The Truth Lies at the Bottom of the Well
It had been five days since he was last Batman. Five days since Alfred was murdered. Five days since he hunted down the men responsible and killed them.
Finding them hadn’t been hard. The decision to kill them when he got there had been even easier, despite his initial intentions of taking them to the police. He had found each of them in their homes and had killed them with his gauntlet covered hands. He had done it as Batman. How could he?
Batman was supposed to be more than a man. A symbol. Incorruptible.
But Bruce had given into his emotions, let them rule him. He hadn’t killed for his parents, not for Rachel, not for Dent or any of the others, but it was the loss of Alfred that had clouded his judgement to the point where he’d lost control.
He spent the next day simply staring at the suit in his dockland warehouse. How could he ever wear it again after what he had done? How could he be that symbol? Gotham already thought he was a murderer and a cop-killer for Dent’s crimes. Bruce could take a little public criticism when it hadn’t been true. But now? If he was above the one rule that he had set for himself then how was he any better then those that he sought to persecute? Bruce didn't have an answer.
The thing was he really couldn’t bring himself to regret killing them.
They’d found Alfred dead in a parking structure. He’d gone out for some eggs. Bruce remembered the whimsy he felt asking for some French toast that morning. He remembered Alfred’s smile and the “right away sir.” But as it turned out, they didn’t have any eggs in at the manor. Alfred had assured him he’d get some for tomorrow’s breakfast and had made them some pancakes instead. They’d gone their separate ways after that; Bruce to tinker in the cave and Alfred into the city for groceries.
Alfred hadn’t come back for the rest of the afternoon. Bruce didn’t think anything of it; the man was pragmatic and likely had other errands to take care of in the city on the same trip. His absence wasn’t concerning till it was after dusk and Alfred still hadn’t come home. Bruce called the butler, but it went straight to voicemail. He then tried to turn on the phone’s GPS to no avail.
That was cause for alarm. It was not like Alfred to disappear without word. Even less like him to be completely unreachable. Something must have happened. Bruce didn’t even know if someone had taken him or worse. Even if the Batman were to have gone out right then, searching for Alfred, Bruce was certain that he could not find him alone. The city was too vast and without any leeds on perps, he wouldn’t get anywhere. Bruce wasted no time contacting the police. Over the phone, he filed the report, thankful that the state didn’t require concerned parties to wait twenty-four hours before notifying the authorities, just to see if the missing person would return on their own. Bruce had hoped he was simply blowing things out of proportion.
It was only after he suited up and was about to climb into the Tumbler, that he remembered they had installed tracking devices in all the cars for purposes just like these. Bruce remembered trying to slip into Batman’s detached calculation as he waited for the tracker to pull the car’s location, but only getting more and more anxious as he watched the pinwheel telling him to wait. When the search finally brought up the results, it showed the car had been parked in a structure downtown for a couple hours, before it was driven to a junk lot on the other side of Gotham’s Stevensburg neighborhood. It hadn’t been moved since.
Bruce’s gut reaction was to go to the junk yard, scour the place for their records, find who dropped the car, and get to where ever they were holding Alfred, hopefully for ransom, before they hurt him more than they likely already had.
However, all his years behind the mask told Bruce that he needed to go to the parking structure first. He told himself it was because the thieves might have left some clues. But really it was Gotham’s statistics about car-jacking and how often the crime turned to murder. He hoped it would be empty. That would give Alfred a chance of being alive. He shoved aside his fear of what he would find, praying that Alfred was one of the lucky few.
Batman had searched the place starting on the top level, floors seven, six and five all perfectly deserted. The moment he set foot on floor five though, he knew something was off. It was empty like the others and so afforded him a clear view of the expanse of floor; essentially highlighting a black crumpled lump lying on the ground on the other side of the garage. Bruce had broken into a flat out run, noting as he got closer a pressed pant leg of the suit Alfred had been wearing at breakfast and the fact that his body was nearly engulfed in a pool of blood.
Bruce had fallen to his knees just on the edge of it, knowing with absolute clarity that there was nothing he could have done to save him. Alfred had been dead long before Bruce had even began to wonder if something was wrong. Whoever jumped him, had left Alfred’s face a bloody pulp, unrecognizable. One of his eyes was swollen shut and there were several teeth on the pavement, half submerged in the red liquid. Somehow that was worse than the large cut across his stomach, which allowed a number of his internal organs to spill out. The cause of death was obvious: he’d bled out. Even if someone had found him in time, Bruce reckoned with the amount of blood on the concrete the knife must have severed a major artery. Even if someone had found him while he was still alive, there wouldn’t have been much the paramedics could have done. Bruce had prayed that Alfred had at least been able to bleed out in peace, because it was clear that there was nothing quick or painless about it.
