This is it you guess, sticking with us for 19 chapters. We appreciate it a lot.
JACKIE POV
We know from recent transmissions from Ace's cell-phone that he has been sent away from the Joker and so have all of his normal goons. The Joker is completely helpless, the only thing stopping us is that we have no idea where he is. We have to wait for him to come out of hiding, which is driving me insane because if I know my Dad, he is going to be so upset that he may get himself killed.
My Dad used to get in some pretty serious funks when I lived there. Ace said it was normally about my grandpa and old memories coming back up. My grandpa has been dead since way before I was born, but I do know that he left his mark on my dad and Ace. They always talked about him like he was the devil himself. My dad would get so upset he would stop eating or trip over stuff and not pay attention. I'm not really scared of what he will do, it probably wont be any worse that what he has done to Gotham in the past. I am scared that he is going to make a mistake, blow himself up. Miss something critical and so will pass my dad.
There is something scary and final about this plan that I don't like. I have a gut wrenching feeling that things aren't going to be the same afterward. I keep trying to tell myself that it is just me nerves getting the better of me and that everything is going to go according to plan. My dad will be caught, put into Arkham, hopefully for the last time, and all will be well. But there is a voice in my head telling me that is the biggest lie I have ever told myself, ever. I shake myself out of the thought again just as Babs turns around at the computer, "The Joker is attacking Wayne Tower. He will negotiate with no one but Batman."
All of us drop what we're doing and rush to get ready, Bruce is always done first, and then me, then Tim, and finally. Show time.
TIM POV
The Joker finally has made his move, he is inside Wayne tower threatening to blow the whole block sky high unless we come and save the day. So, we're playing into his trap for now, Jackie and Dick are less than a block away ready to jump in if anything is to go wrong, which is good because with the Joker there is always potential for everything to suddenly go wrong. Also according to our thermal scanners he is alone in this building, no men, no right hand man, no goons or anything. Just him and a detonator in his hand, the large bomb he placed under the street is a diversion. Dick went down earlier to check it out, no countdown, no wires, just a few car bombs lined up together hooked together by one wire, that Dick has already snipped. Batman is in front of me and scans the Joker for weapons before walking through the door of Bruce Wayne's office where the Joker is sitting at Bruce's desk with his feet in the air.
Something is off about him, more so than usual. He looks sick, and tired, and almost like if I walked up to him and pushed him he may just turn to a pile of dust at my feet. Fragile. Which of course, was the plan. "Well, Hello! Nice of you to join me!"
"What do you want, Joker. You're outnumbered and you know you will lose. There is nothing for you to bargain for."
"Ohh well if you're so certain I can just blow this whole city block to high heaven and I'll take you both with me."
"What do you want." Batman is no longer asking, he is demanding, which means I get to strike.
"What makes you think I want something bats? Maybe I just want something to make me smile."
"Oh come on clown! I'll wipe the smile off your face." I lunge at him and I feel my cape just escape Batman's fingers, I see why he tried to stop me immediately. The Joker has taken out a knife and will strike me easily if I don't- I roll mid air out of the way of his arm and land on my side, but before I can stand back up his knife is in my side and he has another knife to my throat. I focus on breathing normally through the searing blinding pain in my side, he has very carefully avoided all major arteries and organs, the Joker planned this all along.
"Look at you, you're going to try everything in your power to save him. But you didn't even try with her. She was innocent. sh-she's not evil..." He has lost it, I can hear it in his voice, what we thought was madness before was nothing he is completely unhinged. "She wasn't evil…"
"No. You didn't save her and you wont save him either. Even if I have to hold him here until he bleeds to death in my arms. You're going to feel exactly how I feel right now." I stare at Bruce with unblinking eyes trying very hard to convey my panic to him silently.
"You save everyone else Batman. You always find a way to save the day. Not her. Why not? Why is she gone and I'm still here! I'm a maniac, a murderer. She was none of those things!" The hysteria in his voice is incredibly prominent as he screams at Batman, and though he seems crazier than I've ever seen him, I've never heard him speak so sanely. Like these words have been moving through his mind for days, it is a practiced speech and it hits my heart chords to hear him say them. He loves Jackie more than anyone else in tis room ever could. A drop of water hits the top of my head and I realize it is one of the Joker's tears.
"You let her down, Bats. You let me down. You take her away from me and put her up with billionaire Bruce Wayne and then you moved on! You stopped your tabs on her and you killed her! If you had left her with me she would be here now!" My training tells me to remain steeled to his words, but the human being in me yearns to make it better. I never thought I would feel empathy for the Joker, but I do. Bruce's eyes are cold, calculating his next move, trying to find a way out of this mess we've stumbled into. I keep looking at his eyes even as the glass in the window shatters in on us.
