Disclaimer: I only own the plot and my OCs. Anything you recognize as not mine belongs to Marvel Studios, Disney, Warner Bros. Entertainment, and/or their otherwise respective owners.

Author's Notes: Hi, everyone! Welcome back. Hope everyone is well. I am planning on getting the next chapter after this out within ~a couple of days-2 weeks, so you're not gonna have to wait too long until the next one, hopefully. You can thank me later for that :P

Chapter title comes from Kill and Run by Sia.

As always, I hope you enjoy,

~TGWSI/Selene Borealis

~the black and gold 'verse~

~the little man who wasn't there~

~chapter 8: kill and run~

It was raining.

Like it did for approximately forty-eight percent of the days of the year, making Gotham the biggest city in the entire continental US with the most rainy days and the one with the most precipitation, surpassing Rochester, New York and Miami, the rain fell to the earth in giant, fat drops. Thunder boomed in the distance while lightning arced in the sky. The rain hadn't started until several minutes ago, after the sun had finished dipping beneath the horizon. It wasn't enough to make the streets slick yet, but enough to make the other drivers cautious as he wove in and out of traffic past them, going at a speed that would make even the street racing gangs in the city worry.

Bruce was gritting his teeth so hard it was probably a wonder none of them had cracked. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly he could feel his skin stretched taut and thin underneath his gloves. Alfred, Rebecca, Selina, and Dinah were talking to him through the radio of the Batmobile, saying things he couldn't even begin to process and understand. They weren't the only voices speaking to him.

This is all your fault, the ones in his mind said, twisting and coiling like snakes. You knew that this was going to happen. The only person besides Fleck that you can blame for this is –

"Shut up!" he roared at his consciousness, but it had the effect of making the others go quiet, too. He punched the steering wheel with one of his hands, wanting to squeeze his eyes shut, but knowing he couldn't do that without putting other people at risk with what he was currently doing. "Just...shut up!"

He knew the voices inside his head were right. This was his fault. He'd told Harvey that he would die if they went with this plan. But against his own words, against what Selina had told him in February when Harvey and Rachel had moved back to Gotham and gotten their ADA jobs, he'd agreed to doing what Harvey had devised. He'd convinced himself into thinking that if he helped, he would've been able t prevent this turn of events. That it wouldn't have gone wrong anyways, like Tony had just told him hours ago that it would. His husband had known the truth all along.

It was Bruce's fault. His.

His fault, his fault, his faul –

When he got to the precinct where he knew they were holding the Joker, he didn't just park the car. He drove it up onto the sidewalk to park it and got out, his entire being simmering with rage. Nobody was around, not when it was dark in Gotham, and most of all not after what the Joker had just done.

He charged into the main room of the precinct like a bat out of hell. "Where is he?" he growled. The detectives and officers around the room all froze in the middle of what they were doing, their flurry of movements in trying to figure out where the Joker had instructed his people to take Harvey and Rachel ceasing. They stared at him openly, but instead of making him think that perhaps even he was going too far with his anger tonight, it only made that cauldron of ugly emotion boil more. Did he have to repeat himself. "Where is he?"

"Batman." He whirled around and saw the commanding officer next in line after Korosec, who probably would've been the Acting Police Commissioner had Jim actually died yesterday, standing behind him, her expression grim. She ignored his demand to say, "Glad you could make it. Is Jim with you?"

The detectives and officers continued to stare at them.

There was no point in maintaining the illusion that Jim had died any longer, not when the plan it had been part of failed so miserably. "He's on his way," Bruce said. "Where is the Joker?"

The female alpha was not fazed. "I'd prefer you'd wait for him before you start your interrogation."

"We don't have that kind of time," he spat. Harvey and Rachel, specifically, did not have that kind of time. "Desrosiers, if you do not tell me where he is – "

She didn't try to push it beyond that. "The basement," she spoke. "Where else would he be?"

He headed for the nearest set of stairs without uttering another word.

