Chapter 10: Prognosis
It was a cold, gray day in a long series of cold, grey days, but luckily the Penguin's limousine was heated.
The three passengers huddled in the back couldn't be more contented, but the Penguin felt like being the polite host.
"Bruce, are you comfortable up there?" he asked the passenger who had stubbornly insisted on sitting up front.
"I'm good." In fact Bruce's body was going through a series of baffling temperature changes, from ice to fever-hot and then back again, but that was no reason to complain about the atmosphere. It wasn't the car, it was him.
"All right then." The Penguin settled back, wishing for a drink to calm his nerves. The entire world had seemingly gone crazy, and now he was along for the ride. He sat between two former human beings, a small man with the light slowly fading from his myopic eyes and a rapidly balding cryptophile. He felt like being especially polite after two revelations about the man in the front seat. One, that he was dying and two, that he was actually Batman.
He felt he had reacted admirably to the news, partially aided by the frailty of his former enemy. Bruce, who had always been in the best of health, was now misshapen and slightly emaciated. There was no fight left in him, and the Penguin was quite at a loss as to how he thought he was going to save the city one last time.
Bruce, with one wary eye on the driver, was scratching his front. He was no longer numb; the burnt patches of his body had an odd, tickling sensation in them, like grains of sand trickling through more sand. Scratching didn't really relieve the problem, but it soothed him mentally.
Harvey stood in the doorway of the joker's cell, gun drawn, face tight. That…thing had been eating the commish…commissioner Gordon. Now it turned to him, with a strange malformed face that looked insanely familiar.
"Alright, you oversized cup o' jello from hell! Against the other wall or I put ventilation holes in you!"
The thing heaved and attempted to stand up, the jello metaphor hadn't been far off. It managed after much trying, the effort sending ripples rolling across its semi-solid form. It gurgled once, shook itself, and gurgled once more.
"Ooouuurryyyyy."
Bullock clicked the hammer back.
"Reeeal nice, now can you say 'exit wound' you piece o-"
"Hhhccaaarrrrvvveyyyyyy." The thing rasped in commissioner Gordon's voice.
"Wh-wha?" Bullock's arm went limp, his gun clattered to the floor.
Bruce rubbed his chest absentmindedly, feeling an unearthly calm as Miss Wren turned left onto Arkham lane. While he had been having his fit, the pieces had clicked together suddenly, and he had known exactly what to do. It was like knowing the exact date of your death, you no longer had any fear, any reservations. He was only sorry that he had dragged the last three of the rogue's gallery with him. It seemed silly now, wanting to say goodbye to them just before he met his destiny. But he wanted to make sure they didn't do anything…drastic before Bruce could fix everything.
And that was just what he would do.
Fix everything.
Because he loved this place, his home, and all the people in it. No matter how cruel life was to him, he loved it dearly; and no matter how violent or crazed the people in his life were, they belonged in it.
The villains meant as much in his life as the people who supported him; they gave his life meaning, kept the balance. He hadn't really seen that until now. They were all symptoms of the same disease; they the pathogens, he an antibody.
This was why when they pulled up in front of said asylum, he was genuinely sad to see them go.
"Well." He said. "Here I go."
He got out, glancing at the three in the rearview mirror one last time before awkwardly stepping out.
He limped slightly as he climbed the stairs, his progress halted by a "Bruce, wait!"
He turned to see the portly Oswald Cobblepot coming out of the door Miss Wren held open. The cold stung Bruce's cheeks as he struggled up the stairs, tottering even with Miss Wren's arm hooked through his.
"Bruce." He panted. "There- there's still something I feel I need to say."
Bruce shook his head as far as the stuff on his neck let him. "You don't need to."
"No." the Penguin looked slightly embarrassed. "I want to."
"What?"
"Well, er, I know… you were always…necessary, and…"
"Just say whatever you want. Nothing really matters now."
"Well, I-" he swallowed. "Whatever- whatever happens, I…I didn't…hate you."
Bruce grinned, making his ear bleed again. "I didn't hate you either."
The Penguin looked slightly relieved. "Right. No-nothing personal."
Bruce nodded. "Just business right?"
He smiled at Miss Wren. "You gotta do what you gotta do?"
"That's to the best of my understanding, sir." Miss Wren stated in clipped tones.
He smiled. The odd couple in front of him looked at him expectantly.
"Are you sure you don't want us to come in with you?"
