The only difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad.
-Salvador Dali
It was quite a night for the city of Gotham, evident by the mix of police, SWAT, and National Guard personnel at the foot of the Prewitt Building.
Not that Private First Class Nathaniel Jones knew much of what was happening.
The young Army National Guardsman unslung his M16 to give his shoulder a rest while shifting his oversized flak vest, as he leaned against the wooden barricade in the middle of the street. He had to watch his gaze, as the flashing red and blue lights from the various police vehicles were starting to give him a headache. On the other side of the perimeter, he eyed a gaggle of reporters being held back by his buddy, Specialist Juan Gonzales, as they aimed their cameras and lobbed questions.
Their garrison unit had been activated just that afternoon to assist the city in a massive evacuation effort. On the ride from their collection site, he listened as some of the guys in his truck shared what they heard from the TV and internet. Rumors of a clown blowing up part of the city, battling with some costumed vigilante. As they entered the city, a few simple observations gave Jones some deeper context of the situation.
Throughout the city, he noticed several election posters for District Attorney for a square-jawed candidate. All of them had the catchphrase "I Believe In Harvey Dent". One brazenly proclaimed him as "Gotham's White Knight".
He did not think much of these, until he also noticed a few defaced posters. One had a black bat shape painted over Dent's face, and the phrase rewritten as "I Believe in Batman". Another had a red smile and blacked out eyes over Dent's face, and Dent's name replaced with the word "NOTHING", followed by the word "HA" scratched in red around the outline.
Jones was stirred from his recollection to the present as one of the shouts from the press team yards away caught his attention. It took him a second to fully realize why his brain wanted him to pay attention. It was a question from some young female reporter, who called out, "Can we confirm the whereabouts of Harvey Dent?"
For some reason, this reminded Jones of another set of posters he had seen. A couple of them, tacked in the back alley of a police precinct, seemed to comment on Dent himself. One had the left side of Dent's face scratched out, and his last name replaced with "2-FACE". Next to it, another poster had a similar dual-faced vandalism and the catchphrase rewritten as "I Believe in CHANCE". It looked like Dent had made some enemies all around.
What kind of mad house had they entered?
At this point, all he knew was that most of the city's population had been loaded up on two ferries, one of which contained a detachment of troops, while he was here at the construction site helping secure the street while the police dealt with some kind of hostage situation. From down here, he watched the upper levels of the tower, as was everyone else on the ground. He could hear gunshots and crashes, as well as occasional unintelligible squawks on the nearby police radios, but could not see anything from the ground. The only other bit of intel Jones received came from listening to the group of news reporters on the other side of the street.
Jones turned to Officer Dean Pope standing on the edge of the sidewalk a few feet away. "How long until they call me and my guys up there?"
The tall veteran cop glanced up and turned back to Jones with a wry smile. "I think they have enough help from you-know-who."
Jones scoffed. "You mean, the Bat Guy, who beats up bad guys? No offense, sir, but ain't that your job?"
Pope swallowed his annoyance with a snort. "Private, I can tell you, before he showed up, the bad guys were the ones in charge. Anyone who stood up to them ended up face down in the river. Facts of life."
"What about that White Knight DA of yours? He seems like a more legit savior."
Pope turned back to Jones with narrowed eyes, trying to cover his own inner conflict. "He didn't come around until AFTER Batman started cleaning up the town. If anything, Batman paved the way for him."
Jones shrugged. "I dunno, a guy running around like it's Halloween everyday. You sure he didn't invite trouble, like this pyro clown?"
Pope did not want to admit it, but the soldier may have had a point. Nonetheless, before he could answer they were interrupted by a sudden commotion. He and Jones watched as police and SWAT started pouring out of the nearby entrance, escorting a mix of individuals. Some wore clown masks and had guns duct-taped to their hands, while others were handcuffed doctors and nurses. Jones watched in confusion as the clowns was ushered to the ambulances and EMTs, while the doctors and nurses were taken to open police vans.
Jones turned back to Pope with a dumbfounded look. "Hey, uh, is it standard procedure for you guys to treat your convicts while locking up your doctors?"
Pope returned this with a grave look. "Those 'doctors' are the convicts. The Joker swapped clothes between his goons and the hostages." As he watched Jones silently digest the horrifying implications of this, the officer reaffirmed his previous point with an extra anecdote. "The only reason no one's dead is because Batman caught on first."
Both men turned again and watched as a whole new party entered the street. At first, Jones only saw what looked like a half dozen SWAT members crowded together as though they were guarding some kind of VIP. Was this the famous White Knight, Harvey Dent? As the group shifted position and stopped temporarily, however, he tried looking for the escortee and caught an unnerving splash of color. A medium height individual in a garish purple overcoat, long green mangy hair, and a face smeared with white and red.
"Is that him?" Jones muttered in disbelief.
Pope nodded.
He then watched as the SWAT commander gestured a handful of soldiers over to the complement of SWAT officers.
"Why do they need the backup?"
"This is our second time capturing him."
"How did he get out the first time?"
Pope sighed. "Partially because we had dirty cops."
"And what's the other part?"
"He's either very smart or very crazy. Or both."
Jones shook his head in disbelief. "I mean, it wasn't just him doing all this, coordinating all this, was it? He had to have help, or a network or something."
"I don't know. Let's just say…he never uses the same guys twice."
Jones watched as the Joker was led into a separate van, away from his army of clowns. In spite of the hands on him, however, he took a moment to turn around and smirk at the cameras before disappearing behind the armored door of the van.
"What's up with his, uh, smile?"