Unlike what perhaps was typical for other cities, in Gotham, where criminals were often threats to others and themselves even when in police custody, there were specific cells that many precincts had set aside for them to stay in before being transferred to the Tombs, the courthouse for arraignment, or elsewhere. These cells were most typically in the basement. Many of them, additionally, were equipped with microphones so the police could hear the isolated criminals, since the cells were soundproofed.

Because of this, even before he entered the room containing the cell properly, he could hear the Joker singing slowly, fighting back laughter the entire time, "It's raining...it's pouring...the old man is snoring...he went to bed...bumped his head...and won't wake up...in the morning..."

The officers standing in the room, looking in through the one-way glass at the Joker as he sat at the table in the room, his hands cuffed to it, were just as grim as Desrosiers, and quite a few of them seemed almost as angry as him. "Batman," one of them said as greeting.

Again, Bruce had no time for pleasantries. "Let me in," he snarled.

One of the officers buzzed the door open for him. He walked inside, turning on the lights as he did, since three-quarter of them had been off. The room was instantly lit up, the brightness of the lights searing even his eyes through his mask. They gave him a better view of Fleck, as if there was such a thing. The man, even though he was the one in chains, was looking triumphant, a cat-like smirk dancing at his features.

"Well, well, well, look who we have here," he purred. "Finally, after all this time – "

His voice was worse than nails grating on chalkboard. Bruce went over to the table – and he didn't operate under the same ethics as the police, which was the only reason why he did what he did next. Grabbing Fleck by a fistful of hair, he slammed his head into the table. Bone met metal with a sickening crack!

The Joker barely reacted to the pain. He blinked, his shoulders subtly shaking. "Never start with the head," he complained. "The victim feels fuzzy. Can't feel the next – "

Bruce slammed his fist down onto the Joker's fingers next.

Still, hardly a reaction. The Joker was utterly calm. "See?" he asked, gesturing with his other hand to his entire face.

"You wanted me," Bruce said. "Here I am."

The Joker made a face. "I wanted to see what you'd do," he corrected flippantly. "And you didn't disappoint..." He chuckled. "How many people have died now? I've lost count. Then you let Dent be the dummy for you. Even to a guy like me, that's cold."

"Where's Dent?" Bruce demanded.

The Joker ignored his question entirely. "You know, those mob fools want you gone so they can go back to the way things were," he babbled. "But I know the truth: there's no going back. You've changed things, forever."

Bruce did not want to play his game. This was the second time they had met in-person since January, when the Joker had died for all intents and purposes.

"Then why have you wanted me to turn myself in?"

"Again, I wanted to see what you would do," the Joker went. He leaned forwards in his seat. His eyes narrowed. "I mean, come on, let's be real: if I wanted to know who you are, I would've figured it out already. I admit, I did have my suspicions, a possibility or two of who you could be..." He trailed off, then hummed and propped his head on his good hand. "Friday night kind of disproved that, though. If you really were him, I doubt you would've just stood by while I threatened your pretty little husband, keeping your identity a secret or not..."

Fear, pure, abject, fear coursed its way through Bruce's system. The Joker had almost figured out who he was. He'd suspected it, enough that it was the reason outside of Tony having stood up for the man that he'd gone after him. Cut his cheek. Threatened to mutilate him the way he had been mutilate – or do worse, kill him.

"No, you're not him," the Joker continued, oblivious to his train of thought. Ra's al Ghul had taught him better than to give any show of emotion to the enemy, even when he was wearing his cowl. "I almost wish you were, though. Would've made things so much easier...would've explained a lot..."

They were getting away from the point, and Bruce was all the more of a fool for allowing it to happen.

"Where are Dawes and Dent?"

Abruptly, the Joker began to laugh. He laughed so hard, he was practically bordering on sobbing.

Bruce had had enough. Standing up, he threw the table to the ground. The Joker went flying along with it, one of the table legs again hitting him in the face as he crumpled in a heap. But still, he kept on laughing.

"Do you know the story of how I got these scars?" he asked quietly.

"Tell me where they are!" Bruce shouted.

