Back to work.
Harley and Dick have suffered a loss, and the rest of their family knows that it's not healthy to shut them out. When Batman called, he knew that Nightwing needed something other to focus on than his own grief, and so did Harley; she stays at Wayne Manor taking care of Damian, who's been taken ill.
Meanwhile, Nightwing and Batman patrol the streets of Gotham, looking for trouble. Trouble they find- in the form of a flaming skyscraper at the hands of a madman. He's not letting up, and neither can they.
Nightwing trailed behind Batman, just like he used to. Batman knew the behavior well. It was the same way his son had been for years, if he'd failed a test, if they'd had a fight; when he broke up with Barbara, when he dropped out of college, or when he'd accidentally hurt Damian. Nightwing- Robin at the time- would always hover just behind his mentor, trying to fade into the background. They'd already stopped two robberies, and neither of the street thugs had known anything about the Joker.
"How are you holding up?" Batman asked curtly, and Nightwing looked up. It was strange to see him in blue again after nearly a year wearing red.
"I'm… I don't know, B. I'm not good," he said quietly, as they stopped on a rooftop overlooking the city. From Downtown Gotham, they could see Wayne Enterprises. Batman looked at him.
"The funeral is tomorrow. I thought I'd… I thought I'd handle it for you."
"I can't-" Nightwing looked down. I can't handle thinking about that, no. "Thank you." He cleared his throat. There was another long moment of silence.
"Have you talked to someone about it?" Batman asked.
"I don't need to talk to someone, Batman," he sighed.
"Yes you do," Batman insisted. "If I'm any indication, keeping it quiet isn't the solution."
"You always use yourself as an example," Nightwing said with a sarcastic smirk. "Low self-esteem is not exactly reassuring from the man who raised me."
"I never wanted to be a role model. I just wanted to give all of you a better life than you would have had otherwise." Batman shrugged, looking down at the street below. His breath steamed out before him as he sighed. "And you would be mistaken to think I haven't talked about my losses."
"Bull shit. About the not wanting to be a role model thing, not the talking- I know you've talked to people- hell, you talked to me when you lost Jason. But that was months after the fact, and after that weird guy with the teeth and the crazy eyes nearly killed you- months later." Nightwing looked at him over his shoulder, his face screwed up in irritation. "I came here to work. Not to chat. It's too soon." The white lenses of his mask were expressionless, hiding the tears in his eyes. Nightwing's jaw was tight, and his dark hair brushed about his forehead in the breeze.
"I know, but there's never been anyone left in the tragedy with you." Batman turned to face him, his oldest son. The one who'd been with him the longest. "I know you. You're going to shut down, but you don't get to this time. If you think the Joker is going to leave the two of you alone-" he remembered all the blood when they'd checked out where Dick had found Harley- "or that Harley is going to be able to make through this without you… you can't withdraw this time." Nightwing's jaw tightened.
"I know," he said simply. Batman watched him for a second before turning away.
"Have you thought about what your course of action is going to the next time you see the Joker?"
Murder. Nightwing looked down. "No."
"Has Harley said anything that could help us find him?"
"No." Nightwing said shortly. He didn't seem eager to cooperate. Batman shot him a look.
"Do you even want to find him?"
"Not particularly," he snapped.
"Fine. We can let him wander the streets if that's what you want, planning how he's going to finish what he started."
"Oh please Bruce," Nightwing said angrily. "I have complete faith that you'll catch the Joker. Someday." He rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. Batman turned to snap back when a voice sounded in their comms.
"Batman this is the Commissioner," Gordon sounded rather unsure.
"What is it Commissioner?" Batman growled.
"You told me to notify you on this line if anything big happened. There's been an explosion at Wayne Enterprises." Nightwing and Batman both turned to look at the smoking skyscraper. "It was in the top floors, but we need help with evacuation. More are set to go off."
Nightwing dove off of the roof without another word, and they both leapt into the Batmobile, speeding towards Uptown Gotham. When they screeched to a halt a block away, another explosion shook the ground, the sound of shattering glass deafening as it rained down on the concrete. Nightwing got out of the vehicle, exhaling slowly as he looked up at the flaming glass and steel inferno towering above them.
"Holy shit, Batman…" Nightwing muttered, and they both sprinted down the block toward the Commissioner.
