The Killing Joke

[Alli]

One night alone, Barbara couldn’t even remember the last time she and Dick had honestly been alone. Between the baby, their jobs, Dick being Nightwing, parenthood, and having social time outside of just the three of them there really wasn’t any time for them to be alone. Mary took up all of her time outside of her librarian job; she was only a baby after all, it had taken Barbara six months to just leave her daughter’s side. She couldn’t stand having to work when she could be home taking care of her baby, and put the small child before almost anything else: even her husband.

But tonight, Mary was at her Father’s home with him and Sarah. She hadn’t wanted to burden Bruce with the baby, seeing as he would be out tonight as well. Sometime she missed it; she missed fighting alongside Bruce, Dick, and Tim. She missed running across the rooftops and feeling like she was doing something to help the city, but she had to be a mother. Her father couldn’t watch the baby every day; he was busy doing other things during the day and night. He was the Police Commissioner after all; she couldn’t just abandon being a mother and take the mantle of Batgirl once again. Sometimes she missed it, when she had to fall asleep along because of how late Dick would be out. It wasn’t until they had moved in together that she realized how late they stay out. With the baby crying at early hours of the morning, she was up at that time anyway, and sometimes grabbed her old com link and spoke to him through it. She had done that during her pregnancy and she continued to do it when Mary woke her up during the night.

No crime fighting, she couldn’t risk it, not with the baby. She was the Commissioner’s daughter that was enough danger as it was, if anyone ever found out she had been Batgirl, there were several villains that would come after her. With a baby, she was never going to risk her daughter for the joy she got out of crime fighting.

She shook her head as she grabbed a towel and put it on the bathroom counter, starting her shower. She had about an hour before she was expecting Dick to be home from work, and she still had to get ready. An hour wasn’t enough time, it seemed for her to take a shower, get dressed, do her hair. She wanted to look nice; after all she didn’t know when the next time she would be alone with her husband would be. It didn’t seem they had enough time together as it was.

Barbara undressed and stepped in the shower, letting the warm water run over her as she relaxed. Nothing could possibly go wrong today. Nothing. Why was it always when she thought it was going to be perfect that something always got screwed up?


Harley and her Puddin’ had been out on the town all day, Jay had told her over and over that there was going to be a big surprise at the end of the day and it was going to be marvelous. Though Harley couldn’t understand why her Puddin’ would keep such things from her, she wanted to be a part of the planning too. She wanted to know what was planning to happen before it happened rather than being told right before it happened, or having to wait to see what the Joker was doing. It was no fun.

Harley had told her Puddin’ this and he had told her to shut up and be patient. Harley had lost her patience back in college, but without wanting to cause an argument (if she did, she knew that he’d likely cut her out of the plans all together, and that’d be even more boring) she shut up, and pouted in the seat next to Joker in the car.

It was getting late, the sun was setting and Harley was almost certain they were going to go back to their hide out, but no. As her Puddin’ drove he was turning at different lights and roads than he would to get to their hide out. She kept quiet, letting out a little huff as she watched the scenery go by.

“Oh stop your pouting, Harley!” Jay insisted, as he looked at her narrowing his green eyes as he swerved the car around a corner. Just as he missed one car, it hit another, and there was a song of car horns honking, as Jay let out a gleeful laugh, continuing to drive as though nothing had happened. “You’ll see when we get there.”

He stopped in front of a building that was known for its gorgeous and expensive apartment and suites. “Harl,” her Puddin’ said to her, as he turned and looked at her, green eyes meeting her blue. “Go inside, and find the elevator.” While they had been out on the town all day she had been out of her harlequin outfit, though Joker still looked normal as usual. He was never the one to wear disguises. “Go to 11th floor and room 1109. Say you’re… room service, or hell, just make up something. Get the door to open, I’ll be up there by the time you get the door open and the fun will begin.”

Harley listened to her Puddin’ like his word was gospel, and listened to him. While she climbed out of the car, she pulled at her pigtails and giggled as she bent down and looked at her reflection in the car mirror. She looked adorable as usual, cute enough for her Puddin’ was good enough for her.