Grabbing the Joker by the collar of his shirt, he punched him in the face. Once, twice, three times. His nose began to bleed; his blood dripped onto his shirt, Bruce's gloves.

It wasn't enough. Bruce pinned him against the wall, the table coming with them and all.

"I'll tell you," the Joker wheezed. "I'll tell you where they are. But first, let me tell you a story. It's the story of a thirteen-year-old boy who, after his mom dies from a heroin overdose, gets abducted by her dealer, the almighty Penguin, and forced into prostitution. Almost two years later, when he gets arrested for prostitution, the DA and police aren't much interested in helping them when he asks them for help. They release him back into the hands of his pimp. And for the crimes of his ward, the young Penguin, who was just getting started, really, decides to carve up his face. Gotta make sure he remembers what he did everyday when he looks in the mirror, ya know?"

The Joker for a second time couldn't hold back his laughter. He snickered, choking on his own blood as it flew out of his mouth. "But he didn't just do that. To make sure his ward got the memo, he brought over some of his buddies: Franco Bertinelli and Chin Lau," he continued. His voice descended into almost a cooing tone. "They took their turns. Gave a wooden instrument a turn, too. They thought the boy learned his lesson. After his injuries healed, they let him go back out onto the streets."

Bruce did not feel one ounce of sympathy for him. Pity, yes. But not sympathy. He tightened his grip. "There. You told me," he said. "Now: where are Dawes and Dent?"

"I'm not finished yet!" the Joker crooned excitedly. "No story, no locations for them!" He waited a beat, as if expecting to get hit again, before he pressed on. "The boy eventually escaped. He fled to the Narrows, where he made a bit of a name for himself. He rose up quickly into power. But then, just when he thought he had it all, who comes along to ruin and everything?" He sneered, but it was purely a presenter's voice he took on as he yelled, "Why, the Batman, of course!"

Disgusted, Bruce let him fall back onto the floor. "So all of this has been your fucked up idea of revenge?"

The Joker tutted. "Please, Batsy, I thought you would've assumed better of me." With shaky legs and the table being dragged along with him, he got to his feet. The smile he was giving now was like that of a wild animal: crazed, with no sense of rationality behind it. "I got my revenge against the villains in the story. But you? You're like me."

"I'm nothing like you!"

The Joker tilted his head. "No? You think those officers out there – " he jerked his hands towards the window " – care about you? They don't. You're not like them. They need you right now. The second that they don't..." He whistled. "Gone. The only difference between you and me is that you have rules, I don't."

Bruce's chest was heaving. He was practically trembling from all of the adrenaline racing through him. "I only have one rule."

The Joker's smile turned back into a smirk. "And tonight, you're going to have to break it. In order to save one, you'll have to kill the other!" he singsonged. "I'll give you a hint: one's at 250 52nd Boulevard, the other's back where it all began! But as for who's who...that's the one you'll have to figure out for yourself, Batman!"

Bruce's eyes widened. He felt all the anger leave his body.

The Joker –

No.

No.

It wasn't enough that the Joker had kidnapped them. It wasn't enough that he was going to kill one of them – because even if Bruce had Selina and Dinah go after the one he didn't, he knew tonight, just the way that Tony had earlier, that one of them was going to die tonight.

But the Joker was going to make him pick which one to save, like this was the ultimate move in his sick, demented game.

And he wouldn't even tell him which one was where.

His anger came back into his body with the force of a freight train. With a guttural scream, Bruce launched himself at the Joker. This time, when his fist landed against his temple, he knocked him out cold. He hit him another time in the nose, breaking it with a crack! for good measure.

"Which one are you going to?" Jim asked as he stalked out of the cell. Bruce wasn't remotely surprised to see him.

Which one was he going to go to?

Which one was he going to go to?

How could he decide?

How could he hold the weight of their world in the palms of his hands, knowing whichever outcome that happened tonight, one of them would live and the other would die?

He made his decision, as impossible as it was.

"I'm going to – "

"Can anyone hear me?"

