For the last few months, Gotham had been silent.

Every siren had a numbing edge, every explosion was dull as the murmur of a dying heart.

Alkahest was in Arkham now, a mess of scar tissue and never-closing wounds, who stayed silent and curled up in the corner until he was spoken to. And then, looking up with cloudy eyes, grinning with those twisted lips that were all Glasgow scars, he would laugh. The last time he'd seen Batman, a look of knowing had seeped into his black and white eyes that he'd not had since their battle all the way back in Brewster. He leaned his head back against a wall, and instead of bursting into raucous laughter, he'd simply smirked. Smiling so mightily just like he had on that night.

"You've seemed different, lately," he said with a voice that was permanently choking on smoke. He shifted faintly and wrapped his arms around his chest, hiding the thick bandages that were wrapped around his wrists. "Is there something wrong?"

Batman gave him a frigid look.

"I'm only going through the motions," he breathed. "Nothing else."

"You're colder than I thought," said Alkahest. "I was sure that maybe you felt guilty."

The vigilante narrowed his eyes. "Guilty about what?"

"You can't guess?" the scientist snickered. "Guilty from letting me live. And guilty from letting him di-"

Alkahest all but opened his arms for Batman as he descended upon him. Though he wanted to, in the end, he didn't kill the man. He left the cage shaking, blood on his gauntlets, breaths deep and quivering. He didn't wait to hear Alkahest's enraged shriek as he woke up in his own blood, ribs snapped in two and face bruised even further beyond recognition, only to find out that once again, he was still alive. He couldn't be with her.

Everyone had rejoiced. He remembered how Gordon almost started to cry when he told him. He remembered how they'd been tears of joy. Batman had to ask himself why, when he saw that, he was closer to hitting Gordon than he'd ever been to any two-bit scum on Gotham's streets. He'd had to take a deep breath, keep his face stoic as he possibly could. He even faked a laugh. It was, after all, the least he could for the city he'd betrayed.

Alfred's face had stayed carefully neutral as he watched the news broadcast that announced it through the grinning lips of some perky, near-adolescent woman who'd probably never had the decency to even look that man in the face before he'd gone. Bruce had felt his friend look down at him where he was hunched on the sofa.

Alfred had sighed deeply, then reached down and put his hand on the vigilante's shoulder.

"It's for the best, Master Wayne."

That was the worst part. It was for the best, wasn't it? It wasn't as though the clown had been doing anyone any favours by living. It wasn't even as though he'd considered his own life anything more than a joke, and an unfunny one at that. He'd just been a mistake; one of those grand, massive, awesome mistakes that knew nothing of limitations. The type that went away just as fantastically as it came in. And he'd certainly done that, hadn't he? Batman got a shortlived chuckle out of it whenever he thought about it. They'd destroyed half that neighborhood during the fight with Multiply, and what was worse, the crater left behind kept getting thinner and thinner near the edges, looking like a grin. Decidedly, it would take a small fortune to rebuild, and so, for several more months at least, the Joker was still causing Gotham trouble from beyond the grave. And at the end of those few months, when they'd filled in that crater in the ground that reminded Gotham of his smile, and all the houses had been rebuilt, and when people stopped talking about the man who only ever knew laughter, he'd be gone forever.

Batman drifted quietly down the streets that night, masquerading in a suit and tie as Bruce Wayne. For one night, he'd let the city run amok, just so he could hear it loud and clear, because at this point the noise was just too much to bear. He hadn't bothered asking out one of his extensive list of paramours on his stroll because frankly he wanted to be alone, and oddly, he felt far more lonesome in the city than his mansion. He found himself disappearing and reappearing under streetlights and starlight, into the nighttime that was his second skin, then back into the world that knew nothing of darkness. After maybe an hour of walking, just when the chill was beginning to leak through his overcoat, he found himself standing at a bus stop in front of one of Gotham's many twisted hospitals. There were only a handful of people standing under the streetlamp, hands shoved in pockets and looking straight ahead. A man in a dark fedora with a scarf he had pulled up to his nose, a blonde woman in a black coat and red dress, a teenager in a cap and hoodie, an aged woman with a child clinging to her leg, and businessman who kept checking his watch every few second. He slowed to a stop at the fringe of the little group, feeling strangely out of place just on the outskirts of the light. Their soft, half-there speech merged into a hum, drowning out his breathing and his thoughts. He drifted on the lull, then slowly sunk down, down into its depths, and for a moment he fell asleep standing up, as he was often prone to do.
"Excuse me."

Bruce opened his eyes, and found the man in the fedora leaning backwards out the bus, waving at him with a gloved hand.

"Are you alright there?" he said. "The bus is about to go."

The millionaire blinked, not really understanding it was him the man was talking to. When it finally sunk in, he bowed his head.

"Thank you," he murmured, and made his way beneath the streetlamp and into the neon lights of the bus.

"No trouble," said the man in the fedora. Though you couldn't see his mouth, you could see in his pale green eyes that he was smiling.

It was difficult finding change to pay the fare with—in the end, he was just barely able to scrape up enough that the driver didn't kick him off for stalling. He slid into a seat with its back to the wall, hunched his shoulders and breathed into his palms. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt the cold like this.

"Are you alright?" Bruce looked up to find the man in the fedora speaking to him again. The blonde woman sitting beside him giggled and batted her blue eyes at Bruce when he glanced her. "You look a bit down in the dumps."

