Author: Co-written by Jay Narra & Liana Kerzner
Rating: R
Pairing: Batman/Joker
Fandom: Think "The Killing Joke," & "Arkham Asylum." Mildly BTAS. Some point after the comic "Death In The Family."
Feedback: Definitely! Appreciated! raytheoncentaur3@yahoo.com
Archive: Yes, certainly! Just let me know it's there!
Disclaimer: Batman & Joker are (c) DC! Not mine!
Summary: A mistake on Batman's behalf leads to the death of an innocent...
The Game We Play, Chapter 9 - A Change Of Heart
Co-written by Jay Narra & Liana Kerzner
Batman had been up for thirty-eight hours straight. This did not make for a particularly jovial mood, nor a great deal of patience. He busied his brain calculating how many people were once again not speaking to him because of these side-effects of sleep deprivation while the Batcave's computer did a particularly complicated police database search.
If he didn't do something, he'd fall asleep. He couldn't afford to do that now.
Dick, Tim, he'd even managed to annoy Clark. . . He was a little proud of Clark.
His mind turned back to work.
What was the Joker's game here? He'd chased down every lead he could think of, and they'd all lead nowhere. The only thing that was remotely promising what that Harley had disappeared. If he could find her, maybe then. . .
The computer got a hit. Harley had just been arrested trying to visit the Joker in the hospital.
His last lead had been shot down. Where did that leave him?
He didn't have an answer, and in that moment of mental inactivity, he drifted off for a split second, then woke with a start. He chastised himself for the moment of laziness and tried to force his brain to work with the same efficiency as the computer had.
Try as he might, he could only think of one remaining possibility: the Joker had been telling the truth.
He felt himself go hot, then cold. He didn't know if it was the fatigue, or the consideration of that possibility. If that were true, then. . .
Oh God.
*****
"...what the guy said, Lou. I don't have anymore control over it than you do," Dr. Carlos Perez muttered, stepping into room 345. A shorter, pudgy caucasian doctor followed, sighing over a clipboard in his hands. The two exchanged wary looks and closed the door behind them, wishing they had been sent off to check on other patients.
The Joker had not been particularly easy to deal with as of late. Ever since the occurrence three nights ago, he had refused to do much more than growl and lash out at them. This was partially due to the fact that sedatives were being pumped into his system, and partly due to something else entirely. Something none of the staff could begin to recognize or understand.
"But so soon?" the shorter doctor asked.
"Hey, Gordon's orders are final. Better to let them take over his care as soon as possible. The other patients are scared witless."
"Is he asleep?"
Both doctors humbled themselves and approached Joker's bedside. They went about their business of checking his health. He was doing significantly better - moreso than the doctors had originally imagined. But he was quiet, his eyes closed.
*Another night,* a soft voice declared. *Another night gone by and he has yet to return.*
"Vital signs are normal," Dr. Perez murmured.
*He's abandoned you. He won't be coming back.*
"...stitches need a slight..."
*What about the rules?* Joker's fingers twitched and then closed into two fists.
"I thought he was asleep!" the short doctor hissed, motioning toward the bed.
"What about the rules?!" a raspy voice surged, breaking free of the Joker's lips. It startled both doctors and sent them away several feet. Flashes of emerald produced gasps from both men as the madman sat up in bed. "He can't do this to me! I won't LET HIM!"
Outside in the hallway, two screams erupted from room 345. Moments later the door flew open and hit the wall. A perfectly disorientated and crazed clown prince emerged, his teeth clenched and hands bloody. A syringe fell from his fingers, hitting the floor with a sharp couple of light clinking sounds.
The staff and nearby patients wheeled on their heels, fleeing in horror. Screams rose from the lips of the faint of heart, alerting security - too late - that something was horrifically wrong.
Joker turned to drag Dr. Perez into the hallway, cackling with widened eyes. "I'll MAKE you see me! You have no choice!" His entire body shook itself violently, struggling to remain awake and
standing. The andrenaline and pure madness in his brain kept him moving, alert and ready to cause complete mayhem. "NO CHOICE!" he raged. "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!"
He kicked the doctor's body, filled with distress when it neglected to respond. His heart raced in his chest, pushing the blood and medications throughout his body. "Wakey wakey!" he screamed. "You're ignoring me! You! Just like HIM!" He slammed his fists down onto the bare floor, turning and pushing over a cart of snacks nearby. "I won't be ignored!" Joker stumbled to his feet and took off down the hall, tripping over forgotten purses and trays of medicines.
Along the way a cardboard box caught his eyes. "Dangerous... health hazard," he growled, reading the label only for himself. His crimson-stained fingers ripped at the edges, tearing into the confined space. "Dangerous!" The box came open as Joker spilled the contents onto the floor - ten sacks of blood. An inhuman roar burned his throat as he scratched at the bags, picking them up one by one. Just as soon as they were in his hands, he'd thrown them across the hall, watching them smash and burst open all over the walls.