"Rachel? Rachel, is that you?"

"Harvey. You're okay. I thought..."

"It's okay, Rachel. I'm fine. Everything's going to be just fine. But...God, I'm so sorry..."

"No, please. Don't apologize."

"Can you move?"

"No. Harvey, we don't have that much time..."

"Look for something to free yourself."

"If you're in something similar to what I'm in, you know that probably isn't the best of ideas."

"Rachel, no, no. Please tell me you're not..."

"I am."

"Shit! Fuck!"

"It's okay. They said only one of us was going to make it. That they'd let our...friends choose..."

"And that's going to be you! I told Batman – "

"Do you think they would let him know who's who?"

"Don't...no, they're going to rescue you."

"You've always been the luckier one."

"But you have my coin on you still, don't you?"

"...I do."

"Then it's settled. It's you they're going to save."

"Just in case, Harvey...I want you to know something."

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too. More than you could ever possibly know."

. . .

"I think I hear somebody – "

Memories flashed before his mind's eye.

He remembered a six-year-old girl with brunette hair and kind eyes while she'd given him a smile from across the kindergarten table. A dimpled smile. He remembered her pretty laugh, the way how she hadn't pestered him like all of the other children had, how she hadn't talked about him behind his back. When she'd finally mustered up the courage, she'd held out her hand for him to shake. "Hi, my name is Rachel Dawes," she'd said. "Yours is Bruce Wayne."

He remembered having run with the eight-year-old version of that girl through the forests surrounding his and his parents' home. He remembered the way she'd held his hand at his parents' funeral, how she'd listened to him describe the bats that had terrified him with awe and empathy. "They must've been terrified of you, too," she'd mused out loud. "You disturbed the place that they thought they were safe."

"I guess."

He remembered the boy with the blonde hair who had asked to sit with him and Rachel at their lunch table in St. Philomena's. He remembered that first conversation they'd had, in which he'd felt like there was another kid his age out there who had seen past the persona of the rich white boy, had actually looked at him.

He remembered standing in front of his classmates to read a poem he had made: "There was a time above, a time before. There were perfect things, diamond absolutes. But things fall, things on earth. And what falls, is fallen. In the dream, it took me to the light. A beautiful lie."

Afterwards, as their classmates had snickered and laughed at the way Bruce Wayne had proven himself to be a weirdo once again, he'd sat in his seat. The boy had held his fist out to him to bump his own with. "Don't listen to them," he'd said even later than that, while the two of them had been meandering in the hallway, waiting for the girl to arrive. "The poem was good. They just don't understand it because they can't understand it."

He remembered his part in getting the boy and the girl together. He remembered them drifting apart from him, and he'd thought that it had been the better thing for them all. He remembered them coming back into his life like a whirlwind, and despite the short amount of time they'd spent together in the past three months, how good it had been to have his first friends back in his life.

He remembered every moment he had of them, every single one, searing them even deeper into his brain than the memories already were.

Because after tonight, one of those friends would be dead, and the other would be irrevocably changed forever. There was no coming back from this.

He hoped that he had made the right decision with this.

Not that there was a "right" decision that could possibly be made tonight.

Bruce parked outside the building, his breath coming out in shallow pants. The building loomed in front of him like it had that night in January. This was where he'd chased Red Hood into after the man had pushed Dinah towards him and managed to escape. This was where the crime lord had died, and the Joker had been born.

He entered the building that Red Hood had gone through all those months ago. Immediately, he saw how the interior had changed. Many of the boxes were gone, with shelves empty. Not all of them. There were still enough remaining, and it tingled at the back of his neck what they probably contained, but he wasn't going to think about that. Not until he found Harvey or Rachel.

The center of the entire building was the same, though darkly lit. None of the lights had been turned on automatically this time – the Joker must've broken them all. He could tell by the crunching of glass beneath his feet.

The chemical vat was in the this center, as it had been before. He could hear and smell it churning with liquid. But unlike the chemical from before, the side window revealed the liquid to be a darker color. A bottle green, almost black.

