of weird gas, and now he's delusional."

"Is it the same as the fear gas that Crane developed last year?" Gordon asked instantly, frowning, but the officer shook his head.

"Blood test results aren't back yet, but I don't think it is." He admitted. "The guy seems more like he became unhinged due to his injuries and his encounter with the Joker."

"He was shot?" Rebecca asked, at the same time Gordon asked, "He met the Joker?"

"Yeah, he was trying to shoot the Bozos but got shot instead." The officer told Rebecca before answering Gordon, "According to the other workers, who witnessed it, Joker spoke briefly with the manager before sticking a gas grenade in the man's mouth."

"Jesus." Rebecca muttered, and Gordon ordered, "I want blood tests just in case; and if something comes up in it, we investigate at once."

"Yes, sir." The officer answered, and Gordon turned to Rebecca as the officer walked away.

"Come on." He sighed, and the pair walked further into the bank, heading to check on the robbed vault.

"At least we had something prepared this time." Rebecca muttered as they walked, and Gordon nodded while Ramirez walked up to meet them.

She fell in step behind them as she handed Gordon a file, saying dryly, "He can't resist showing us his face."

Gordon pulled out the photograph from one of the security cameras, which showed the Joker in all his painted face's glory as the mysterious man pressed his face close for a perfect shot, his wide, scarred smile as prominent as those dark, cold eyes..

Gordon sighed as he passed the picture and the file over to Rebecca, who skimmed through it in case there were any details that they hadn't been briefed on yet, while they walked into the half-emptied vault where the Joker had stolen the money from.

"What's he hiding under all that makeup?" Gordon wondered aloud, and Rebecca answered flatly, "Two wide scars, one on each side of his mouth – though I don't think he's really trying to hide them."

She tapped the red lipstick that the Joker always painted passed his lips and up onto his scarred cheeks, creating his ever-present Cheshire smile.

"Not funny, Dawes." Gordon muttered as he checked inside the vault.

Rebecca tossed the file onto a nearby trolley, using it as a makeshift table, as she also glanced about. The Joker had cleared everything out aside from a few piles of cash, leaving no other clues except for the Joker card he always left behind which was already bagged and sealed as evidence. There was little else in the entire bank, let alone the vault, and Rebecca somehow knew before even getting the autopsy results that there would be no leads in the dead henchmen. As usual. She sighed.

A small movement at the vault doorway behind her caught her eye and she turned before a tiny smile appeared on her face as her eyes fell on the figure that was suddenly standing there.

Gordon glanced over as well when he noticed her pause, and he raised a brow when he saw the Batman had arrived. Ramirez noticed the masked vigilante last, looking back when she saw Rebecca and Gordon staring, and the detective paused before glancing back at her superiors.

Gordon gave her a slight nod, and Ramirez left, taking all the other officers standing outside away with her as she called, "Can we get a minute, people?"

While Ramirez cleared the area for them, Rebecca picked up the folder again as she lifted the photograph of the Joker for Batman to see.

"Him again." Batman muttered, and Rebecca nodded.

Batman removed a small device from his utility belt, activating it as he asked, "What about the others?"

"Another bunch of small timers." Gordon confirmed, while he and Rebecca watched Batman scan one of the small piles of money left behind.

"Some of them the marked bills I gave you?" Batman questioned, and Gordon confirmed, "My detectives have been making drug buys with them for weeks. This bank was another drop for the mob – that makes five. We found the bulk of their dirty cash."

"Time to move in." Batman noted, but Rebecca shook her head as she pointed out, "We'd have to hit all the banks simultaneously. SWAT teams, backup – it'll take a bit of time for the police to organize."

Batman nodded, while Gordon gestured at the photograph in Rebecca's hand as he added, "And what about this Joker guy?"

"One man, or the entire mob?" Batman countered, while Rebecca glanced at the photograph again. "He can wait."

Gordon sighed but nodded in agreement, though he added in concern, "When the new DA hears about this, he'll want in."

"Do you trust him?" Batman asked, looking at the pair, and Gordon shrugged.

"Dawes can take that one." He suggested, pointing at Rebecca. "Her sister works with him, and she's met him under friendlier circumstances."

Batman looked at her, and Rebecca answered with a shrug of her own, "I think he's doing good, but it's a little early to say if he can be trusted."

Batman narrowed his eyes thoughtfully while Gordon added as he turned to glance around the vault, "Either way, it'll be hard to keep him out."

Rebecca raised a brow as she stared at the vault door while Gordon continued, "I hear he's about as stubborn as you are…"

He trailed off as he spotted the empty vault door, and he sighed.

"Again?" He asked Rebecca, and she answered, "Yup."

"You couldn't have told me?" Gordon pretended to scowl, and she pointed out, "He just left when you turned around. I still don't know how he does it."

"Me neither." Gordon muttered as Rebecca tucked the photograph of the Joker back into the folder. "Though I'd give anything to find out. Can you imagine if I used it on the Commissioner?"

"You'd get fired, Lieutenant." Rebecca answered with a laugh as she picked up the folder, and she and Gordon left the bank vault once more.