Pope shuddered. "Not all of that smile is make-up."
"My God. Did he…carve that himself?"
Pope shook his head. "Nobody knows." As they both watched the armored van drive away, surrounded by a convoy of cop cruisers and a truck of soldiers, he muttered, "It's like he just appeared out of thin air one day."
After this mission, Jones was never coming back to this city.
On the other side of the city, some time later, an old man waited in a bunker. Waiting for a man he considered his son. Waiting with the secret fear that he may never actually come. This fear was heightened by the constant news updates plastered on the computer screen in front of him.
Thankfully, his fear was assuaged by a distant high-pitched whine in the far-off connected hidden tunnel. The old man turned and watched as a horned figure clad in full black armor wound his way in on a strange motorbike with a long cape billowing behind him, like a winged demon riding a dark skeletal horse. The outlandish sight of this phantom-like being did not startle the old man, however. He rose from his seat as he watched the being, a man, collapse to the ground as he tried to dismount his mechanical steed.
It was, of course, the Batman, the one previously debated by the cop and soldier.
The old man helped his ward limp over to a chair, where he collapsed, clutching his abdomen and still catching his breath.
"Bloody hell, you're a mess," the old man noted with his distinctive Cockney accent, before turning to grab a couple of rags from a nearby table. While he was concerned, his tone betrayed an emotional exhaustion. "And what did you do to your leg? Don't think I didn't notice."
"I fell."
While the old man grabbed these and a first aid kit, Batman looked down and surveyed himself. His body armor was covered in dirt, nicks, scratches, and blood. The culmination of a week from hell.
The old man set the supplies down. "Come on, let's get this mess off you first." He then started undoing the attach points of the cape while Batman peeled off the mask, a cowl of hardened sculpted graphite, revealing a sweaty, vulnerable face of flesh, a face that vaguely resembled the young man the old man remembered raising. They then ripped off the bladed wrist braces and gloves, and worked together to undo and peel off the upper body portion of the armor. After much wrestling and straining, though, the young man finally collapsed back against the chair, relieved to be partially free of this physical burden of a suit. Meanwhile, the old man cleaned away the excess blood to look at what damage his son had accumulated through the night. Besides the usual bruises, there were marks indicating an attempted knife wound and a bullet hit. That lined up with the bullet lodged in the abdomen portion of the suit.
The young man rubbed his face, enjoying the free air now hitting it. Feeling his own fingers on his face, though, words from a locked away memory rang through his head. No, this is your mask. Your real face is the one the criminals now fear. Words from the only woman he had ever loved, a woman murdered indifferently by the Joker. No, he had no time to mourn. He would mourn later.
"You didn't even flinch when I sewed up your arm last week, but now you can't stand some simple cuts?" The old man was unaware of the young man's inner monologue, and so was resorting to his usual dry wit to lighten up the mood. The young man never said it, but it was one of the things that endeared him the most, especially in the darkest of times.
"No, just when you're at the helm," he replied with a wince.
"So, is it true? Is the Joker re-captured?"
The young man nodded.
"For good?"
Another nod, this one with a lesser wince.
"And is it also true about Harvey?"
"He's dead, yes."
"That's not what I mean." The young man noticed that the old man had stopped treating him and instead stared at him. "No, did you actually…"
The young man stared back defiantly. "What do you think?"
"I think that your pragmatism has taken on frightening new levels since you first put on that cape and cowl. I don't know what to think at this point."
The young man was silent for a beat more, to emphasize his point. "No, I didn't kill him."
"Well, what happened, then?"
"The Joker is what happened."
The old man shook his head. "You say his name like he's a force of nature."
The young man sighed. "After everything that's happened, I feel like I know even less than before. I thought I knew the enemy, but you were right. This is something I don't understand."
The old man dropped his stern tone, and guided it back toward a more hopeful and practical turn. "Well, what do we know? Do you think it's possible for him to break out again, even with the Army in town?"
The young man gave a heartless chuckle. "I think he could break out any time that he wants, but probably not right now. He seems pretty confident he won."
"Even with his hands shackled and his face bruised?"
"You can cage his body, but definitely not his spirit."
The old man stood back with his arms crossed. "Answer me this: why are they blaming you for Mr. Dent's death?"
The young man sighed. "Gotham…needs a real hero for now, one that is on the right side of the law."
His father stared at him for a moment. "What happened to Harvey?"
The young man turned to a news report on the center screen eulogizing the fallen district attorney. He seemed to ponder his answer before speaking. "The Joker pushed us toward the same abyss. I managed to hold on and tried to save Harvey, but I…couldn't."
The older man nodded understandingly. "I don't think you could have. It's a miracle you haven't fallen in yourself."
He paused, then nodded down at the fallen cowl. "I think it's time to lay the tarp and take a vacation, preferably in another continent."
His son turned to him with a questioning look. "What are you saying? I thought you said earlier Gotham needed Batman."
His father turned with a sad half-smile. "I said that for the time being, Gotham would have to settle with Batman. I think he's served his purpose." He took on an imploring tone. "Please. Hang it up. Let the city heal. Let yourself heal."
The young man, the Batman, stared at a sub-screen playing a muted memorial for a young woman, a personal casualty to this war, mourned by no one else by him. It was a casualty he would carry to his grave. His eyes shifted from that screen to the main one recapping the overall accomplishments from the last week: the Joker finally recaptured, hostages rescued without fatalities, and the key members of Gotham's organized crime successfully behind bars.
Batman finally returned his father's desperate look with a face betraying inner conflict.