Hanging above the chemical vat in a cage, for all intents and purposes, was one of his friends. He felt relief, guilt, and anger all flood him, the waves crashing against his mind one after the other.

But he knew this was only the beginning. He had to get them out of the trap – before the timer on the cage, showing six minutes left, went off.

"Batman," Rachel said, her eyes wide. He saw her raise a hand to her mouth. "Oh – oh my God – "

"Are you hurt?" he asked, his feet slamming against the stairs as he went up them so he could get a better look at the contraption she was in. It was something bordering on medieval, with bars not only forming its walls, but also its floor. He could tell just by the hinges that it was a bottom that could open, which would make Rachel fall into the vat.

No. He wouldn't let that happen.

"My head," Rachel said, and he saw that her right temple was bloodied. But she seemed alert; the wound, or so he prayed to God, couldn't be that bad. "They hit me to knock me out. But I'm fine, other than that."

"They hit you on the head?"

Harvey.

Bruce turned his head and saw a phone hanging right next to the cage, placed on speaker. Rachel closed her eyes. "Harvey, it's – "

"Harvey, I'm with Rachel," he said, cutting over her. He hated doing it, hated interrupting what even he knew had to be their last moments, but he wasn't going to admit to that. "Gordon and Catwoman are on their way to you. They should be getting to you any moment."

Harvey laughed weakly. "Good. Good, good." He didn't believe what Bruce was saying, either. "Don't worry about me. Just focus on getting Rachel out, yeah?"

"On it." There was a keypad next to the side door to the cage. But he didn't have time for that. Taking out his Acetylene torch from his tool belt, he used it against one of the cage bars. This would be a time-costing maneuver, too, but if he could just get even one of the bars removed, while it would be horrible for Rachel to endure, if he could dislocate or break her collarbone along with it...

His heart fell into his stomach at how the metal reacted to the flame. His Acetylene torch was one that burned hotter than most, a Wayne Enterprises invention modified by Tony. It should have caused the bar, despite its diameter, to begin to glow with embers within thirty to forty-five seconds.

But it did not.

And they had less than three minutes left.

Rachel picked up on this. "What kind of metal – ?" she breathed.

"Not one I've seen before," he growled. A part of him couldn't help but think the metal was similar in quality to how Rebecca had described Steve Rogers' vibranium shield. But that didn't make sense, and it wasn't relevant, so he didn't dwell on it any longer on that. He looked through the bars down at the chemical vat. He made the calculations in his head about what it would take to catch her, even as he kept that flame on the metal bar.

The results were not promising.

No.

He was going to save her.

He was going to save her.

"Rachel," he began. "Can you hold onto the bars?"

He watched defeat creep onto her expression. "They've been slicked up."

He'd noticed they'd had.

Still.

"Try," he ordered.

Shakily, Rachel took in a deep breath and gripped the bars in her hands. Harvey was giving her encouragements the entire time, even with his own life hanging in a similar, if not identical, manner to hers. There was no mention of Jim or Selina coming to his rescue.

"Batman," Rachel began, her voice raising as he landed back on the ground of the building. He got his claw ready and himself into position, making more calculations in his head, trying to account for every outcome possible. "I just want to say – "

"I'm going to save you, Rachel!" he barked.

There was less than a minute on the counter.

"I – I know you will." Her voice was cracking. Even in the darkness, he could see the tears in her eyes. Harvey went quiet at that. "But even if you don't, I don't want you to blame yourself. You've done everything that you can."

He shook his head. "Not enough."

Thirty seconds.

"Yes, you have," she insisted. She sniffled. "And I also want to thank you for being our friend, Batman. You were the best friend either of us could've ever asked for."

"What she said," Harvey added. "Thank you, Batman."

Ten seconds.

His own eyes were blurry. "Thank you, too."

Five seconds.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

A beautiful lie, indeed.

BOOOOOOM!

Bruce barely reacted to the explosion of the warehouse behind him. The heat licked his back, the flames reaching into the sky as he could see by the light it caused, but the destruction was barely a problem when compared to everything else.