Humming happily she started towards the building, knowing that if she should regard any type of security Joker woulda told her about it. Her wouldn’t let her just walk into a trap of security without warning her, or giving her disguise or something. So she walked through the front doors and looked around for a moment, finding the sign for the elevator and walking, well actually it was more of a giddy skip, towards the elevator.

She did just as her Puddin’ told her, into the elevator and off at the eleventh floor. She didn’t have to look very hard for the room, it was just right there in front of her when she went down the hallway, ready to look. Room 1109. Rich snots with their fancy dandy apartments, sipping their wine and eatin’ their caviar with every meal, it was enough to make Harley sick.

She went raised her hand to knock on the door, after a brief glance around, looking for her Puddin’. “Uhm…” She bit her lip thinking about what she was going to say. “Room service delivery got a package for ya!” She raised her voice, giggling as she kept looking around her hesitantly. She felt so… wrong without a disguise, or maybe she just afraid Batsy was gonna come down from the ceiling and catch her. He often did that to her and her Puddin’.


Barbara was just getting out of the shower when there was the knock at the door, she had her towel wrapped around her and she was walking towards her bedroom to get dressed when had heard the voice. “Got a package for ya!” The woman had said, and for a moment Barbara wondered if it could have been flowers or something that Dick had gotten her. She stepped in her bedroom, grabbing clothes to slip and calling to the front door.

“One minute!” She slipped on her nice dress, it wasn’t the greatest thing she owned but it was good enough for spending a night in their home. She grabbed a brush from her dresser and ran it through her thick red curls, and had started towards the door when she heard it get kicked in.

“Knock, knock ol’ Babsy! It’s your Uncle Jay…”

That voice, those words, it was everything that Barbara didn’t want to hear. It was what she honestly feared could happen at any moment. Sure, she was the Commissioner’s daughter, and yes she had been stuck in situations where she could have been killed depending on Joker’s mood. She was also Batgirl, and knew had to take care of herself. This, having this moment of complete and utter shock go through her was enough to petrify her.

Footsteps, giggling, and a clicking of a gun.

“Why didn’t you invite your ol’ Uncle Jay to your wedding, Babsy? It coulda been fun, after all… marrying a rich snot like Grayson. Thought I taught you better, Babs, thought I taught you to well… not settle for such scum of the earth.” Another giggle.

“You coulda settled for someone like my Puddin’.” Harley said this, and Barbara could just see her holding on the Joker and giggling, standing on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek. She couldn’t just stand here and hide, it wasn’t possible. Their suite was only so big, only so many rooms he could search. Then she heard the coo of one of Mary’s baby dolls.

“Aww… they have a baby, Puddin’… we should have a baby…” Harley’s voice was coming from the nursery, however soon there was a cry from one of the baby dolls. “Naww babies ain’t nothing but brats anyway.” Barbara inhaled and thanked every possible deity that she could think of that Mary was at her dad’s and not here. Not in danger.

Barbara held her breath and stepped out of the bedroom, walking to the opening of the combined kitchen and living room. They were only a matter of feet away, in the nursery doing God knows what to her daughter’s toys. Harley peeped her head out of the nursery, and giggled. “Aw there she is Mistah Jay! She’s looking awfully purdddy, were you gettin’ ready for somethin’ Babsy? A romantic rendezvous with the hubbie, y’know he’s kinda cute when ya squint.”

“Harley do the honors.” Joker stepped out of the nursery, handing Harley a… camera? She giggled and kicked her foot up in the air, saying ‘Okay’ in her sickening sweet tone. Barbara’s eyes wandered to the Joker, who towered over Harley even when she was standing at her tallest. She watched his movements, still holding her breath with anxiety. Before she could open her mouth to say anything: ask why he was there, what he wanted, what he was going to do? She heard the clicking of the gun and saw, as though in slow motion, the hand that he was holding the gun in raise and aim right at her.

