Author's note

Just want to show you a song.

Run DMC - My Adidas


Chapter 8

Time was a torture for the hero who could not directly head to the lab as Bruce Wayne, he had to wait for night time to come and get there as Batman. Until then, he headed back to the Batcave where he handed the next suit design to Alfred since he did not have time to build it himself. While the detective went on to study the Reds a little more, waiting for the sunset, the butler obliged, but not without beginning a conversation.

"Of all the people who could have helped you, sir, why him?"

"He didn't gave me a choice." The young man lied.

"What is he threatening you with? Surely, you can find a better way of handling this case than putting your trust into him."

"His threats are meaningless, Alfred, I'm the one using him. He really does have information this ti..."

"I thought you didn't had a choice, Master Wayne." The larger man stood silent realizing his dumb mistake. "Now I might not know what really is going on, but I do know two things for sure. First, information coming from the Joker are never what they seem, so it is utterly useless of you to keep him around and free."

"What is the second thing you know?"

"You will disagree with me on what I have just said and proceed on this case the way you please."

Bruce smirked at his friend.

"Don't worry, I have this under control."

The butler stared back with an unconvinced look on his face. The dark knight knew that the madman had been taking all of his time, leaving him to keep Alfred in obscurity for this investigation. He was making him so worried, yet he could never bring himself to expose what was really going on. To explain how he made a terrible mistake with Joker long ago, how the city was to soon crumble, how he needed him for now and what he truly was feeli...

-MAH AAADIDAS walked through concert doors and roamed all over coliseum floors!

The older man's cellphone rang loudly in the cave, he glanced at it.

"It's your aunt, Agatha." He picked up. "Hello."

"I'm not here." The hero whispered.

21:02 PM, he broke into the laboratory, no one was there. In the main room, he found some traces of the clown's blood, but not enough to have a lead. He continued scrutinizing the place and the most illegal thing he found was a small quantity of LSD, probably unrelated to the case.

There was nothing in room 2 beside a few chemicals, the bodies and files were gone without a trace.

Room 3 was some kind of medical room with all the equipment necessary to do most kind of procedure. An uncanny thing was a large number of Bluetooth in a cabinet, but they did not seemed to be connected to anything.

The detective entered room 4, it was big, dark, had a restraining chair in the middle of it and a few screens around it, then again, connected to nothing. There seemed to be a lot of equipment to perform surgeries, a lot of tools and some teaser guns. This must have been a torture room, possibly used for interrogations. He did not have to search for long before he fond traces of blood all over the chair. Some stains seemed fresh as if it was from only a few hours ago. Analyzing it, Batman was surprised to find out that all this sanguine fluid was linked to only one individual, Harleen. His theory was that they tested her loyalty after Joker offered her to betray them.

He got back to the main room where he started going through the files on the computer Crane had been using earlier. The most interesting thing he found was the official Arkham files on patients Kirk Langstrom : The Manbat, Basil Karlo : Clayface and Pamela Lillian Isley : Poison Ivy. A note was added to the woman's files, it consisted of information about the mycellium mushroom and how it can have a very powerful connection to almost any type of plant life.

The vigilante contacted GCPD requesting them to investigate the laboratory for the LSD, torture room and stolen Arkham files. He also demanded of them to contact him immediately if they were to come across Oswald Cobblepot, Harleen Quinzel, Edward Nygma, Jonathan Crane and Jervis Tetch, but not Jackson White for he did not want anybody to make the connection of him being the clown prince of crime.

22:38 PM, the dark knight is knocking on a kitchen window without expecting anyone to answer to it as both Quinn and Tetch were probably still somewhere with the rest of the gang. He easily broke into the apartment and started cautiously investigating each rooms.

Nothing could give him any clues of where they could have been or what their next move would be. However, he spent a little extra time in the woman's bedroom for he was shocked to find such a sinister décor. Wholes, cracks and old blood stains were covering the walls, glasses from broken bottles shattered all over the floor and there was not much left of any furniture, only her bed seemed to be standing fine. He analyzed the stains and traced the DNA to be matching hers, Crane's and Jervis's. The detective could not come up with any theory of why they had fought.

23:42 PM, he is now searching through Jonathan's apartment for any clue, craving for a lead, wishing for something to be beyond out of place and odd. Exactly like the previous places, he found absolutely nothing.

