4.57 minutes.
The digitalised red numbers, flashing around the walls of the basement like some grizzly kind of Christmas lights, continued to peel away what was possibly the remaining seconds of their lives. Joker grinned and passed his tongue across his scars, sending an appraising look Batman's way. The move was reckless, he liked that. It was going to result in an explosion, he liked that even more.
4.56 minutes left to live.
Mister Freeze took four precious seconds to realise what was happening. He'd watched blankly as the small explosives had been fired around the room, but after Batman had uttered his threat, he suddenly realised the weight of the ultimatum. It brought a stiff sneer to his lips.
"You wouldn't," he gloated, confident in his knowledge. "You are bluffing me, Batman. I know that you do not kill and if these explosives were real, then many innocents would be about to die."
Beneath the line of his mask, one corner of the Dark Knight's mouth lifted in a feral grimace of a smile. "They won't die if you tell me what's going on." There was something in his expression that seemed to deny bluffing or anything that wasn't completely and deadly serious. It was inhuman in its single-minded determination.
Freeze's hand tightened around the bedstead he was holding. "I merely want what is mine."
"What's yours?" The Dark Knight snarled. "Nothing is yours. And nothing gave you the right to hold my city to ransom for money that didn't belong to you either."
"Not your city!" The German almost shouted and then made a visible effort to control himself, his head bowing in concentration. "And not your precious money. I do not care about such materialistic possessions." He took a deep breath, then exhaled it, the air coming out in a misty plume. "All I want is my wife."
At those words, Joker glanced dubiously at the shapeless form of Doctor Strange beneath the standard-issue hospital blankets. The doctor let out a small, almost inaudible giggle. A mocking grin replaced the dubious look on Joker's face.
"Four minutes left, Freeze. I suggest you tell me what you've got planned."
"Her name is Nora," the criminal continued as if he hadn't heard the other man. It was as if the threat of the explosives counting down to his demise no longer troubled him. His eyes had taken on a glassy, unfocused look, the yearning gaze of a man who is looking back into the past. "She is the most gentle, intelligent, beautiful woman I have ever met. There is no one else like her in the world. All I want is to hold her in my arms again."
"Threats, murder and abduction aren't going to bring her back." Even though Batman's voice was disgusted, it was tinged with understanding too. He knew what it was to lose someone you loved. He knew the pain of it threefold in fact.
"Oh, but you don't understand. It will bring her back."
Joker rolled his eyes expansively. All he could think about was shutting Freeze up permanently.
'Keep him ranting Bats, and I'll put our boy here on, heh, ice.'
Without breaking eye contact with the German, Batman thought back 'Nothing lethal' and received nothing but laughter in reply. But still he trusted that his word would be obeyed, or maybe he just didn't care anymore. He couldn't be certain which.
For all Freeze's cold exterior, it was obvious that he was a mental breakdown waiting to happen, like the waters of a turbulent sea momentarily tamed by a thick top layer of ice. It shouldn't prove too difficult to find the weak points of the structure and crack that frosty layer, destroying it.
"You're delusional, Freeze."
"No. No, no, no. She is in stasis, like our friend the doctor here. When I have bled your filthy city of its money then I shall be able to wake her, she will leave the land of ice and endless winter and come back to me. With the money of these simple fools you babysit, I shall be able to afford the best medical care and nurse her back to health. Under the guidance of Hugo of course, he is the only one with the knowledge to save her."
So that was the connection between the two men, the Bat had it worked out in an instant. He concentrated on keeping his face absolutely still so that the increasingly agitated Freeze wouldn't notice that he was being stalked, in a real-life parody of every child's worst nightmare, by a grinning clown. The crime-fighter watched in his peripheral vision as Joker, crouching low, advanced upon the oblivious victim, reaching into the ominous folds of his coat for a weapon.
3.15 minutes left to save all of their lives.
"So, Dark Knight, do not talk to me of what you cannot understand. My love for Nora is above your petty morals. Our love makes the mind pure, the spirit clear; it has allowed me to see the world for what it really is – a place full of many mindless droning insects, impatiently building colonies of rules so that they do not have to think about how meaningless their loveless lives are. Only those enlightened such as Nora and myself are above it all. The most noble task they can ever hope to perform is to give up everything so that I may have her love again.
"And now, Batman, prepare to – Urk!"
Not a moment too soon, the criminal's tirade was cut off by an iron bar making violent contact with the side of his helmet. The force of the blow knocked him a few paces to the side, a complex network of cracks appearing on the thick glass. He had barely enough time to recover before Joker struck again, and again.