JACKIE POV
Nightwing and I come crashing through the windows. Bruce called us a few seconds ago, though it feels like time stops when I see the scene in front of me, Tim, blood dripping from a wound in his side with a knife to his throat in the arms of my father, who looks deranged in every meaning of the word. His pupils are dilated and his skin is taught, tears streaming down his face smearing his facepaint. He pulls the knife closer to Tim's neck, drawing a small line of blood that trickles down his blade and to the floor. My Dad's eyes dart to Nightwing's movements and I lunge at him, dashing his hand away from Tim's neck and grabbing his gun from his belt. He kicks me away and I get knocked to the floor a few feet away from him. Tim is back in his arms, knife to his temple now.
Tim is in agony as the knife in his side is moved and jostled as he is forced into a standing position. My Dad doesn't even bother to use Tim as a shield, probably assuming I wont shoot. Bruce seems concerned though and I can feel him getting itchy ready to jump to my side the second my finger pulls the trigger.
My mind is racing with all of the different emotions. My whole life I called him father, I loved him like I should. In the last year everything in my life has changed. It has all changed suddenly and without care or thought for me. The universe has placed me in the middle of a game that I don't want to play anymore. And it is his entire fault.
My daddy, the man who cuddled me when I got tummy aches and comforted me when I had nightmares. The man who taught me my ABC's and right from wrong. Who baked cookies with me and played tag with me. Is a murderer, and his knife is dangerously close to Tim's temple, I see his hand flex on the blade and the twitch in his wrist as he makes his move and I make mine. I feel Bruce move behind me just as my finger pulls and me the trigger on the gun. And I feel Bruce's hand land on my wrist to stop what is obviously to late to change.
A grim expression on his face contrasting with the red painted smile; the same shade of red that is splattered on the wall behind him. His body slumps to the ground, the knife landing with a dull thump on the carpeted floor beside him. Tim wobbles and falls forward and I feel my knees buckle. Hot tears sliding down my face. Bruce has Tim and is rushing out the window with him towards the Batmobile before I even realize his hand is no longer on my wrist. I can hear Dick's hitching unsteady breathing behind me but my eyes are focused on the gun in my hands.
"Bruce… was going to let Tim die for his twisted sense of what is right. He was going to let the Joker do it!" I can hardly recognize the twisted voice coming from my throat. I can barely contain the words I just said, they echo in my eardrums louder than a tempest.
"No, no. He would have pulled something out of the hat at the last second, he always does." I can tell this is a lie he has told himself before. He is trying to sound confident but he knows the same thing I do.
"No, we both know he had no trick, a Batarang wasn't fast enough, a bullet barely was. He would have let Tim die!"
I feel Dick's eyes on me and I know that he knows that this is the distraction I've decided to talk about rather than the real issue here. Without thinking I move closer to my Dad's dead body. With the way he is postioned I can only see his face. Through the facepaint I can see his shocked expression that he wore when I had pulled the trigger and killed him. I choose not to look at the small hole in his forehead where the bullet entered.
I feel hot tears running down my face but I can't bring myself to make a sound as I cry. I just hold my breath and let them fall. He wears no tokens or jewelry I should take, and he would never carry a wallet or anything as the Joker. Nothing for me to have of my father except memories and these moments with his remains while Dick looks on me silently from behind ready to pull me away as soon as the cops start running up the stairs. I find my Dad's hand and pry the knife out of it and throw it across the room. No notes, no goodbyes, no pictures tucked in his fist. No happy small thing that he'd leave for me like they do sometimes in the movies. Just a dead man.
I kiss his knuckles then grab my grapple from my belt. I run to the window and jump out and grapple to the next building then another. I know where I'm going and it is not back to Wayne manor. It'll never will be back there again.
A week ago we found proof that Ace was no longer with the Joker, that he had left. I managed to convince Bruce to clear his slate, let him get away. That is where I will go, maybe he will let me stay. I feel another hot tear fall down my cheek as I see my Dad crumble to the ground over and over again in my mind. Broken, defeated, and I cannot deny even for a second, that his death was 100% without a doubt in my heart, my fault.
We're in the process of writing a sequel that will be complete and will begin posting before to long. Feel free to add us as a favorite author so you'll receive and update when hat is all said and done.
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Let me know how you've liked it and thanks to those who have been reading and reviewing through it all. Sorry if I made anyone cry… I cried.