He was about to exit when he heard the front door being unlocked and the knob turning. The hero hid in the darkness a corner of the living room was offering him. He had not made his mind up about leaving immediately or staying to interrogate Crane. He watched as the other man entered the place alone and went on sitting down on a couch next to him without switching any lights on. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes before calmly speaking.

"Were you planning on jump-scaring me?" The vigilante stepped out of his miserable hiding place kind of surprised. "Shadows cannot cover odors."

True, his suit must have smelled a lot like the streets and in a closed room that was not very subtle.

"You, Nygma, Tetch and Quinzel have been spending a lot of time in a certain laboratory..."

"Why are you coming to me for information?" Jonathan quickly interrupted him. "Don't you know Edward owns this lab?"

"Where is he?"

"Who knows? Last time I checked an apartment with his name linked to it the place was completely empty. I guess it's some sort of cover up." He stood up and scratched his head. "He always was somewhat paranoiac."

The insane psychiatrist headed to his kitchen where he got himself a glass of water. Batman knew he was telling the truth about Nygma, he always lived in a hidden place even he had not found yet. Although Crane was being honest so far, he still was not pleased to find out that the man who was quite literally under Penguin's wing now was the owner of this place, shutting down the lab was going to be a mission of its own.

"I find the deaths of many of the test subjects to be very suspicious."

"I'm not the one confirming those, take it with a man named Jackson White. Would you need me to give you his address?"

He was beyond comfortable with the interrogation. The thin man took out a pot and a box of uncooked pastas and started making his supper not annoyed at all of the vigilante's presence. This was strange.

"What about the LSD?"

"We've been using it only for researches purpose, which is a thing that had been legalized during the month of October." He turned to the dark knight with a smirk. "Don't you keep up with the law, Batman? A lot has changed recently."

"How do you know Jackson White?"

"He is Doctor Quinzel's cousin."

"Speaking of her." He approached Jonathan making sure he could see all of his slightest reactions to the question. "You've had quite a fight with her and Tetch."

"Indeed we did." He replied with a light chuckle while the hero stood immobile awaiting explanations. "Some people really can't handle alcohol, she's one of them. Jervis and I barely remember why she went berserk that night." An awkward silence filled the room after what seemed to have been an incomplete statement. "There really is nothing more to it."

"You expect me to believe this?" He responded harshly.

"Well you can always head to her place and have a few drinks with her." He mocked the caped crusader while stirring his food. "Why are you here?"

"Why won't you be honest? You know where this could lead."

"Are we already at the part were you simply beat a confession out of me?" He turned to the hero who was shocked upon hearing those words again. "You can torture me all you want Batman, but you won't be satisfied for I still don't know what confession you are expecting me to give." Crane took a step toward him staring into his eyes. "Why are you here?"

"I know about the Reds."

Jonathan joined his wrists together presenting his hands the the armored man.

"Arrest me." The surprised detective did not make any move believing this to be some kind of trap for this was too easy. "Arrest me and all the others for it was wrong of us to use illegal drugs, even if it meant curing our illnesses and living better lives."

"You aren't cured!" He growled.

"The psychiatrists will be the judges of that, once more."

"Harleen seems to be very violent for a sane person."

"Shall we send everyone who once lost control under the influence of alcohol to the Asylum?"

Batman knew he could not take Crane back to Arkham for they would release him and furthermore maybe legalize the Reds.

"Who created the Reds?"

"I sincerely wish I knew."

The hero started walking toward a large window as he decided to leave without arresting him. He could figure out who made this drug by himself.

"Thank you." He said as he moved his hand to take the pot away from the stove and followed the other man. "I will be honest in a way I should never be with you." The dark knight stopped wondering what he meant. "I've seen many emotions go through your face, but never have I seen this one so clearly. You almost make me miss my illness, for as Scarecrow I would have loved to see you as sad and desperate as you are today." He opened the window angrily without looking back. "They told me you were missing him, but I never believed it."

"Missing who?" He asked in a low voice already knowing the answer.

"The Joker."