Then she saw his finger pull the trigger.

[Alli]

Barbara felt sick, just how everyone looked at her with such sympathy in their eyes. She hated it, wanted to curl into a ball and cry, but she couldn't feel below her waist. She couldn't wiggle her toes or tuck her knees up to her chest, and she just felt so hopeless. It was like they all knew something that she didn't and they refused to tell her, she wanted to know what the hell had happened. After… after Joker had shot her, she had fallen to the ground and everything after was just a blur. She could remember lying in her own blood, the sickest thought that she could have. She remembered Dick calling her name, and then she remembered her Dad sitting beside her and telling her that everything was going to be alright and to just go back to sleep.

Now, Dick had left before she had woken up. Her father wouldn't tell her why; actually he was being quite vague with anything that she was asking. He wouldn't answer her questions, and she had yet to see a doctor, she couldn't help but wonder if her Father was telling them not to come to her room. However that theory had been thrown out the window when she had a knock at the door and the doctor walked in.

"Mrs. Grayson, I… have bad news." The doctor was an older man with graying hair and glasses; he kept looking at his clipboard as though it was going to help him say what he was going to tell her. "The bullet went straight to your spine; we've tried all we could possibly do. We… can't do any more to help, you'll be unable to walk until some kind of medical advancement comes alone… nothing has been perfected to fix paralysis, but… we are trying."

Barbara's mouth gaped open at the words, and her vision was blurred with tears as the doctor finished. She thought maybe, just that there was some kind of small chance, that the lack of feeling below her waist would have been temporary. She hadn't imagined that it could have been that bad, that the night everything was supposed to be so perfect and magical that everything would go to hell and it would be the worst night of her life. The doctor nodded his head to her Father, who was now standing at her side and brushing her hair out of her face. Telling her it was going to be okay, telling her that she would get through this. That they would all get through this.

What did he know? He wasn't the one that wouldn't be able to walk for the rest of his life; he wasn't the one who had a baby girl who was less than a year old. He may have been okay, but she wouldn't be. It could be days, weeks, months, years and she wouldn't be okay. It wouldn't be the same. Nothing would be the same, and no one know what it was like. Just her.

[Alli]

He couldn't do this, he could not just sit in this damn hospital while the mad man that had could have killed the love of his life, the mother of his child, his best friend, was still out on the streets of Gotham. He couldn't watch her sleep, after the doctor had told him that Barbara wouldn't be able to walk anymore, he hadn't been able to take it. He couldn't just stay in that hospital while Joker was still out there. Years of fighting along Batman, morals drilled into his head that they shouldn't kill that they didn't kill no matter what. This, Barbara being in the hospital, helpless, and had been at critical condition only a few hours ago, was enough to cause Dick to forget everything that Bruce had taught him.

He wanted the Joker dead.

"I don't know how you can sit here when he's still out there, Bruce." Dick said in a hushed voice, looking to the man who was sitting next to. He had been too quiet after he had told him that Barbara was going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life. Dick figured Bruce was being how he normally was, emotionless. He had the stern Batman face, and it was driving Dick insane that he could be so emotionless in a situation like this.

What Dick was taking for emotionless was actually Bruce deep in his thoughts. He was thinking about the Joker, the past, the present, and the future. It hadn't been so long ago that he had lost his own son to the hands of the Joker, and now he had hurt another person that Bruce had cared for. He was telling himself that after Barbara, because of Barbara, he wasn't going to have any one after Tim. No Batgirl substitutions, and if, God forbid, something happened to Tim, no more Robin.

Bruce understood what Dick was saying, but the matter was that Barbara was going to wake up soon. The doctor was going to have to tell her that she wasn't going to be able to walk again. She was going to need someone to talk to, sure her father was in the room with her at the moment, but Bruce even knew that she wasn't as close with her Father as she was with her own husband. When Dick had called, he had sounded so… broken; he hadn't even managed to form the words to tell Bruce that Barbara was in the hospital. Now Dick was more furious with the situation than upset. He wasn't the only one; Gordon had every cop in the city looking for the Joker and Harley.