Bruce shook his head. "If I'm wrong, or if something doesn't go the way it should, I want you to get out of here."
"How will we know if that happens?"
"Trust me." He cast a wary glance at the building behind him. "You'll know."
The inside corridors were cool and had a strange feel to them, a second smell over the lemon disinfectant perhaps. He came to the hall preceding ward C, where two guards were peering through the small window in the door, muttering to each other in excited whispers.
"Excuse me." They both jumped, the darker-haired one drawing his stun gun.
"I need to get through."
"Unscheduled appointment? We've heard that one already." The red haired one snapped, a wary eye on Bruce.
"You ain't police, that fat cop told us to move for no one but the police." The other guard's hands were shaking. Bruce took a step forward. They both flinched.
"Stay back!"
"But I'm expected."
They both looked at him with fearful disbelief.
"Who's expecting you?"
As an answer, he slipped off the top half of his robe.
Down the long hall, past the ominously silent maniacs, Bruce wished he could go faster. One leg had much more black matter on it, and it felt abnormally heavy. It was like dragging a log.
Just before the door that took him into the final segment, a wet rasping drew his attention. The right wall had a large red splotch about eight feet off the ground that trailed sloppily to the ground and a body.
Bruce hobbled over to it, turning it over and coming face to face with the Joker.
He was in even worse shape than Bruce himself was. One eye was missing, half his face was shredded pulp. His arms stuck out at odd angles from the body, and one leg was gone below the knee. It didn't look like it had been bitten, more like sucked off.
"Joker?"
He opened his one eye, the pupil a cloudy lavender. Bruce realized with a little jolt that he was probably blind.
"Batshy?" he coughed and spat a molar. "Sho good ta shee ya'!" He gave a broken version of his insane laughter.
"Prinshe charming comesh riding up on his hobby horshe. I hate to tell you thish, batsh, but your timing shtinks."
"Joker, what happened?"
The clown prince of crime coughed and lolled his head, the effort to speak was becoming greater and greater.
"I wash jusht having a little shnooze, dreaming about nurse Shandy's legsh and all the shudden…" he trailed off and shivered.
A repulsive sort of pity filled Bruce. "What?"
"…I …I don't know." A look of pathetic confusion crossed his face. "F-felt like the backa'my head got yanked out…and sh…something started pullin' my soul out."
Bruce sighed and cradled the Joker's head. The Joker brightened up suddenly.
"Hey bats, what do you get when you cross a corpse with a watermelon?"
"I couldn't know."
"M-m…" the lid over his "good" eye slid halfway shut, and Bruce felt for a pulse that wasn't there anymore.
He carefully laid Joker's head down and folded his arms on his chest.
"Goodnight, sweet prince." He said, because it seemed appropriate.
The hall was unseasonably warm, and what inmates were left were cowering in corners, under beds, whatever was farthest from cell 2501.
The door was open, and Harvey was slumped in the doorway, clutching his chest. He had an expression of absolute terror on his face.
Bruce stooped to look clicking his tongue.
"I didn't think manslaughter was your thing. But I suppose you not being human, we'll have to think of another sentence. I don't think bars could hold you, could they?" he addressed the slumped figure in the middle of the room.
Squelching, It raised Its head, revealing the swollen, distended face of Nihil Ibi.
"You can only get a semblance of humanity, just enough to blend in until it's too late, hunh? You're always just on the edge of perception; people don't pay attention to you, that's why you can move so freely. You wanted to look like an affluent businessman and you did, fooled quite a few people. I wondered why my secretary would just let you walk in. Have the right attitude and look, nobody cares."
The Thing heaved and put gelatinous hands to his face.
"That was how you got most of your victims, but I guess I don't really know why."
"Why?" It gurgled in his voice.
"Why feed on people like…well, him?" he waved his head in the Joker's direction.
"Good…food…thought…no one…"
"Cared? Trust me, that's not true. Even a city like Gotham has an ecosystem, and an ecosystem needs balance. People, people like the Joker or that poor private eye you took out, have a purpose, or they wouldn't be there. You can't just take them out without ruining the whole equation."
"But you…" it burped wetly, but not from its mouth. "You said yourself that you wanted it to stop, you couldn't help them."
"When did I ever say th…" he looked down at his body.
"You can hear me think, can't you?" he stated calmly.
"Y...yes."