The snarl of a cornered animal pushed its way past Freeze's lips. Unable to believe he had let himself be taken off guard like that, like some blundering rank amateur, he hefted the freeze gun strapped to his arm and took aim at his attacker. It was difficult to see through the cracks that now shrouded his head, but he could make out the dark blurred outline of the Batman and to the side, the pale faced smudge of the Bat's pet lunatic. The one thing Janice had never mentioned when she'd spoken to him of the vigilante. His hand started to close around the lever that would release the deadly jet-stream of liquid nitrogen.
Just as he was about to fire, something slammed into his arm, knocking his aim off at the critical moment. A blob of ice appeared harmlessly on the basement's ceiling.
Batman drew another Batarang from his utility belt, ready to throw again if it was needed.
Giving a shout of frustration and anger, Freeze backed away from the two looming nightmare shadows. It was no good leaving his helmet on, it was like seeing the world in the reflection of a fun house mirror. Impatiently, he reached up and tore it free of the clasps fastening it to his space-age suit, throwing the useless object aside.
His vision cleared, he had a brief moment of alarm when he realised that the clown was nowhere to be seen.
Then there was the sound of metal wheels scraping across tiles and a great weight landed on his back, strong arms wrapping around his now exposed and vulnerable throat. The choking smell of old greasepaint filled his nostrils. The clown! He must have launched himself from Strange's hospital bed and onto Freeze's back.
He gasped at his rapidly diminishing air supply, scrabbling ineffectually at the iron grip around his neck. Even with the extra padding of his suit, he could feel his ribs cracking beneath the pressure being exerted on them by the madman's clinging knees.
"You know," a squirming, nauseating voice spoke up beside his ear, "It will almost be a shame to kill you. You have some pretty good ideas, even if they are a little… twisted." In compliment to the words, the blade of a knife appeared in Freeze's direct line of vision, winking viciously at him.
Desperately, the German backed towards the nearest wall, which was thankfully close, hoping to crush his adversary against it. The jolt of the impact reached him through the other man's body and he felt the clown's grip loosen around his neck, so he repeated the action, dragging in grateful lungfuls of air.
"Oof," the voice in his ear grunted as he threw his weight back against the wall once again. "Whoo-ha-ha, I'd never have guessed you liked to play so rough." It then dropped in pitch, became a menacing purr twining itself sinuously around his inner ear as it assured him "But don't worry, so do I."
Movement out of the corner of his eye momentarily distracted Freeze from his predicament and he looked up to see that Batman had dropped into a defensive crouch, as if under the instruction of a given order only he could hear. He didn't have much time to puzzle over this before the sound of tearing material and bursting pipes assailed his ears. There was a sensation of movement around the area of his torso and he looked down to see a purple gloved hand dragging a knife across the front of his suit, his precious suit. Nitrogen in freezing, gaseous form burst from his chest at an alarming rate in a lethal arterial spray of ethereal blood, draining him.
With the chemical bleeding from him, the coldness that it kept him cocooned within also began to fade. Freeze's tortured limbs started to tingle unpleasantly as for the first time in many months they were exposed to normal temperature. Feeling came back to his extremities, he could feel his heartbeat and his metabolism speeding painfully back up to a normal rate after having been slowed by the cold of his suit. He was dying.
An inarticulate cry of grief and frustration burst from him. Anger lending him inhuman strength, he seized his potential murderer by the arms and wrenched him up over his head to the floor below. Joker's body hit the ground with a back-breaking thud and remained motionless, the air knocked from him. Triumphantly, Freeze advanced upon the immobilised man and aimed the nozzle of his freeze gun at the painted face. He could sense the Bat sprinting towards him, but that didn't matter, nothing could stop him. Not even his own imminent death. A cold smile touched Freeze's lips and he depressed the lever.
Nothing happened.
The clown's crazed laughter, ragged from lack of breath, throbbed in Freeze's head like a second heartbeat. He stared disbelievingly at the weapon on his arm. His fist tightened once again around the lever and still nothing happened. The fuel that had powered it was gone, the suit nothing more than an empty shell. His body was warm, consumed by forbidden passions. His connection, his only connection with his wife was severed. He began to scream.
"You've killed us! You've killed us! I'm dying. Nora, oh God, Nora… I'm dying…"
Batman, upon reaching the hysterical scene, put a swift end to it by smartly driving his fist into Mister Freeze's face. The broken man buckled silently to his knees and then simply knelt there, staring out at nothing with empty eyes whilst blood dripped steadily from his nose.
'Mind giving me a hand up, Batsy?'