"Barbara is going to need you when she wakes up." This was Bruce's only reply to the younger man sitting next to him, who was too wrapped up in the condition of his wife that he wasn't thinking straight. Dick had always had a temper, after all he had been "sick and tired of being in Batman's shadow" as Robin, which had caused him to become Nightwing, and move out almost immediately after graduating high school.

"I'd rather be able to tell her that he's locked up after what he did to her. I can't stand waiting here. He doesn't deserve to be out on the streets, hell he doesn't even deserve to rot in Arkham. He's a monster, Bruce, she could have died. Mary could have been there…" He cut himself off and starred at the tiled floor. That baby, and Barbara were everything to Dick, ever since Mary had been born she had only gotten the best, nothing less. "I can't just sit here after everything he's done, everything he's put us through, everything that he's done to this city. I can't let him get away with this." Though Dick wasn't saying it out loud, Bruce knew by the tone what he was thinking.

"We don't kill. No matter what, Dick, you know that."

"But you're going to allow a mad man run loose on the streets of Gotham while my wife is lying in the hospital bed, unable to ever walk again."

"Barbara needs you here, Dick." The last thing he needed was to have to explain to Jim why his son-in-law wasn't in the hospital. Everyone was on edge right now, and that was not something that Dick needed to do. If he didn't see that, Bruce did. "If Barbara wakes up and asks for you, and you aren't here?"

"When Joker's locked up, she'll forget about it."

"Your attempt at revenge isn't going to do anything to help Barbara when she finds out that she can't walk, Dick. Yes, Joker needs to be in Arkham, but that can wait."

Dick couldn't sit here and listening to Bruce tell him that this could wait. It couldn't wait, and while Dick was saying that he wanted Joker behind bars, he wanted blood. Not just Joker behind bars, not just giving him the chance to escape. Dick stood, unable to sit anymore, he had to move around, do something. Pacing seemed like the best thing.

"You've seen what he's done Bruce. Jason, now Babs, who is next? What happens if he finds out he didn't kill her? He'll be sure not to make the same mistake twice…" He paused as he looked at Bruce, who had that damn Batman expression, even after so many years of working with him, with that face he didn't know what he was thinking. "What if he goes personal again, Bruce, what if he goes after Selina, or Tim, or me? Or Barbara again to make sure that the job gets done the right way, or Mary? Our suite is filled with pictures of Mary, it's not like he doesn't know about her…" He was trying to get Bruce to think about the possibilities of something else happening, Joker striking again, killing personal again. "He doesn't deserve to live, Bruce."

Bruce was not pleased with Dick's words. He was trying to get Bruce to fear the Joker, to fear for the lives of those around him. He had been fighting the Joker for a long time, and his attacks were sporadic. He didn't know Barbara was Batgirl, he just knew that she was the Commissioner's daughter and that was enough for him. He wanted to hurt Batman, but he didn't have a reason for killing most of the time. He killed for the hell of it, he killed to cause chaos and fear. If the people of Gotham saw that someone like Barbara Gordon, daughter of the Commissioner and wife to Dick Grayson could get hurt so easily than what did that mean for the rest of them? Bruce, Batman, knew better than to let Dick try and get him to want Joker's life. Joker didn't make personal attacks; he killed for the effect.

"He doesn't kill for a reason. He kills to kill, Dick. Are you going to let yourself sink to that level? Because no matter whether you kill for no reason, or the best reason in the world, it's the same thing Joker does, the same thing any murderer does. We don't kill."

It was as though Dick couldn't take it anymore; he growled and ran his fingers through his hair. "You don't get it, do you? You don't understand that if you let him live that he's going to the same thing to other people that he did to Babs, and Jason. He's going to be on the street every other week, time after time we put him back in Arkham. It'll be a never ending battle between the two of you, do you know why? Because you won't kill him, he will kill you. If he had the chance and could, he would. I refuse let him take any more lives, whether they're close to us, or close to someone we don't even know." Dick looked at Bruce for a long moment, silence in the air, and watching the older man for any kind of sign that he would try to stop him from leaving.