"It was mostly night time workers, janitors, security guards, and some scientists in the labs," Gordon spoke quickly. "They made it to fortieth floor before the stairwell filled with smoke- they're trapped-"
Nightwing dove forward towards the blazing building, wrenching the door open. He looked around for a moment, confident that Batman was on his heels, and then ran towards the elevator doors, pulling them open. He looked up, shrapnel raining down from the pinprick of orange light at the top of the shaft. Pulling out an escrima stick, he aimed and fired, the line pulling him upward through the air, getting thicker with smoke and dust as he rose. Nightwing put his rebreather in his mouth, letting it filter the air. On the fortieth floor he expertly released the grappling hook and flipped forward, his toes catching the ledge and balancing as he sheathed his escrima stick and wedged his fingers in the elevator door, pulling it open. As he stepped onto the floor, a tremendous snap echoed down the shaft and he turned just in time to see the elevator shoot past at blinding speed.
"Batman!" he screamed, leaning through the door and watching it plummet to a fiery explosion on the final floor.
"I'm fine," Batman radioed. "On the thirty-first floor."
"Good," Nightwing breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm going to go find the civilians now, make your way up to-" he was cut off as another tremendous explosion rocked the building, the blast barreling down the elevator shaft and throwing him forward. Batman covered his face with his cape from the heat, and Nightwing coughed.
"Are you alright?!" Batman demanded, and Nightwing nodded.
"I'm fine. Let's do this fast. What's the extraction plan?"
"Out the windows. We can't get them down the elevators with the shafts channeling the blasts like that- it also means less time before the building collapses. Get the civilians out," he ordered.
"You're going to defuse the remaining bombs?"
"They seem to be on a timer. I have about five minutes until the next floor blows."
"The building is growing weaker by the second, we may not have one or two more blasts before it's rubble from the force," Nightwing pointed out, wading through the smoke, the lenses in his mask picking up the signatures of a few civilians ahead.
"Keep in touch. Going to defuse the bombs now."
Nightwing walked forward to exclamations of relief and panic from the doctors and security guards kneeling in a cluster to get out of the smoke. One man stood, and Nightwing assumed it must be the leader of the small party.
"Is this everyone?" he asked in the eerie quiet of the dark, the burning floors above hissing and crackling, muffled. Thirteen people crouched in a circle.
"Everyone that we could radio or find, yeah. There weren't very many people in the building, and most of them got out already," the doctor coughed. Middle aged, glasses- probably a tech supervisor. Nightwing nodded.
"Alright. Stay here. We have about five minutes until another explosion blows," he informed them, walking to the high glass window at the end of the hall. He pulled a small gadget out of his glove pocket and then sprayed explosive foam onto the glass, stepping back and turning around as the gel hardened and then blew the glass outward. Nightwing waved the doctor over. "I can take two at a time, and we have to move fast. You're a technician?"
The man nodded, waving over three more of the cluster of people. Nightwing looked at them. "Alright this will work. Look, take this-" he fired the grappling hook in his escrima stick at the floor at his feet, and it bit clean through the tile. "You'll have to hold on tight. The cording will release as far as you need to go. When you hit the ground, press this button to send it back up. Got it?" The technician nodded uneasily. "Two can go at a time."
Nightwing pressed the escrima stick into their hands. "Hold on tight. It will feel just like a roller coaster," he assured them as he fired the grappling hook of the second escrima stick into the floor. "This better work."
Batman examined the standard pipe bomb. He'd dismantled the one the floor before easy enough, and assumed the process on this one would be the same. The timer ticked down 8:24. 8:23. 8:22. He glanced out toward the windows, hoping Nightwing was getting everyone out safely. He stood up after the satisfying click of deactivating it.
"Do you like my little gift?" Joker purred behind him, laughing quietly. Batman spun around, his jaw clenching. He blinked in surprise at the Joker's appearance. He wore a black three piece suit, with a deep violet vest and a green bow tie. Spotless white gloves covered his long thin fingers, but it was his face that Batman couldn't tear his eyes away from. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, his eyes flashing madly under a miserable mop of green curls. His smile was accentuated by the deep, heavily stitched gash cutting jaggedly up to his cheekbone, widening his smile into a satanic grin.
"Not particularly," Batman said slowly.
"What do you think?" he asked, gesturing to his face, turning a bit so that Batman could see the tightly stitched gash better. "Courtesy of your eldest. Tried to wipe the smile from my face, but the joke is on him; now I'm always smiling," he laughed.