"I won't be ignored!"
He threw himself chest-first against the crimson splattered walls, jutting his fingers outward to dip into the mess. With a low giggle he began smearing letters across the wallpaper, using his palms and forearms when he felt the need. "Mommy, mommy," he spoke, breathing against the wall. "Sally won't come skipping with me." Pressing his cheek into the gore, he answered himself, "Don't be cruel, dear..."
After the message for Batman had been written, Joker shoved himself away. Curls of jade stuck to his face, mixing with the red on his ivory-colored skin. He grinned lopsidedly and grabbed at his ears, drifting off down the corridor. "...don't be cruel."
"You know it makes her stumps bleed."
*****
Batman was notified of the situation almost immediately. He arrived fifteen minutes later, before even the forensics team had shown up.
The blood was still dripping down the walls.
If he hadn't been notified that the majority of it came from IV bags, he'd have been revolted.
But there was still the doctor. That was tragic. The man did his job, upheld his oath, and was repaid for it all by dying in a horrible way. The question was: did he die because he did his job,
or in spite of it? Was it a deliberate murder or was he just spared no mercy? The doctor who was with him survived, but that may have been coincidence. It was impossible to tell what the Joker had intended.
Gordon was having trouble with it. He hadn't said anything, but he'd been smoking outside the hospital. He only did that when something really got to him. And he'd muttered something about
being "too old for this shit".
Maybe he was. Maybe they all were. You got dizzy when you ran around in circles for too long.
He'd been questioning his place in life ever since that night at Arkham. He used to think that the Batman was something that had always been inside him, the real him in a way. Now he wondered if the Bat wasn't a product of hiding from who he really was. Masks were for hiding, right? And he couldn't communicate freely with the damned thing on. Why had he never noticed that before?
He had, he realized. He just thought the walls had been deliberate. His life was a maze of walls. Scale one, and there was another, and another. Different shapes, sizes, materials, but no doors anywhere.
He wasn't afraid of people though. So what were they all for? He kept people at a distance to protect them, to keep them at a safe distance...
But safe from what?
He pondered this as he walked through the carnage. Muffled, wet sounds replaced footfalls as he waded through the gore.
When you eliminate all other possibilities, what remains, no matter how improbable, is the answer. Sherlock Holmes' mantra. So what was left?
Himself. Everything else was semantics, excuses. HE was the thing that destroyed everything in his life. Those theories were right.
He winced and started arguing with himself. No. That thinking was just narcissism. That argument could be made for the Joker and Harvey, but Ivy? Catwoman? Clayface? The Penguin? They had nothing to do with him. They'd exist whether he was prowling the streets at night or not.
But those people didn't hurt the ones he cared about. It killed him to see Harvey Dent's personality fragmented as it was. Everything used to be so clear to the former DA. Being around him made sense. There was a very real understanding of right and wrong. The Law was something that made sense to Harvey. It was like religion. It guided him.
But Two-Face was the complete antithesis of that directed passion. Things were so much easier before Dent went crazy.
Was he really crazy though? Batman didn't really believe in the law. Some of it was right, and some of it was frustratingly backward. He believed in a higher justice than the legal system.
So had Dent just gone from one delusion to another? People still had choices in life, right?
Of course they did. Being Batman, when it came right down to it, was a choice. People might think it was a crazy choice, and there were certainly things that inspired it, but the decision to become that specific persona had been a conscious one. As was the Bruce Wayne persona that most people knew. He KNEW that facade was a calculated one.
So Two-Face WAS wrong. Maybe not more wrong than Dent had been before the accident, but wrong. Case closed.
The Joker was a different story. He wasn't saying there were no choices. He was saying there was no morality. Why NOT kill people, why NOT steal cars and blow things up? And the green-haired madman had been responsible for Jason's death and Barbara's paralyzation.
Sometimes, when he had nightmares about his parents murder, the gunman had the Joker's face.
And that laugh. That damned maddening, haunting laugh. He could picture him driving away from the hospital in the ambulance he'd stolen, smearing blood on the dashboard and upholstery, making siren noises and giggling like an idiot.
He realized then that he'd covered very little ground -- he'd been doing more thinking than moving. It was a nasty habit he'd developed in the last week. He'd only made it as far as the Joker's room. He couldn't help but think that he was looking in on the scene of one of his greatest miscalculations. The blood on the walls and floor was thickest past this point -- the rest of it appeared to be splatter that escaped the epicenter of the Joker's latest 'fun'. Down a little further, there was the message Gordon had mentioned. Nonsense, he'd called it.
Batman approached the scrawl of the walls with a growing ache in his gut. Gordon didn't know about the conversation here a few nights ago.
When he could finally make out the words, they hit him like a freight train.
'I wasn't lying.. but when you didn't come back, I changed my mind.'
*
END