He spent the rest of the night searching through the city, unable to find any one else from the gang. He went to Arkham and informed them of the stolen files to which the employees almost did not reacted to. One of them even went as far as stating that since these three patients had gone missing for so long the files were no longer relevant and therefore worthless. The caped crusader could not believe how idiotic the asylum staff was in regard of the situation. The odd behavior of the workers really was confusing, but mostly alarming for they could very well all be parts of the gang. He asked about the Reds and they had a similar answer to the one Jonathan had given, it was a cure. They already were working on legalizing the stuff.

He finally tried his partner's apartment. It was as he remembered, he confiscated the gun and went on trying each and every of his electronic devices and noticed that the tablet he had used once to connect to his glasses was missing. Although, one of the gadgets seemed to be truly his and not just a piece of something lying around, it was a small and old laptop. He wondered how the man could have kept it around between prison and asylum's breaks and lockups. Most of the things were very well hidden with passwords, lockers, overall basic but efficient coding that the detective managed to bypass. He did not had a lot of written files, most of them being names and addresses that were no longer accurate. Most of them were no longer accurate due to the homeowner or family being murdered however. That was a strangely organized way of committing homicides for the pale man, but the list was short. The hero thought that it probably was a too boring way of doing it for the clown and he moved on from this methodized way.

The photo folder was the one containing the most files. The vigilante was hoping to find some recent info, maybe some ideas to were he could be held or in the worse scenario possible, where his body might have been. To his surprised all he found was somewhat memories, he really was not picturing the lunatic to be this kind of emotional type. Most of the pictures seemed to have been taken from other cameras, sometimes with amazing resolutions, sometimes horrible and some old pictures were imported from scanners.

About half of them were photography of him, Batman. He was looking at himself through the madman's eyes. From to ground, positioning his camera toward the sky to catch glimpses of the dark knight moving through the night. Some were truly disturbing for they were taken from so close it was uncomfortable for him to realize how near the man could actually get without being noticed.

Some scans from his first crimes were there, probably trophies he took as a beginner.

A lot of pictures were hideous jokes he had set up by posing corpses in disgusting and embarrassing manners. A priest and children in a sexual situation, movie references with the bodies wearing costumes and make up, a classic school picture with the exception of everyone being headless, the entire reenacting of a wedding and honeymoon with only one of the lover being alive and it went on with more distasteful comical photos.

The night ended with him being clueless. He told his coworkers that Jackson's absence was due to the passing of his grandmother and that he allowed him time off.

The second night went in a similar fashion as the first one. He found Jonathan to be at his place, doing seemingly nothing illegal. He could not find Cobblepot nor Nygma. He headed to Harleen's place but no one was home. He went back to Arkham and the staff was equally weird. He searched isolated places of Gotham, went back to the lab, to the cabin, to Joker's place, the Iceberg Lounge, the bunker and the lake. The lake, he scrutinized it from bottom to top. He did not find his body, but instead an old trace of him. The leather that used to hold this object together had broken off due to the water ruining it, but the main part was almost intact. This time, the hero kept the useless item.

A few nights later he finally got in contact with Jervis. He rushed into the apartment when he opened the kitchen window.

"Where have you been?! Where's Harleen?!" He held Tetch against a wall.

"I was in Star City with her, most people don't know us that well there and we can walk around at daylight with less people shouting insults at us." He quickly said and the hero kept his firm grip on him. "It's not the first time we visit another city together, why is this so important now?"

"Where did you sleep?"

"A hotel, like anyone would. Do you want to see the receipt?"

He let go of him slowly and the small man went on sitting at the table.

"What were you doing in Star City?"

"Not much. I accompanied her while she shopped, we went to a few restaurants and bars, saw a movie... We really just had a good time."

He seemed to be honest and that would all be really easy things to check.

"Where is she now?"

"Probably at a bar. I don't really know, we got home today and I was a little tired, which she wasn't at all, like usual and she decided to go out by herself."

"Will she be back later?"

"I doubt it, last time she went out by herself it took three days before she called. She was stuck in Central City without a penny, I had to go get her."

"Tell me about the fight you had with her and Crane."

"She drank and like I just explained to you, she's not the best at handling alcohol." The detective started heading to his exit through the window while he heard Jervis addressed him. "I know you found out about the Reds and are against it." He turned to the small man, listening closely. "I'm not telling you what to do, I just want to give you an advice. You're on the wrong side of a fight that isn't happening. The drugs might not have been legal back then, but it's working and that's what's important. Take it from me, obsessing over something that isn't real is no way to live and you've been seeing a problem where there has been none for quite some times now..."