Bruce remembered after that moment going cold in a way like he never had before. The memories of the rest of the night plagued him in snatches and fragments. He knew he went directly to the junk yard and found the name of one of the men who hocked the car. From there, he tracked the killer to his current residence by Batman’s most persuasive means. The man was a part of one of the new gangs that had cropped up in the Southern part of the city. It hadn’t taken Batman long to get the names of the others once he started and he didn’t stop till they were all dead.
Late the next morning, the GCPD called him to ask after Alfred’s dentist so they could pull his records. On a rational level, Bruce had expected the call, there was no way they’d be able to identify his friend’s face after the beating he’d taken, but it was still a shock. The police would have to check all unidentified bodies that fit most of the physical descriptors Bruce had put in the missing person report, especially ones who’s face had been destroyed, in case they were Alfred. (We know this sounds bad, they informed him, but we can’t confirm it’s him.) It didn’t matter. Bruce knew they’d found Alfred. Numbly, he gave them the name of the doctor.
The next time they called, Bruce let it ring to voicemail. He knew what they wanted to say; they had identified the body. They offered their deepest condolences but it was Mr. Pennyworth. They asked him what Alfred had wanted done with his body and if Bruce could come in soon to claim him.
When Bruce finally went the day after, they tell him that though they know it won’t make up for his loss, forensics had found DNA under Alfred’s nails. He had fought back and they were already moving to arrest the men responsible. Bruce had to actively stifle a laugh, it came out as a sob anyway. He’d taken Alfred’s ashes back to the warehouse, unable to return to the manner. He couldn’t imagine the house, even rebuilt as it was, without the butler haunting its halls.
Bruce was at an impasse. He could no longer be Batman having broken his rule but what was his life without the cape. Despite hours of pouring it over in his head, he still did not have an answer. He couldn’t see a way out. Bruce didn’t want to but there didn’t seem to be another way. Except Bruce was not made for sitting around overthinking things and by mid afternoon the next day, he’d had enough.
Bruce went out with no plan in mind but to stretch his legs and wander aimlessly. If a different answer didn’t come to him, then at least he’d spent his last night in the city he’d sworn to protect. He walked East, out of the docklands through downtown. He hadn’t been out alone in the city as himself in ages. It had always been as the Bat or the carefully cultivated image he maintained as the playboy surrounded by beautiful dates. Moving as silently as he would when Batman, Bruce walked through Harlow and further along the canal passed bridges that led to the Narrows. The familiar skyline of the worst reputed neighborhood in Gotham pulled him to a stop. What would the good people who lived here do if he hung up his cape? It was practically every night he went out that Batman saved someone in the Narrows, he shuddered to think of those people’s lives if he’d never been there.
He turned about to start walking again and get some feeling back in his legs, when his eyes slid from the skyline down across one of the bridges that connected the two parts of the city and fell on a somehow familiar figure.
Bruce watched them trudge all hunched shoulders as they turned and continued along the road he had been taking. It was bitterly cold out and that man, because Bruce was sure it was a man, probably was just trying to shield himself from the cold. But his gut told him that wasn’t the case.
Bruce hadn’t thought of Joker since the afternoon Alfred had been murdered. The man had escaped Arkham the week prior and had yet to utilize his freedom to its full extent. Bruce had wondered idly what scheme he was concocting to draw out the Bat this time. Remembering him now, Bruce found it odd that Joker hadn’t tried something yet. It made him even more suspicious.
Even when the man passed under a streetlamp and his hair was revealed to be a honey blonde, Bruce continued his silent pursuit. If this was the man Bruce was thinking, he must not have bought more of that cheap green hair dye he was so fond of yet.
He followed the man further East to an older part of town where the streets were crooked and not even wide enough for two cars to pass side by side. He found himself watching the man’s movements closely, attempting to compare them back to all the other times he had watched Joker. Of course that was easier said than done, as Batman had always been more interested in making sure the man wasn’t going to do something drastic, rather than recording his manners for later reference. In his defense, he had never expected to randomly need to follow a man who could quite possible be Joker.
The man turned off a street that had a couple shops and nearly all of its street lamps intact, down a considerably darker one. He was passing the rows of houses like he walked it often and it was no surprise when he stepped up to a tenement building and went inside.
Bruce slipped in before the front door closed, but the man was already up a flight of stairs to have heard anyway. The stairwell was dank and dark. Wasn’t this terribly cliche if he were to find Joker living in a derelict flat in a run down part of the city? Bruce followed the other man as he continued to climb to the third floor and didn’t even fumble with a set of keys before slipping inside. The audible clicks of several locks falling into place could be heard even from the second floor landing.
Bruce frowned. There had to be a way for him to get the man to open up the door so he could see his face that wasn’t kicking down the door or shimming up the fire escape. He wasn’t Batman tonight. Bruce considered briefly before deciding on a course of action. He did not even think twice as he rushed quietly back down the stairs and back to the more populated street they’d came up. He had seen this sandwich place that was still open. Who didn’t like food delivered straight to their door? It was the perfect cover.