Rachel's screams were, by far, the worst sounds he had ever heard. They were worse than Tony's screams while he'd been in childbirth, Maria's crying when she'd thought that her only child had died giving birth to her youngest grandson, Tony's keens when he'd found out that his mothers, biological and adoptive, were dead along with his sire. They were worse than the sounds of a cat being tortured to death – because he'd heard that sound before when he'd stopped a teenaged serial killer in the making one Halloween night. It was a sound he'd never forget.

He'd caught her, but not in the nick of time. Not soon enough to prevent the left half of her body dipping into the chemical vat as he'd pulled her away. Like Fleck that night in January, the chemical was reacting with her skin. It was sizzling at it, though it wasn't exactly a burn. It seemed to be having the exact opposite reaction as the chemical from before. Whereas that chemical had bleached Fleck's skin, this chemical was...darkening hers to the point of lividity. And her hair...

"Oh my God, Rachel," he whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."

He knew she couldn't hear him. Not over the sound of her own wails. Not with the absolute pain that she was in.

Bruce deposited her in the back seat of the Batmobile. There wasn't anything else he could do. He wasn't going to wait for an ambulance, not when he could get to the hospital himself so much faster.

"Just hang on," he begged her. He knew there was only so much pain the body could take before it shut down entirely, after all. "Please, please..."

There was no response.

Diving into the driver's seat, he started up the car. It was still raining, and now the streets were slick from the onslaught.

He didn't care.

Rachel began to quiet down with the movement of the car – he didn't know why. But her cries had devolved into whimpers by the time that his phone began to ring in one of the two cupholders between the seats. He grabbed it and shoved it against his ear, not even bothering to look at the ID to see who it was.

"Harvey's dead," Jim said.

Bruce was not prepared for the grief, exponentially worse than all the suffering he had been going through that night, to hit him so abruptly. He almost crashed the car – and then it would have been not just Harvey that died that night, but him and Rachel as well. He knew this intuitively to be true.

He tried to calm his breathing. He tried to use every technique Ra's al Ghul had taught him in order to handle his emotions.

None of them were working now.

"We got to him just as soon as the timer went off," Jim continued to speak. His voice was flat. Quiet. "Then the building blew up before we could get him out of the vat. Catwoman pulled me and the two officers that came with us out of there just before it did. She saved our lives."

Bruce said nothing to this.

"I'm sorry," Jim went after a pause. "This is all – "

"Don't," he gritted out.

"...How is Rachel?"

His eyes flicked back to Rachel through the rearview mirror. She was still whimpering, her eyes shut tight. "I wasn't – " he began, but was unable to voice the rest of the thought out loud. I wasn't able to save her in time. "She was partially submerged. I'm taking her to Gotham General."

"You didn't wait for an ambulance?"

"No time."

"Right. We'll be there."

The line clicked.

He threw his phone towards the front passenger seat, uncaring of where it ended up. The tears continued to blur his vision.

Bruce had never really cried after his parents had been murdered. It was not something that alphas of his status did. Crying was more of an omega thing, a beta thing. And as much as Alfred had tried to raise him away from that mindset, there were some lessons that he'd been taught by society or his parents as much as him, and there were some lessons that could not be unlearned.

But now seemed as good as time as any for that lesson to go down the drain. Just for this once.

"I'm sorry, Rachel," he repeated, his voice a murmur, probably barely audible to her – if she was even able to hear him at all. "I never should have gone along with this...it's my fault. I couldn't protect you, either of you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

He babbled on for the rest of the drive, saying things he didn't even recognize, begging her not to die on him and just hang in there for a little longer, making promises of how he would be there for her after all of this was over, because he would...provided that she wanted anything to do with him after this, no matter what she had said.

Because the entire time, he knew: he hadn't caught her when she'd needed him. He'd gotten Harvey killed.

He wasn't a hero.

He was a killer.

This was all his fault.

His fault, his fault, his faul –

Word Count: 5,094

Next Chapter Title: together