"Who created the Reds?" He interrupted him uninterested, yet disturbed by his opinion.

"I don't know."

This was overall good news for Bruce, all he had to do was pay attention to the police radio for any call for a drunken woman that needed to be controlled or any type of massive disturbance in the night. If there was someone who knew what had happened to Joker, it was her. Unfortunately, nothing came up and the disappointed hero theorized that maybe she had left to party in another city.

November 28th, 8:03 AM, Bruce is entering his office, beyond sleep deprived from the days he had just spent investigating and seeking answers through Gotham, all for nothing. He sat down at his desk and noticed he had a new voice mail on his work phone. He entered his password to listen to it. The message started off with a man sickly clearing out his throat and the voice of a woman vaguely came through from the background. She was laughing while speaking and the only word he could made out was gross. Then the man started speaking, Bruce's heart began racing upon hearing his voice. "Bru-Brucie? 'was just wondering if you could pick me up tomorrow and ehm... Would you be so kind and take me to a restaurant? All right... Love yoouu..."

He was not quite sounding right, but it was him, he was alive and furthermore he was at home. The billionaire did not waste any time rushing to his car and expeditiously drove to the pale man's apartment.

He knocked frenetically at the door and was left speechless from the sight of the man opening it. No glasses, no shirt, wearing jeans and shoes, scratched and bruised up all over from his fight with Harleen.

"I ain't deaf, you know?"

He walked away nonchalantly almost as if he was disturbed by the larger man's presence. He stepped into the place surprised of how worse it had gotten since last time. The smell of puke was overwhelming, plus the floors where covered with shattered glass and blood.

"What happened? Are you okay?"

"What happened?" He sarcastically asked while turning around with his large smile. "I partied that's what!"

The smaller man pushed a few boxes of pizza and plastic bags revealing Quinzel lying on the floor, pants less and holing on to a jug of bleach. He lowered himself toward her and grabbed her face.

"Wakey wakey, we've got company." He softly said.

"The popo!?" She quickly awoke panicked and grabbing his arm.

"No, Bruce."

She sighed relieved and lied back down before looking at the jug of bleach, throwing it across the room and beginning whining.

"Miss Quinzel, are you all right?" The billionaire asked.

"I've been through worse..."

"No you haven't." The clown mocked while he started searching for something in the fridge.

"What d'ya mean?"

"You broke the record. You drank two whole jugs!" He turned around holding his bottle of lemonade. "Are you in pain?"

"Yeah..." She rolled on her back while holding her belly. "But alive, so I won..."

"No you don't!" He approached her. "You're not poison proof if you're in pain! You're poison resistant."

"It's the same thing."

"No it's not! You owe me."

Bruce stepped closer to the two in order to take place in this uncanny conversation.

"Jackson is right actually, poison proof would mean that there is absolutely no effects while poison resistant means that the effects are minor." He turned to the man drinking lemonade and added. "What kind of bet is this? You risked her life for how much?"

"For my black hoodie..." She whimpered while trying to get up. "Oh crap... Where are my pants?"

The pale man avoided answering the hero and walked away into his room. Harleen was holding on to the counter and resting her head against a cabinet.

"Strange relationship you have with your cousin." The larger man said.

"We're great friends, y'know? And like many... oh God..." She stopped and cleared her throat. "Thought I was gonna puke. Like many friends we sometime have stupid ideas... This was one of them."

She walked passed the tall man and started searching through the apartment calling for her pants like one would call a pet. He went on joining his partner in the bedroom, he was picking up empty bottles from the floor and throwing them out the window. He swiftly grabbed his arm.

"Hey! You could hurt someone!" Joker simply turned to him with an extremely blasé expression on his face. "Could you please not make this difficult?"

The woman entered the room and abruptly stopped upon seeing the billionaire holding the madman's arm.

"Am I interrupting something?"

The slender man smiled to her.

"Clean up the place." He asked and she stood there. "Please, Harley?"

"Where are my pants?"

"You lost them at the casino two days ago, remember?"

She looked down thoughtful for a moment and suddenly brought her hands to her face and regretfully sighed. She started picking up bottles off the floor. Bruce helped her while White got out of the room to seemingly do nothing.