A truckload of Gotham's finest left the police station at breakneck speed, the SWAT van so close behind they were nearly in front. After a fragmented call from Harvey bullock, Renée Montoya sprang into action. She got everyone off the beat and called the boys in flak jackets, knowing Gordon would've done the same. She was buckling her armor when the boy with the two-way turned to her.
"Montoya, call from inside. One of the security guards. Says another person went inside, guy with black hair. 30-40."
Montoya swore at a wayward strap. "He say anything?"
"He says he said 'I'm expected' and opened his shirt. Get this: he was a burn victim, or something, because when he flashed 'em, his body was all scarred and patchy. What should I tell 'em?"
"Tell them," She sighed. "Tell them we're on our way."
"My…matter is not solid. When I attacked, I left some of me on those that escaped. That was how I tracked them. They all had different adverse reactions to it. The Nygma man's body developed lymphatic cancer in response. You're the only one to survive so much contact with me."
"And multiple attacks. You must be losing your touch."
The Thing shuddered weakly. "After…after I claimed the one in the bathroom, something happened to me. I think… part of me still had some of the other's matter…it…hurt."
Bruce clicked his tongue. "And it just got worse, didn't it?"
The Thing gazed at him. "Yes. Suddenly I couldn't digest much of anything, but I was still so hungry. It…wasn't like my other food. I could catch as many of them I wanted and eat them, they would be back again in no time at all."
The Thing looked morosely down at the ground. "This place hasn't helped; everyone so full of thought, all emotions screaming at me through space. Physical distance doesn't matter, I'm always too close."
Bruce nodded. "Where do you come from?"
"I come from a vacuum. I come from nothing. I am nothing. I am to eat the things that try to fill the void with themselves, with those they represent. I kill thought. I produce oblivion."
"You eat ideas?"
"I eat them as they die out from thought, they are reborn instantly. I was once…happy." The thing chuckled sadly. "I was happy before I knew what happy was, Mr. Wayne. Now that I know what emotions are, I wish for oblivion again."
"Why did you come here?"
"I wanted…I wanted what is yours."
"Life?"
It nodded.
Both vans took the corner with squealing tires, nearly running into the parked limousine of the Penguin.
As the policemen piled out, the three villains looked up uninterestedly from their perch on the steps. The Penguin set a new record for being the only person to look bored as Renée Montoya pointed the barrel of the gun right between his eyes.
"I want answers!" she snarled.
The Penguin hmphed and laid down his hand of cards.
"Well then." He said, polishing his monocle. "That makes two of us."
Bruce felt safe enough now to walk forward. The Thing was now incapable of standing up.
"You really aren't meant to exist, though, are you? A concept can't really have a physical body, a thought shouldn't feel pain."
"It worked." It whispered in Tetch's voice. "It worked for a time."
"But people can't live in absolutes, life isn't in black in white. You need that to survive, but none of us can furnish that for you."
The Thing gulped and looked up at him, palms upraised. Its face was a mix of Gordon's and Alfred's, in an attempt to garner sympathy.
"I tried. I tried to start slow. I started as a spot in the eye of a man who wanted absolution in his life. I became bigger as he grew stronger-"
"But he died, didn't he? He starved at a banquet because he needed exceptions. He wanted things to be black and white, but he couldn't live with that reality. That applies even more so to the people you devoured here."
"How?" it coughed. "How? They all wanted it so badly-"
"But need and want are two different things. The Hatter wanted to control other people, all he really needed was security. The Scarecrow wanted nothing but fear, he really needed to be recognized for his intelligence. It goes on and on like that, all of these people wanted to have lives, but no one would treat them like human beings because they didn't know how. And if it hadn't been them, specifically, there would have been others."
"That doesn't make it right! They shouldn't have the freedom to do the things they do!"
"But if you look at them like that, you completely block out the other sides. Half of Arnold Wesker is a violent psychopath, but the other half is a sweet man who only wanted to be liked. No person is entirely one thing, they are much to many."
Wesker's head thumped down on the hood, nose bleeding profusely, in hysterics.
"N-n-no! Mr. Scarface!" They had taken his bundle when they handcuffed him. The other two villains sat on the steps, glaring balefully at the overzealous officer.
"For the love of god, just give him the doll!" Nygma hollered. "It's his security…thing."
He was pistol-whipped for his trouble.
"Unnecessary force! I'm calling police brutality!" the Penguin shouted. Montoya grabbed a handful of his hair and twisted his head back to look at her.
