'The working man's a sucker.' That was the one-line that could be said to define Joe's life. Having grown up in the rougher sides of town, he had spent most of his early childhood surrounded by crimes.
Most of the children in his block feared the mobsters as did their parents, as did his own. Joe, however, had always looked at the life with glamorized eyes.
To him, it was a path to wealth, a path to higher ambitions, and a path to the only life worth-living which, to his younger-self, had meant taking a cruise in his Cadillac, owning jewelries to spare, cigars to puff on while being looked at with respect.
His father hadn't thought so…
'It's not respect, it's fear!' He'd say.
'Was there any difference?' Joe used to wonder as he rose from an errand boy to a 'respectable' member of the family. He knew the difference now… He, along with the rest of Gotham's underground.
The Bat's arms shook limply by his sides, his legs bounced off the floor, and his head lolled slightly between skips.
He was, for all intents and purposes, unconscious, yet Joe couldn't help jumping every time he twitched.
His gaze scoured the 'Bat' from head-to-toes, shivering as he met the featureless cowl.
There were no eyes to meet, no mouth to scowl with nor nostrils to breathe through, yet he could have sworn he'd just been sternly glared at.
'Oh mio Dio.'
He thought in relief as the van pulled into an old, dilapidated house.
"Alright, lads, let's get this sucker to the boss."
He and another quickly hauled the unconscious man(?) to the steel frame and strapped down his legs, waist, chest and neck first. Anything but his cuffed hands that they'd have to uncuff. Even if it was only meant to be brief, it still felt suicidal to. Alas, it was their job to, so they undid the cuffs and hurriedly used the restraints on his wrists.
Looking at the forearms that could probably put holes in his skull, Joe sweated.
The same leather straps he had seen hold down crazed lunatics with no issue suddenly looked so fragile; like they'd snap in half if the vigilante so much as flexed. Only when the Bat still showed no sign of waking up did they dare relax.
"Well, you ain't so tough!"
Joe glared at the guy who just foolishly patted the Bat's shoulder, then complained. "Careful. I don't gotta tell you what will happen if he wakes up, do I?"
"Relax, he's out cold," To make his point, he roughly poked the side of the Bat's head. "See?"
"If he wakes up, I swear…"
Catching the sight of the room, Joe stifled his complaints and sucked in through his teeth. There, standing in the dark was their boss or, as he liked to be called, Scarecrow. The man didn't spare them a second glance as he took the Bat and wheeled him into the room where a camera had already been set up.
"Guard the entrance…" The ugly bag-head intoned, before closing the door behind him. Compared to a villain, working for the family was much, much more favorable. Back in the day, taking down a 'rival don' could net him control over a nightclub or a massage parlor at least. Alas, times had changed, and so had crimes.
It was no longer just about the money or the life. 'It rarely is with these freaks…'
It was now about the infamy, about sending a message, and/or about some avant-garde bullshit, because everyone had got to have a stichk, right?!
Joe scowled, somewhat thankful the bag he wore himself had hidden his sour expression when the Scarecrow abruptly turned. "Let no one in, or you know what will happen."
The harrowing scene of the dying guard whose position he had replaced still, on occasion, played in his mind… The man had cried of maggots eating his innards, and of botflies in his veins, then proceeded to scratch himself to the bones to remove the 'parasites.'
"""Rogers."""
Joe and the others rose to attention, deflating the moment the doors swung shut.
He gazed near the door where an old television, a radio sat besides four chairs, a foldable table, the surface on which soaking poker cards laid.
"Dammit, I told you to put them away." Joe scoffed at Turner, gathering the sticky cards that had been completely drenched through by the condensation of their now warm beers.
"My bad, dawg! My bad!"
He sighed at the younger man, then switched on the tv that coughed and choked to life like a smoking whore.
He'd wanted to redecorate a bit with more… Modern appliances.
One of those shiny flat, widescreen tv, for example.
He thought it would be fine considering Scarecrow had already allowed this much, but apparently not. Apparently, newer tech was more traceable than what they had in the past, hence the vintage set-up. On the screen was just the News. Plain, boring News that didn't even touch on the crisis in Gotham until the very end.
"—Congress is considering military action, while experts warned of the green fog that surrounds the city."