Bruce was so eager to get back to the derelict apartment, that he hardly paid attention to what he ordered and was certain he over paid, but he was concerned its inhabitant might decide not to call it an early night after all. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before he was back up the three flights of stairs, standing in front of what was quite possibly Joker’s door. Bruce took a breath and rapped smartly on the wood.
“Order for apartment three o’six!” he called out in an affected voice. There was a startled thump from behind the walls and Bruce waited. He had placed the paper bag in front of the peephole, effectively blocking anyone inside from seeing him.
Bruce knocked again, starting to get agitated. He’d gone to the trouble for a disguise. He wasn’t going knocking down doors like Batman would tonight. He knocked a third time. Behind the door, there was some stomping and the sound of locks being thrown back. It opened wide and the first thing Bruce saw was a shinning glint from the scant light in the room beyond as a knife was thrust towards his face. But Bruce had expected Joker’s weapon of choice and parried the stab, countering by drawing his gun to the blonde’s temple.
Joker froze.
Because this man was Joker; getting a clear look head on, there was no mistaking him now. Though he had no grease paint covering his features, the scars were there; the same puckered lines of flesh in deep snarled pink. And under his eyes were huge bags mirroring what he would do with black soot. Those eyes’ natural color was more pronounced, a vibrant emerald green that sparked with a sharp intelligence and cruelty.
Without the make-up Joker looked different to Batman, but Bruce was able to recognize the clown anywhere after the hours he’d spent watching and then re-watching the secure footage of Joker on the day he was tried in court for his crimes against the city; looking for clues as to what made the man tick, if he was even a man at all.
It was him.
Bruce pushed the gun against Joker’s temple until the clown got the message and slowly backed into the flat. He still had his knife, but with a gun at this distance Bruce wasn’t too worried. Joker’s shock had been mutely covered by a considerably bland expression. It was disconcerting to see the clown without his make up. Somehow he seemed less expressive, but that was probably something to do with the gun aimed point blank at his head. Neither did he seem as surprised as Bruce would be if their places were reversed.
Inside the place was dingy, not that Bruce wasn’t expecting wherever Joker was resting his head not to be a crap hole. The well worn wood floors could have done with more than one sweep and shine. The place was clearly a one room that was small enough the ancient bed took up most of the space. It was placed to the right in the center of the only wall with windows and past that was a small kitchenette. There was a cluttered desk to the left along with a sizable stockpile of munitions. There were two other doors, probably a closet and bathroom. The whole place was only lit by one light next to the bed. It was pretty scant and Joker looked even more sallow in the full bask of the unshaded bulb.
Bruce shut the door behind himself and dropped the bag, following the clown close into the middle of the space; the gun still at point blank range. The silence seemed to drag between them. Before Bruce could even think of something to say, Joker’s arm struck out with a quickness that Bruce didn’t anticipate, and wasn’t that always how Joker got an upper hand in their fights? But instead of attacking Bruce, he merely knocked off the baseball cap that was supposed to be obscuring Bruce’s identity.
Bruce brought the butt of the gun down on the side of Joker’s head in response. The clown had such a poor sense of self-preservation, he was worse than Bruce. He moved in, directing the gun to under the clown’s jaw, letting the metal touch his skin. But his violence didn’t seem to serve any reproach to Joker. He brought his fingers up to the warm itch that had blossomed there. They came away red, the clown smirked looking through his lashes at Bruce.
“If you were anyone else, I’d commend you for your dedication to that disguise; actually buying food and all,” Joker’s nasal voice creaked out of him as he continued to stare at Bruce. “But then you’re you, so ... It’s probably for the best though because I’m pretty much out of any refreshments I could offer...”
As the clown rattled on about how he hadn’t been to the store in a while, Bruce’s lips formed a thin line. Honestly, how had he been expecting this interaction to go? Of course the clown would recognize him. Any smart man, and whatever anyone had to say on the matter Bruce knew Joker was very smart, would have done their research before hitting the streets of Gotham. Bruce Wayne’s face was all over the society pages and big business, any time he funded a city initiative his picture was included again. There was really no escaping his image if one peaked into Gotham centric news. Joker probably knew every detail about his life that was public knowledge and even some that wasn’t.
“....though I could offer you some libations?” Joker asked coyly. Bruce wasn’t surprised it hadn’t taken him long to recover his charisma.
Bruce just grimaced and did not deign to answer.
“So you gonna tell me why Batman has a gun?” Joker asked evenly, before his tongue darted out to touch the side of his mouth. Bruce had to remind himself that he didn’t need to panic. It shouldn’t matter if Joker knew his true identity since Bruce was going to kill him tonight and end all this madness once and for all. That’s what he’d come here to do, wasn’t it?
.....cont on ao3 : http://archiveofourown.org/works/4802933