"What size suits you?" He asked.

"What?"

"I can go and buy you some jeans."

She smiled to him.

"It's okay, ya don't have to."

Joker entered the room and requested the girl's hoodie, which she joylessly gave to him. Now all she had was shoes, panties, a red t-shirt and an excruciating hangover. Bruce got up and left the apartment disappointed.

Less than a hour later he came back and immediately noticed the door mat the clown had made out of the black hoodie he won from Harleen. She opened and he entered the now clean apartment while avoiding stepping on it. He handed her a bag containing jeans and a winter coat.

She put the clothes on, it all fitted. She went on hugging him, he did too. It felt strange for him to be holding an enemy in his arms, but what was even more funny was that she did not knew that the man she was holding was Batman, her worst enemy. She proceeded to leave and stepped on her beloved piece of clothing, upon looking down she yelled.

"For real!?" Followed by a soft whisper. "Fuck you."

The door closed and the he turned to the chuckling man behind him. He rushed toward him and pushed him hard against the wall closing the space between them, his face inches from his.

"I thought you were dead! You never called, not even once!" He screamed at him.

"No touching, darling." He arrogantly purred.

"I searched the entire city looking for you! I haven't slept for days!" He let go of him and stepped back. "And you, you spent all this time partying with her! Not caring about anything in the world!"

"You're exaggerating."

"Exaggerating?!" He started searching through his jacket's pockets. "You think I'm exaggerating?" He handed the red ball to his partner. "I looked everywhere for you..."

The jester's eyes widened upon seeing the gift, he took it and inspected it with his mouth slightly open, completely shocked. He seemed almost emotional over the situation. He then smirked and locked his green eyes to Bruce's.

"How unproductive of you." That triggered the vigilante who started rushing toward the other man who ran to his bedroom screaming. "No touching! No Touc..."

He was interrupted by the larger man grabbing him and pushing him on the bed, getting on top of him to hold him down firmly. He started shouting angrily.

"I thought you were dead! I've lost so much time because of you! You should've called me! Why didn't you call me!?" He was violently shaking the smaller man under him while ranting about the past few days.

"I'm here now, I'm alive." He replied in between the yelling of the other man. "It's okay, baby." The hero stopped for a moment allowing the pale man to speak up. "I've got good news, but you have to stop touching me." The man simply rolled on the bed and stayed lying down beside the clown. "I've stolen the piece of detonator for Nygma's head from Harley, it's in her pants hidden in the kitchen." He said laughing. "We're going to steal the other pieces and set him free, it'll ruin their plan. Also I still have this piece of mushroom you should analyze, plus I know who the first person to have sneaked in the Reds is."

"You do?"

"Ivy placed them there long before leaving Gotham, that's why Harley took them after, so she wouldn't get caught. She was supposed to take them, get her freedom and join Flower-girl somewhere away from the city, but she failed." He chuckled. "She started telling other people about it, because she wanted all of her friends to leave with her and well, Ivy got mad and totally disappeared."

"Wait, that means Harley would be the creator of this whole gang?"

"Well this faction anyway. Still don't know who created the drug, tho."

"How did you find this out?"

"I've been spending the last days with a completely wasted Harley here! I've learned many secrets!" He got off the bed and turned to the tired hero. "Now, how about you get some sleep before we start robbing my dear companions?"

"Here?" Bruce asked with distrust. "I'm not sleeping with you here."

In response to this, the pale man sighed and got a baseball bat out of his closet. The detective got up believing this to be a threat, but he dropped it down and kicked it toward the bed.

"That outta keep the nightmares and monsters away."

He giggled while the larger man took the weapon and lied back down, firmly holding on to it. He went to exit to room, but before doing so he stopped and in almost a whisper addressed the man lying in his bed.

"Sweet dreams, mon chéri."

The hero stood down, the bat in hand on top of him, he had his head turned toward the passage out of the room. He really needed some sleep, but doing so in this crummy apartment was putting his life at risk. He kept staring in the distance and listening to the sound of the other man speaking alone, laughing, shouting to the neighbor, becoming some sort of normal ambiance to him. Getting glimpses of the lunatic, walking, dancing, running and jumping around the place, taking phone calls, eating, naturally living in front of him. The view of his partner moving around became gracefully vague as he dozed off into a deep sleep.