"Can you believe these assholes?"
"What, they still debating?"
Joe nodded, catching the can out of the air as the tv flickered twice. Where there was a newscaster, there now overlapped his boss besides the Bat. He and his team all exchanged a glance, then hurried to surround the tv. "Hello, Gotham. I have your protector…" The sound echoed from the room, dwarfing the poor quality cackles of the CRT. On the screen, Scarecrow pointed a clawed hand at the Bat and leaned into the camera next.
Even with most of his face covered, leaving only two holes for his hooded eyes, Joe could feel the bossman's mirth.
His previously rough, venomous voice had gained a touch of arrogance now.
If someone asked Joe why he continued to do crime when the family fell; why a former hitman resolved to being a mere thug, then this was it! This would be his answer—Fear. He missed the fear in people's eyes, and missed even more the sense of power he'd relish when they had to—figuratively, of course—suck his nuts and thank him for it.
Who were they?
Well, they were the loiterers at the end of the street, the passerbys milling about, and just about every and anybody he could set his sight on! Joe shook on his feet while the bossman paced tensely before the vigilante like a caged animal gearing up to bite into its prey.
From his glove, needles connected to yellow-brown tubes shot out as he punched the Dark Knight below the collarbone… Why he hadn't removed the mask, as he claimed he would, Joe didn't know and frankly didn't really care.
Though if he had to guess, it was probably about tainting the mantle forever, or destroying the symbol by showing him afraid even in his costume.
"Look… He's no more than a scared man."
Indeed, the Bat began to writhe and grunt, shaking the frame slightly. Yellow bled across the suit in pulses so faint that Joe had to kneel to make it out through the old pixels.
"He's gonna do it."
He was really going to do it. They were at last going to know the identity of the man who had terrorized all of Gotham for the better parts of half a decade!
But just as the boss began reaching for the mask, something collided with the side of the building.
"Fuck!"
"Goddammit, what was that?!"
Joe raced to the windows and poked his head out to find the first floor had been run into by a truck decked out in purple and green… It was simultaneously the ugliest color scheme he'd seen, and the most recognizable. Gotham had its fair share of psychos, but none save his own boss had caused quite as much destruction as he.
"It's the clowns, fuck!" He peered out the window and turned his gun at the clown who leaped out from the driver's seat. Dressed in her glossy, skintight jumpsuit split vertically in the middle by black and red, Harley Quinn's jester hat bounced as she tossed a god-forbid shotgun to the grinning maniac. "Here you go, Mr. J!"
Joe fixed his gas mask, aimed down, and fired upon the ground only for the villain and his whore to dive for their respective covers. One, inside the building; the other back driven back into the car his bullets soon riddled with holes.
He scowled as the woman bounced out the other door with a comically oversized bazooka in hand. Then his heart twisted as he realized he'd emptied most of his ammunitions earlier. Joe ducked, diving to the side as an explosion rocked the building's foundation.
Though Joe was lucky to survive the initial explosion, which he attributed to Quinn's atrocious aim, he had not been spared the shockwaves that blew his eardrums to hell, and the rubbles that cut through his skin and piled high atop.
He groaned as the world spun, ears ringing with every shout and scream, then shots taken. He tried to stand, but his legs felt like spaghetti under him. Around, his co-workers had begun to fan out as Scarecrow barked from inside the room. "What's going on out there?!"
"It's the clown!" One of the henchmen informed before slumping over as his head turned to mush from the shotgun shell that, interestingly enough, had come from the floor.
"This fucking psycho!" Yelled another, only for fragmentation to rip through his feet and shins. Only then did staying silent occur to them, and sure enough, the firing rate slowed. Not that it was of any importance to Joe, whose world was spinning still. It took everything out of Joe to just crawl to relative safety where he slumped, believing it safe.
Such thoughts were dashed when a blind shot blew half his cheek from his skull.
Joe squealed, clutching the torn flesh, before going limp from the blood loss and pain. That brief lapse in consciousness turned out to be a lifesaver since the following shots were a good distance away from where he was.
The other guards were quick to return fire, alas, it was a hell of a lot harder for them to locate the clown than it was for him to hear their footsteps below.