"I'm going to ask you this once and only once. Where is commissioner Gordon?"
The Penguin grimaced in pain. "My dear lady, where the hell do you think he is?"
The Thing rocked pitiably back and forth. "I'm ill."
Bruce ran a hand through his hair. "Well, that's to be expected. You ate a lot."
The Thing crept closer.
"Are you here to kill me?"
He sighed. "That's the thing. Technically, you're not alive, so how can I take away what you don't have?"
It sniffed. "I thought you would know."
"I hate to tell you this, we don't really 'know' anything. Hell, I found you through a bunch of half-baked ideas and gut impulses that turned out to be right."
It looked at him with eyes that were too full. "What do you think?"
"I have a feeling you're the only one who can undo all of this."
The SWAT team and officers barged past the two security guards now situated behind the desk.
"Hey, I.D.'s please!" the red-haired one shouted.
"Shut up, Rick." Snapped Derleth.
"But they're-"
"I don't care anymore. I just don't." they both faced forward, waiting.
"You're still holding to life, even now, when you have nothing left. You have to let it go and go back to where you came from."
"But I don't-"
"Yes, you do. Deep down, you know. And I think you need to remember how, right now."
It gazed at him almost lovingly. "I'm cold."
Bruce smiled and started to bend down.
The throng of officers got to the door of the cell just in time to see the one figure bending over the other.
"FREEZE!!!" roared Montoya, and an overenthusiastic young deputy fired. The bullet made its way directly to the two…
A man with lymphatic cancer stirs uneasily…
A sewer under Gotham is overflowing…
The smoldering wreckage of the mansion goes out after three days of burning…
A dark man keeled over his keyboard picks his head up and rubs his left eye.
"All right, Neal?" a coworker calls to him.
The nurse in Arkham's infirmary was puzzled.
"Where could they all have come from, so suddenly?" She whispered to the on-duty doctor. "Some of them weren't even conscious. So many, where?"
The doctor was very stiff and proud. "We aren't really to question the police commissioner, nurse, especially when we are so low in rank here. Just get more gauze and be quiet!"
She trotted off resentfully, nearly running into Oswald Cobblepot dabbing a gash on his forehead daintily with his handkerchief. The severe-looking young woman hovering over him made a fist, but the Penguin waved her away.
Gordon sat on one of the infirmary beds, his hand on Harvey's shoulder.
"…and we're going to start jogging regularly, Harvey. I don't want a repeat of this behavior."
"Whatever you say, commish'." Harvey turned to Montoya and rolled his eyes, making her giggle.
The beds were crowded with a wide variety of people, some of whom hadn't been seen in months, so those that could stand stood. Except for two men who sat in a far corner of the room, hunched over a small table on which a chess game was being played. The one with red hair glanced up at the crowd before returning his gaze to his pieces. After a moment of thought, he took the white bishop.
"Such an odd excitement, isn't it? You'd think we've been miraculously raised from the dead."
His companion, a shorter man with hair like hay thatch, was somberly quiet.
"Of course," Crane chuckled, "When we're away for too long, the staff misses us. Nothing like shattering a man's psyche, eh?"
He covered the other's hand warmly with his own. This finally incited a reaction. Jervis met Crane's eyes shyly and smiled.
Bruce woke up, and immediately regretted it. This was like the mother of all hangovers, it was so developed it had teeth and limbs. He was so thirsty it hurt, everything hurt. Then he remembered what preceded it and really regretted waking.
He appeared to be in his own room, unless hell had his great grandfather's dueling pistols on the end table. What if it hadn't worked the way he thought it would? What if?...
He panicked and started to rise, ignoring the screams of agony coming from his muscles. He was suddenly lit by a small ray of sun, as if someone were holding a curtain partially open just enough so that he could see the person in bed.
He squinted at the figure at the window. "Alfred?"
"Master Bruce."
"Alfred!"
"Go back to bed."
Author's Note: whew, finally done. Kinda feels weird, being done with my longest story to date. I was watching the trial episode of the animated series, I drew some inspiration from that. Batman isn't really a merciless crime fighter, nor is he Mr. touchy-feely(although I think I made him a little more touchy-feely in this one). I hope the ending doesn't feel too Deus ex Machina, I was planning it from the beginning. I never found the end of Dead Reckoning(dammit) but I'll keep looking. Be seeing you.