It had gotten dark outside and he was wondering how many hours he had spent sleeping. He still was drained, but he woke up anyway. At first he could not figure what was disturbing him, but then it became clear. It was silence.

He got up and quietly started walking around the place, some light was coming from the living room.

"Joker?"

"I'm still here."

He responded from the dim lighted room, in a soft almost muted voice. Bruce entered the room and found the madman sitting tightly in a corner, holding on to his laptop, staring at the screen.

"Are you all right?" He received no answer and went on sitting next to him. "What's wrong?"

"Changes of plan, Batsy." He closed the computer filling the entire place in almost complete darkness. "You're coming to work with me..."

"I'm not going to cover up some murders." He harshly replied to the clown who surprisingly stood silent for a moment.

"Me neither, we're going to solve this one." He said and his voice cracked for a second. "Trust me, you won't be committing a crime."

"What's going on?"

"Start dressing up, cover your face so people won't recognize you."

"Will you tell me what this is all about?"

The jester got up and opened a light, blinding them both for an instant during which he simply said.

"Eddie died."

The hero was shocked, but he knew that the best thing to do was not to ask any questions. He believed his partner immediately on this one and started dressing up with the pale man waiting impatiently next to him. The caped crusader always thought he would have loved to see Joker speechless, but has it turned out, he hated it.

They headed out and he started following the small man unsure of if he really knew Nygma's location. During the whole route, the madman would sometime mumble incomprehensible things to himself without really starting any conversation or stating something clear.

After the long unpleasant walk, the two men arrived to a small, ugly but normal house.

"How come no one could ever find him?" Bruce could not resist asking.

"The house was a gift from a friend of mine. Carl Hergert was his name, I think..."

The larger man rolled his eyes and followed his partner to the back of the house where they easily took a window out of its framed and entered. This really was a small house with all the rooms connected and very open.

There he was, in front of his customized computer, sitting with his head falling backward against the chair, his eyes wide open. There was no trace of violence anywhere. While the detective started searching clues through the house, the jester approached the body, took Edward's head in his hands and addressed him.

"What the hell happened to you? Was it Pumpkin-head? Penguin? Was it your own fault?" He rudely pushed the head away and turned around angry. "Oh, now you don't feel like talking."

"You can figure it out without his help." The larger man encouraged his partner, coming back to him holding on to a Reds and a pile of plans unrelated to the case, but still better in his hands than others. "This place is a goldmine of information."

"Start loading the car with everything you find." The lunatic ordered.

"What car?"

"Well, his!" He shouted annoyed. "It's not like he's gonna need it!"

Joker's attitude was making Bruce irritated, yet he felt the best thing he could do this time was obey. He picked up a lot of plan and placed his computer in the car, then things started getting a little more complicated. They noticed some different spot on the walls, ceiling and floor, surely hiding something. Upon further investigation they found out they were custom made saves and opening them was beyond complicated. Riddles, passwords, puzzles, all kind of security method were used for each one. They decided it was better for Batman to come back later with his gadgets in order to open the ones they would not be able to do at the moment.

Unfortunately, it seemed to have been the case with each of almost every one of these mysteriously locked boxes. When entering the bedroom to look for more of these, they immediately spotted the difference this time. In red, written on a white wall was: 1G. The pale man touched the writing and stated.

"That's lipstick." He licked his fingers. "That's my lipstick."

"This must be for you." The two men looked at each other, the madman was utterly confused. "Joker, what could 1G mean between you and Nygma?"

He stopped and turned his attention to the message on the wall, thoughtful. After a moment of silence he spoke up.

"In chess, that's the initial position of the second white knight. 1G is the second white knight."

The piece of wall which contained the marking slid down as a panel hiding a second message: Be honest. The clown chuckled but still stared at his partner completely perplexed.

"I think it's a combination of a voice recognition system with a password. So far it respond to yours, keep going."

The detective informed the smaller man who turned back to the message.

"Checkmate?"

The jester asked unsure and they waited, but nothing happened. He kept his eyes on the short message from Nygma: Be honest. He frowned and grumbled.

"I lost."

It opened and revealed another container, sliding of the wall like one at the morgue and there it was, under a short note saying: Trust no one.

The Champion suit was now in Joker's possession.