Before long, their number had been halved. "Good morning, boys! And good night," The Joker cackled around the curve of the stairs, then lobbed into their floor a gas capsule first and a flashbang after. Time seemed to slow for Joe as light erupted, blinding him to everything around him. By the time he came to, the room had been covered in a thick green fog.
Within it were silhouettes of the other guards, the nearest of whom had just been pummeled by a flying mallet.
Joe had no doubt that the man was dead, not when pieces of his brain were sliding off his face. He paled, folding in a corner as shot after shot went off, dropping what remained of the guards.
"What is the meaning of this, Joker?" Joe heard Scarecrow's shaky rattle through his gas mask, drawing out the lunatic from within the billowing fog.
For once the clown didn't look immensely pleased with himself.
His lips instead curved into a frown as he faced the boss.
Not like that was any of Joe's problem anymore, not when his own trouble had arrived in the form of Harley Quinn whose heel pressed into the space between his throat and his chest. Too weak to lift a finger, Joe sighed and watched as his life passed before his eyes.
He might've said he regretted the life, that atonement was all he wanted in his last moments, but every time he remembered the thrill of running entire streets, the smile came back anyway.
Besides...
He let his gaze climb up the long leg above him, up to the face that was, if he was honest, still pretty even under the tons of clown make-up it was caked with.
There were worse ways to die in Gotham.
He cracked a stiff smile despite himself, giggling away as Quinn tilted her head. "What's so funny?" She touched her puffed cheek, the horns of her harlequin cowl drooping slightly as uncontrollable laughter bubbled from the depths of his stomach.
"Hahahaha!"
He hadn't meant to draw their attention, but the laughter did it anyway, and all it earned him was a contemptuous "Shut up" from the Joker and a flag to the chest.
Joe wheezed, gaining sudden clarity in his last moments that let him think through his life, before arriving to the conclusion that no, no he hadn't regretted a thing.
That the working man was a sucker,
And that though this life was misery most of the time, it was absolutely glorious while it lasted. 'If there's a life after this one, I'll still—' He breathed his last thinking so, dying before he even got to see the black blur that nearly folded Scarecrow in half and actually did snap his spine.
.
.
.
Rowan didn't say a word as he surveyed the building from above, unable to hide the grimace that pulled at his face when he caught sight of the damage torn into its side. Near the largest hole was Scarecrow, swinging at the air as if unseen enemies surrounded him.
"Argh… Argh! RAAAA!" The villain screamed, making a mad dash for the first floor, where solid concrete welcomed him with open arms. Truth be told, Rowan could've caught him. But fuck that, and fuck Scarecrow. He was just as responsible for this mess as the Joker. Rowan glared at the spot and found Scarecrow in a twitching heap.
He wasn't dead yet.
A three-storey drop wasn't going to kill someone, provided they didn't hit their head on the way. Well, Scarecrow did. His limbs now bent the wrong ways, though the odd angles had spared his skull most of the traumas.
He'd live…
Provided he was given immediate medical attention by professional. Professionals who had either left the city prior to the destruction of the bridge, or had foolishly stayed behind to be driven mad themselves.
You reap what you sow.
He landed on the ledge just in time to see Bruce marching toward the Joker, and Quinn taking a swing at his head for it. "Run, Mr. Jay! I'll hold 'im off!" Her body, sadly, couldn't hold up to her willingness when Bruce's tentacles tossed her through drywall.
'Well, that's one way to put it.'
His gaze didn't linger long before it found the Joker in front of the stairs as he took aim with a shotgun, only for Bruce to knock it aside with a sweep of his cape.
The pulsing black mass surged at his mentor's command, going straight for the Joker's neck. "Batman!" Rowan called out, and got only animalistic grunts for his trouble as Bruce's hands tightened around the Joker's neck. It was as if something had taken over the last of the Wayne, whose sole mission now seemed to be the death of the… The creature before him!
"We figured out a cure, Batman." Rowan informed, cautiously approaching the man, then braced as he reached for Bruce's shoulder. "It's over…"
"Every time I put him away, he gets out. Every time he gets out, people die."
And they'd keep dying, until the root cause of this disease was plucked out at last.
"He's not worth it."