Dick, please tell me you didn't do this.
"So you're still playing at something?" he asked. "Couldn't kill Harley, so you blow up a building?"
"I'm just passing. The. Time." With each word, he tapped his foot, smiling slyly.
"The bombs." Batman pressed his comm. "Nightwing, when you're done evacuating, can you take over defusing the bombs at the twenty-ninth floor? I have a situation."
"What's the sitch?" Nightwing asked. "I'm almost finished evacuating, just checking the floors-"
"-I only need eight minutes," Joker purred. Above them, the floor creaked, and he looked up. "Maybe less. Oh how time flies when you're having… fun."
"It's nothing I can't handle." Batman turned him comm off. "Give me one reason I shouldn't beat you unconscious and drag you to Arkham right now."
Joker thought for a moment. "Because of my charismatic charm?"
"Not good enough." He advanced toward him, sliding a batarang out of his utility belt.
"Because I have something you want," Joker stated darkly.
"Chances are I want you behind bars more."
"You've never been a gambling man," he said in surprise, his eyes going wide and his jaw dropping sarcastically. "Not when its someone else's life at stake."
"But you've always been a gambling man, and not stopping you puts hundreds of lives at stake." Batman glared.
"True, but that's your fault. So am I bluffing now? Or is it a double bluff?" He grinned, fanning out a deck of cards in his hands like a magician, checking his watch. "Nightwing has just defused a bomb, I'd wager. No matter. The time lapse gets shorter and shorter as you near the bottom floors. He'll never know, and he'll never make it out alive. Ready to play the game? If I win, you lose another bird to the flame. If you win- well you get to pick your own terms. So, Batman. Am. I. Bluffing?" Batman stared at him hatefully. He reactivated his comm.
"Nightwing, I'm coming to help you. What floor are you on?"
"Umm… twenty-four, I think. I'm heading down to the next. Have your situation handled?"
Joker watched him, still grinning darkly, shuffling the cards in his thin fingers.
"Not really." He turned the comm off again. "Next time I'm calling your bluff," he warned. Batman wanted nothing more than to arrest Joker right then and there; stop the man who'd caused so much pain. But he didn't doubt that Joker had leverage to make sure he made it out of this building alive. As he turned to go back down the elevator shaft, Joker's soft voice stopped him.
"Did you say goodbye, tonight, Mr. Wayne?" He froze, deliberately turning to face him again.
"There is no force in the world," his voice was calculated fury, "that could protect you if…" He trailed off, his jaw clenched.
"I actually think the fact that I do is a force great enough," he grinned, laughing as he flicked his wrist and the Queen of Diamonds shot out of the deck. He caught it between his fingers, tossing the rest of the deck over his shoulder as he put his hand in his pocket, examining the card. "I wonder if the big bad Bat is fast enough to get there." He looked up at him curiously, walking forward as he struck a match and set the card alight.
"Get where?" Batman demanded.
"Batman, the clocks are set closer together I don't know if we should still be in the building- I won't make it, I need help-" Nightwing said into the comm, sounding a bit panicked. Joker grinned at him, knowing that he was listening to the communicator.
"You didn't answer my question. Did you say goodbye to her tonight? Did you… see her tonight? Or were you too busy searching for me?" Batman pressed his comm.
"Nightwing," his voice was suddenly weaker. "Selina is down there. Keep moving. I'm on my way."
"People really shouldn't let their cats wander the streets at night. Someone may mistake them for a stray," Joker laughed, watching the burning bits of the card crumble to the ground. He walked close enough to Batman that he could be hit easily, taken down, even. He knew he wouldn't be as he grinned up at Batman's dark mask. Nose to nose. Batman glared down at him before sprinting toward the elevator shaft.
"Give my regards to the happy parents!" he called. "Extend my congratulations on the little girl." Joker's laugh echoed with him as Batman dove through the elevator doors.
Nightwing gasped in relief when he defused the bomb with forty seconds to spare. He ran back to the elevator shaft and dropped down to the next floor. Fifteen floors to go, and he had less than two minutes to run to the center office, defuse the bomb, and start all over again on the next floor down. The time kept shrinking under his fingers. Nightwing slid to a stop and kicked down the locked door, searching for the pipe bomb in the room. Once he'd pulled it apart and the timer had stopped, he took off running again, his chest heaving. Fourteen floors with barely two minutes between each, the time drastically dropping.