Dragging his eyes from the pitiful sight of the icy terrorist, Batman glanced down at the man on the floor. Joker had one hand raised expectantly, the other one pressed against his side. A faintly grimacing smile finished the job his scars had started. Automatically, Batman took hold of the proffered hand and pulled the owner to his feet. As he did so, the clown gave a rumbling groan of pain, clutching tighter at his side.
'Are you hurt?'
'Nothing I won't get a kick out of later.'
Batman spared a glance at the explosives. 0.30 seconds before they died.
"Wh-what's going on?"
Two pairs of eyes turned instantly on the intrusion of a voice in a place where the spoken word was no longer required. It was one of Freeze's henchmen who had broken the silence. Having regained consciousness, he stood uncertainly by the basement stairs, holding onto the railing for support.
"The building is about to blow. Wake the others and get them out of here."
A few precious seconds ticked by in inactivity as Batman waited to make sure that the man would comply. Once he saw enough of the hired muscle awake and helping those either too injured or unconscious to move up the stairs, he turned back to his own little trio of criminals.
'No time for the stairs,' he thought at Joker, unable to help another glance at the timers that were counting down the final seconds of their lives. 'I saw another way out. You make sure Freeze comes with us.' As he transmitted his instructions, he bent and lifted up the prone body of Doctor Strange, breaking the man free of the beeping machines that surrounded him. Ominously, the heart monitor was silenced mid-beat as it lost connection with its patient, but Strange continued to draw in regular breaths.
Hoisting the pitifully wasted body over one shoulder, Batman ran for the exit he had spotted across the room. Behind him he could hear a few muttered threats as Joker tried to get his ward up and moving, and then the sounds of a scuffle as the clown gave up cajoling verbally and instead chose to drag the other man along like a sack of ill-gotten loot. They might all just make it out alive.
0.15 seconds. It could last a lifetime, or be gone in a flash.
The Dark Knight and his burden of useless flesh and bone pelted up the few stone steps that led to the outside. Like most big old houses, this one's basement had been fitted with a hefty pair of wooden doors that allowed access from the garden. It was through these that Batman planned to escape. He only hoped they weren't padlocked and chained from the outside. As he reached them, he pivoted neatly so that he could strike at their centre seam with his unencumbered shoulder. The wood of the doors turned out to be as neglected and decayed as the rest of the house, and they buckled easily beneath his muscular weight, tearing free of hinges that had gone soft with rust.
To most captives breaking free of their potential tombs, the fresh air smelt unbearably sweet, full of the promise of new life, but Batman had no time to enjoy the sensations of freedom – he had to put as much distance as possible between himself and the house before it exploded. He sprinted across the scrubby grass, the slipstream of air created by his billowing cape making him feel as if he were being dragged back by grasping hands, although the effect was most probably psychosomatic.
Reaching the edge of the house's grounds, a thin line of bushes separating him from the empty road beyond, he threw Strange down and prepared to shield him from the blast with his own body.
He was momentarily distracted by Joker pulling up beside him, dragging the stumbling, near-comatose Freeze along by the back of his collar. The man's bulky suit hung in tatters from his body, tubing spilling out from rends in the fabric like guts.
With a world-weary grunt of effort, the clown pushed his captive forwards. Freeze staggered uncertainly then went down on his knees, where he received a vicious boot to the backside that left him sprawling face down on the ground. He seemed, however, oblivious to this undignified treatment, merely murmuring something to himself over and over in such low tones that Batman couldn't make it out.
Wondering if he were to have another broken sanity on his conscience, Batman started to lower himself to cover Strange, only to find that the man was gone. Impossible, considering the doctor's state, but the evidence was right there in front of him.
Alarmed, knowing that the explosives were about to detonate any moment now, he lifted his head and scanned the area. Almost immediately he saw the white flash of an ill-fitting hospital gown darting across the lawn like a diminutive, dumpy ghost. It was heading straight for the doomed house. With a shout, Batman took off after the figure, determined to stop it from killing itself as it undoubtedly would, but something collided with his legs, knocking him to the grass.
As he went down, Joker's voice screamed in his head 'No you don't Batsy, you're not leaving me. I won't let you leave me.'
He struggled against that voice, against the burning, wiry weight entangling his legs, but he couldn't break free. And then Joker was on top of him, heavy and oppressive, trapping him and pushing his face down into the foul-smelling grass and inside his head there was still so much screaming…
He felt the explosion before he heard it. The ground shuddered beneath him and a blasting wave of heat tried to tear him out of his skin, even though Joker provided a protective barrier over him. Then the blast roared through his ears, threatening to burst them, followed by the monstrous noise of the building collapsing in on itself.
And then it was all over and the world inside Batman's head became very quiet and very empty.