"No-Not worth it?! I'm more than woo-worth it, Boy Wonder! Now, c'mon Batsy—" The bastard's grin widened as Bruce slammed him against the wall. "Do-Don't le-t the third wheelie ruii-n the ShOW!"
"Bruce… We won. Don't give him what he wants." Despite saying this, Rowan was already coming up with plans to arrange an 'accident' for the Joker once he was behind bars. Batman could not be allowed to kill, but neither could the Joker be allowed to live. Rowan wouldn't even need to bribe anyone, only to have Ichor possess a nurse in the infirmary and slip some air bubbles into his veins… It'd be untraceable.
Bruce might suspect foul play—'But Bruce always suspects foul play.'
Rowan felt the shoulder go lax in his grip, and breathed a sigh of relief.
Only to swallow that relief when the Joker barked, "Won? Give me what I want? Oh, I already have what I want." Now free to breathe again, the Joker seemed to have a lot to say. "I alread~y WON! Him killing me would just be the cherry on top."
"No… In a few days, Gotham will be returned its sky, and this will just be last week's news." That, Rowan was sure of. Gotham and her inhabitants were nothing if not resilient. The city would bounce back in half to a year by his estimate.
"And then what? Go about their days knowing they probably survived by slaughtering their infected families before succumbing themselves?" With a self-assured smile, the Joker went limp in Bruce's hold. "They'll live and stew in memories of their horrific deeds and turn out all the worse for it. I've carved myself into their lives and souls… I've proven that all it takes is one bad day…
Make no mistake, gents,"
Thick, tangled, matted strands of green dropped to his forehead and stuck as he arrogantly blew at his nails. His eyeballs glided across the ground, then whirled around to meet Bruce's and Rowan's both, the motion causing his stretched mouth to widen smugly. Or perhaps it was the other way around?
"I already won."
He wheezed like a dying horse, arms and legs flailing in an excited, comical dance.
Not even the fact he was being held aloft stopped the villain, nor did Bruce's tightening fists. If anything, they only spurred him on. Jokee swung his head side to side, conducting himself with a limp wrist.
"Ring-a-round old Gotham town~
Watch the bodies tumble down~"
Rowan's palms began to sweat inside his gloves as darkness crept into the edges of his vision.
He was, for all intents and purposes, cured of the toxin, but such a powerful hallucinogenic agent was bound to leave a few side effects, chief of which was severe PTSD that could be triggered by just about anything that reminded him of the bouts. Rowan exhaled as his mind dragged him back to the dark tunnel where the toxin had first truly kicked in, then shuddered with rage.
Even now, his head still ached from the blow to the head.
"Ashes, ashes~
They all fall dead~!"
Alfred shouldn't have entrusted him with this task.
"Papa's hands around her throat~
Mama's floating in the moat~"
Nobody wanted the Joker dead more than Rowan, after all.
"Ashes, ashes~
The Bat falls ne—!"
Nothing mattered to Rowan at that moment.
Not the approval of his friends and family…
Not the loss of the last pinch of innocence he had clung to.
Not even the illusive Seal that supposedly promised Armageddon.
Nothing mattered, but the cessation of Jack Napier's life.
'Jason was right,' Evil could not be cured; it could only be eradicated.
The Joker's head suddenly separated from his neck, his bloodshot eyes bulging in shock as Ichor tore the head from the villain's shadow with its fangs. The Dark Knight dropped the headless body in shock, pivoting to his protégé who, in spite of what he'd just done, looked no different than he would have had he crushed a bug.
"Rowan…"
And then Bruce's world began to shake.
__________
A/N: You know, I'm a teacher. Yes, I know. I know. Me, a teacher. Who'd have fucking thunk?
Anyway, one of the assignments I gave my students was a basic reading-comprehension task. Nothing insane. Nothing advanced. Literally just:
Read a short passage and summarize it in your own words.
Here is what one of my students turned in:
"I can help with this passage in a few ways:
Summarize it in simple English
Rewrite it in your own words
Answer comprehension questions
Translate it
Create vocabulary or grammar exercises
What would you like me to do?"
...
We are fucked as a society, ladies and gents. Humanity is fucked as a species.
Anyway, if you want to support me, you can here: P 4 tr3on . C0m (slash) Regularrr