He wouldn't make it.
Nightwing calculated he'd have to abandon the endeavor on the eighth floor, if he was lucky, maybe the seventh; but the bottom of the building would blow out, nonetheless. He'd already commed Gordon to get everyone back in a two block radius, a massive evacuation around the towering glass structure. But if it fell- the damage would be devastating. He tried to think his way through this, but he knew that doing it alone wasn't an option.
Nightwing gasped through the smoke. His lungs had started burning five minutes ago. He didn't know how much more he could run blindly through the dark, tears in his eyes, the smoke biting through his mask.
"Batman- Have you found her-" he gasped.
"No!" he shouted gruffly, sprinting through the dark building.
"Forget her," Nightwing breathed.
"She's still here!" Batman snapped furiously.
"If she's still here, her only chance is us defusing these bombs!" Nightwing shouted, pressing his comm as he pulled the plug on another. Thirteen. He turned and ran towards the elevator. "Start on the first floor and stop them- if we don't stop these explosions, Selina as well as countless civilians will die!"
Batman stopped, staring straight ahead. He didn't know what to do, feeling the weight of his wedding ring on his finger under his heavy gauntlet.
"Now!" Nightwing shouted into his comm.
Batman burst into action, diving back down the elevator shaft, his cape flying out and stiffening to catch him as he landed on the rubble of the elevator.
Nightwing dropped down the shaft, his feet catching on the ledge of the twelfth floor. He yanked on the doors, letting out a cry of exhaustion as they gave way. He stumbled into the hall and fell, dragging himself to his feet before he'd even hit the ground. His boots pounded along the tile and he skidded to a stop, following his computer to the bomb, and tearing out the fuse.
"Heading down to twelve," he gasped into the comm.
Come on, Bruce...
"Just finished four," Batman responded.
Selina, where are you?!
Gordon sent his final squad car away, turning back to look at the burning building silhouetted in the dark sky, the top floors still alight, but contained for now.
Please, Batman…
"Eleven."
"Five."
"Ten."
"Six."
"Nine," Nightwing fought his fatigue, defusing the bomb with fifteen seconds to spare. He ran back towards the elevator shaft.
"Seven," Batman responded, turning away from the inactive bomb.
"Go find Selina," Nightwing instructed. "I've got this one-" he landed on the eighth floor, the doors heavy as he forced them open and planted one foot on the tile.
The explosion ripped through the floor above him as Batman made it to the elevator.
"Nightwing!"
He saw his son falling as the heat hit, his grappling wire pulling taut and then snapping in the flames tearing down the elevator shaft.
Batman dove blindly, and the ceiling behind him collapsed in blazing debris, his cape bursting open like the wings of an avenging demon as he descended. Nightwing's horrified face was seemingly frozen before him, falling towards the jagged and wrecked elevator in half-time.
You won't make it.
In a split second decision, Batman let his cape fall limp, and he dove.
Nightwing gasped as he stared up at the flames rushing downward. Batman's arms clamped around him. His head snapped back as they crashed into the debris of the broken elevator. Nightwing rolled into Batman's chest as his cape came up to protect them both from the heat of the blast.
His ears rang. Batman shouted something. The world was fuzzy and reddened by the blood running into his eyes. Movement- Batman hauling him to his feet, pushing him out into the lobby. Dust rained from the ceiling, and a rumbling thrummed in his ears and in his stomach- he could feel it in his bones, trembling under his boots.
"Nightwing!" Batman shouted, shaking him violently back to consciousness.
"Bruce- we have to-"
A tremendous cracking cut him off, and Batman broke into a run for the doors, dragging Nightwing behind. They burst into the cold night, fire trucks screaming away down the street. Their boots pounded in unison over the concrete, but they couldn't outrun the sound- Nightwing looked over his shoulder. Glass and flames rained down as the building fell- so massive that it looked like a dream within a dream silhouetted against the moonlight- Batman yanked Nightwing to the side, sprinting down an alley.
They ran.
When the blast finally hit, the deafening, devastating roar rang in their ears. The force threw Batman and Nightwing forward onto the concrete. Nightwing didn't get back up.
Batman struggled to his knees and turned, looking into the dust rising in the desolation, the Joker's laughter echoing somewhere in the din the of silence on the Gotham streets.