Again, the man in the fedora's voice was just a drone in the back of his head, sitting on the surface of his thoughts and failing to get it. He shook himself when the man furrowed his eyebrows at him, jolting himself to attention.

"I'm fine," he said. "It's just been a difficult few months is all."

"Ohh, is that right?" said the man, nodding as though he understood. He rubbed his hands together, as though doing it would actually get the heat through his gloves. "I'm not surprised. Troubled times like these, a man of your stature must have a lot to deal with."

Bruce smiled wryly when the businessman looked up suddenly and didn't recognize him.

"It doesn't help," the man admitted with a shrug.

The bus stopped and the woman with the child got off. The man in the fedora watched them with quiet, glinting eyes, before his eyes fell back on Bruce.

"It's been hard for all of us, though." The man leaned back, and the light fell on his nose, illuminating pale skin. He chuckled faintly when the woman in the red dress linked her arm with his, and she beamed when he did nothing to stop her. "I mean, in all seriousness, when is the world not just trying to shove us in a ditch? I've had a difficult few months myself."

"My poor, sweet puddin' just got out of hospital," the blonde woman explained with high, sugary voice. "It took a while, but he's all better now." She nuzzled her head against the man's shoulder. "Ain't that right, Puddin'?"

"Hush now, sweetums, I'm talking now," said the man in the fedora, pressing his finger playfully against her lips. Those bright eyes of his were virtually glowing when he turned to the vigilante again. "Times get tough. That's just how this city operates. But don't worry." He looked out the window, took in a thick, easy breath. "Tonight's a good night-things will all start looking up soon." The man chuckled gently, and the sound almost seemed familiar to Bruce before it just became just another noise in the raucous city. "I'm sure of it."

The bus chimed and Bruce looked up to find he had no idea where it had taken him. He laughed morosely and stood up, gesturing for the driver not to take off before he was out in the streets again.

"I should be getting off here," he said to the man and the woman.

"Is that right?" said the pale man. He laughed softly and his seat creaked. The blonde giggling gently as she followed suite blonde giggled gently and waved at Bruce with the tips of her fingertips, and the man in the fedora reached out and curled his hand about them. "Well, it was nice talking to you. Have a good evening."

"You too." Not looking forward to the cold but not having anywhere else to go, the vigilante stepped out onto the asphalt and into the howl of the wind. The bus hissed again, closing its doors to Bruce, and began to head away down the road, out to where the streetlights and starlight didn't reach. The vigilante just watched it go. He would admit to being surprised when it stopped again, less than a block away. He tilted his head as it lowered gently on its big, black wheels, and a dark form emerged from the door, running down towards him. He tilted his head upon seeing the man in the fedora moving briskly towards him, eyes shining just like those stars.

"You dropped your scarf," said the man, raising the article in question above his head. His breaths were thin and weak, as though he was a smoker. "Wouldn't want to leave without that in this weather, would you?"

"Oh," said Bruce, startled that he hadn't noticed sooner. He smiled when he got the scarf in his hands, and oddly, it was one of those genuine smiles that had been growing so rare lately. "Yes, you're right about that. I'd freeze to death."

The man chuckled, already back on his way to the bus, which was churning steam into the cold. "It seems me helping you out is becoming a trend already."

"Yes," the vigilante laughed in turn. "Thanks for keeping me in check in these troubled times."

The man nodded, and standing right beside the bus, he suddenly looked so far away. "Not a problem, Brewster."

Bruce frowned and straightened up upon hearing the strange corruption of his name.

"It's Bruce," he called across the street.

There was a pause as the man tilted his head at Bruce bemusedly, eyes bright with silent laughter, and then he pulled himself into the bus and disappeared.

Bruce watched it go as he started to wrap his scarf back around his neck, then stopped when something fell loose. Perturbed, he picked it up from the dirty ground and then, breathing in the cold autumn air, he couldn't move.

It had been a shirt, once. It was charred in many places, and even what was intact could not have been repaired by the finest seamstress in the world. However, what remained that wasn't torn and burnt and beaten beyond all recognition, without any question in the world, was indigo. Bruce turned it over in his hands several times, rubbed his fingers on the fibers, slid their tips through the holes. He breathed in and smelt smoke and blood and laughter in every thread. He twisted it in his hands, and just before it snapped, he let it go. He held it, blown this way and that by lonely wind, too frozen down inside to shiver, and then he rolled it in a ball and shoved it in his pocket.

In no rush to be anywhere, he knotted the scarf around his neck while he watched the bus lights go. He put his hands in his coat, keeping out the quiet and the cold. Slowly, Bruce tilted back his head, wanting to look up. When he saw it fully, he couldn't help but smile at the sky.

"Funny," he said. He exhaled a breath, mist forming on his lips, and then walked out into the frigid city, bathed in the light of the laughing moon.

…

…

Wow, so that marks the end of an era. The first fanfiction I ever finished, and it gives me new hope that I'm not as useless as I would have thought. Thank you to everyone who cared that I took this to the end, especially wbss21, who not only left me extensive and thorough critiques that boosted my ego massively, but was also sure to encourage me to finish in times when it seemed like I wouldn't and was great for bragging about to my friends. But seriously, I'm so glad for every one of my readers, even the ones that weren't always vocal, and very much so to those that were. Perhaps, in future, I'll write another Batman fic. If that happens, here's to another one.

-the beldam