"This game ends tonight."

[Alli]

The day was always long, but today was the worst. Having to deal with business all day with the thought that he was going to have a night alone with Barbara was hell. This was a long overdue "date", so he when he left work he was more than eager to see Barbara. They didn't spend enough time together as it was, not since the baby was born and they lost the chance to see each other at night. Tonight was going to be wonderful, it had to be.

However when Dick stepped out of the elevator, he didn't know what it was, but he had this bad feeling. Something was wrong, something was very wrong. His first clue, besides the gut feeling, was that their door was cracked open. He inhaled sharply, and opened the door all the way.

Nothing, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. Not Batman, not the cruel acts of the villains of Gotham. Absolutely nothing could have prepared him for finding his wife lying in her own blood. The blood was soaked through the gown she was wearing, and he couldn't tell if she was still alive.

"Barbara… oh God… Barbara…." He whispered, grabbing his cell phone and dialing 911. He was trying to feel for a pulse when he was giving the directions to the woman on the other end. When he felt the small beating of her pulse in her wrist, there was a small bit of hope, which was going towards her making it to the hospital.

When the paramedics arrived, Dick managed to pull himself away from Barbara, his Barbara, long enough to see the note on the table, addressed to "Dickie".



This letter pushed Dick from the heartbroken feeling to anger; the Joker had gone too far this time. However when Dick rode next to Barbara in the ambulance, the feeling that returned; it was then, more than ever that he realized that he was nothing without her. That broken feeling stayed through and after Bruce and Tim arrived at the hospital and Alfred came and got the baby from Sarah.

Gordon was angry, irritated, and through the roof with devastation. She was his little girl, just like she was his wife. Dick felt so hopeless the whole time he was sitting in the private waiting room, he couldn't stay beside her. He couldn't see her in that awful condition. He knew that it was only a matter of time before he broke down if he had to see her in the critical condition.

It wasn't until the doctor told him that Barbara wouldn't be able to walk, along with the slim chance that she'd be able to have any children after the injury. He was thankful for Mary more now than ever.

He supposed that the injury was what made everything so much worse. He was glad that she was okay but what she was forced to live with, forced to adapt to, was enough to make Dick want the revenge Barbara couldn't get. Joker had gone too far this time.

Now he was on the rooftops of Gotham, full in costume as Nightwing. The Joker had proved to Dick that he wasn't going to stop with Barbara. He had already robbed two banks, and blown up an old abandoned apartment. Joker was out tonight, and he was trying to strike fear in the heart of Gotham. It was working.

Tonight, no matter how bad it got, was going to be the end: the end of Joker and the beginning of the turning of a new leaf for Gotham City. Joker's end was not even the beginning of solving all the crime in Gotham, but it was better than what Gotham would have had in a very long time.

Joker was insane, but even he had to know with all the publicity that Barbara's injury was getting, at least one of the Bat family was going to come after him.

Unlucky for the Joker, Nightwing was the one that was after him. Though Joker wouldn't have a clue that this had been a personal attack on the Bat family, he would probably think this was just another attempt at getting him permanently behind bars. Barbara hadn't been Batgirl for over a year and a half. Joker had been, however, the only villain that ever commented on her absence. "Aw, Batsy, where's Red tonight? Someone else get to her before I could? Poo." He only said a few things about her disappearance, before acting as though there was never a Batgirl to be begin with.

This, everything he was going to do tonight was for Barbara. When Dick heard the maniacal laughter of the Joker, he smirked. He was going to watch, just for a minute, before he went after the bastard. Even from this distance he could hear the echoes of the sick laughter, and Harley's cooing over her "Puddin'". She did everything he told her. She was no better than him.

Just as he moved to jump, he heard the familiar whoosh of Batman's cape behind him, along with the sound and the feeling of someone being behind him.

"Don't do this."