Chapter Text
The ensuing investigation, though conducted in private, mirrors the kind of ferocious deep dive reporting that usually has Lois warning him, “Buckle up, Smallville, shit’s about to get bumpy.”
He begins by compiling every bit of information he can find on the Joker.
An initial search turns up countless pieces detailing the Joker’s criminal exploits over the last several years. The dates tick backwards in time to his debut, his initial exploits including his shadowy involvement in the Riddler’s failed attempt to level the newly reconstructed Wayne Tower and much more direct attack on Commissioner Gordon that same night when he kidnapped his 10 year old daughter. Clark is startled to find that the first mentions of Joker in Gotham press directly correspond with both Bruce’s public return to the city and the first whisperings of the vigilante Batman appearing on the scene.
It takes scouring that initial article from Vicki Vale to find the Joker’s given name: Jeremiah Valeska, an escaped Arkham Asylum inmate. Beyond that first appearance, the Gotham Gazette almost never uses anything but the moniker Vale must have coined to refer to the criminal, and Clark has to acquire Arkham records through a direct source at the asylum in order to verify that is in fact the legal name the Joker is checked in under. (The relative ease with which he was able to get confidential patient information troubles him, the corruption Bruce works to fight so hard against in both of his personas rearing its ugly head.)
The article mentions that Valeska had been in a coma prior to his escape, thought to be brain dead, but provides no background information beyond these passing details.
Curiously, though Valeska’s imprisonment at the asylum suggests past criminal wrongdoings, there is no mention made of him prior to Vale’s piece in the ten years of archived materials logged by the Gazette and other similar Gotham news hubs Clark finds in his endless digital scroll. Not even the tabloid sites he eventually resorts to checking–banking on the hope that the Joker’s eventual scandalous flair for dramatics might have surfaced earlier and attracted a sleazier brand of reporting–mention him.
His inner-Lois had been right. This unofficial story is going to require delving even deeper.
News articles from Gotham press outlets prior to the city’s year long isolation in “No Man’s Land” are scarce on the ground, which means Clark has to make a visit to the Gotham City Public Library and go scouring the archives for information. The needle-in-a-haystack feel to the search is only intensified by the fact that Clark doesn’t know exactly what he is looking for.
But he has a name now, and that’s as good a place to start as any.
Given the relative silence in the ten years between No Man’s Land and the Joker’s eventual debut, Clark is surprised to find Valeska’s name making headlines only a few days before the infamous event that cut Gotham off from the mainland and plunged it into endless months of chaos. Reading the title prompts a chilling sense of resignation in Clark: “Gotham Clock Tower Blows! More to Come?”
The article details Valeska’s destruction of the landmark tower and his threat to bomb various locations around Gotham in a similar fashion, the plan not identical but echoing the terrorist attack that led to the city’s eventual fall days later. Though the lack of resources and martial law that ensued following the attack means there are no direct records available, the report is enough to piece a sketchy but comprehensible picture together, and Valeska’s involvement in everything that came after that initial bombing becomes a logical if not indisputable conclusion.
One line in particular jars Clark enough he is shocked out of his speedreading, taking a moment to read the sentence over and over again in the hopes that he misunderstood: “One inside source claims,” writes Vale (Valerie, this time, not Vicki), “that the bombs were funded as part of the alleged clean energy project announced last week by future Wayne Enterprises CEO Bruce Wayne.”
Clark can only locate two earlier articles with any mention of Jeremiah Valeska, and the more recent is so passing he almost misses it. Following the trajectory outlined by Vale, the headline declares, “Bruce Wayne Vows to Clean Up Gotham with New Energy Initiative” and covers Bruce’s promise to the city to make Gotham greener by funding a number of environmentally conscious projects. Details about said plans, however, had remained shrouded in an excited sort of secrecy.
The article is accompanied by a photo, two figures surrounded by other lavishly outfitted guests and all the extravagant touches that signal a corporate event. It’s here Clark finds what he is looking for, eyes settling on the caption beneath the grainy black-and-white image: “Pictured: Bruce Wayne with engineer Jeremiah Valeska.”
The young man on the left is inarguably Bruce–expertly tailored suit, wavy black hair, too serious eyes and all–but there’s a trace of a smile on his lips, a rare sight, as he clutches the arm of the man at his side in a display of friendly camaraderie that seems authentic and earnest rather than staged. He’s slender, face smooth with youth–barely eighteen by Clark’s mental math–and the sight of him, looking boyish and enthusiastic in a way Clark can never really imagine he had been, is enough to make him forget himself and smile, just for a second.
To his right, allegedly, is Jeremiah Valeska.
Valeska’s suit isn’t nearly as immaculately fitted as Bruce’s, a bit ill-fitting, a little outdated. Everything from his posture to the pattern of his tie suggests he’s out of place in the glamor around them, cultivating the air of a reclusive professor who doesn’t get out much, as opposed to the easy grace Bruce has clearly always exuded in such settings.
Looking at him, Clark feels a sudden, unexpected wave of empathy. He knows what it feels like, being the odd-man-out in circumstances almost identical to the one Valeska had clearly found himself in. It was an experience he’d had many times over, stretching back into his teen years, an awkward, too-tall Smallville farm boy brushing elbows with Metropolis high society at Luthorcorp galas and Christmas parties all on the invitation of L–
He swallows hard. There was no use dredging up ancient history.
Coming back to himself, Clark makes a careful study of the image before him. He tries to peel back the layers of scarring, the shock of patchy hair, the red-rimmed eyes from the mental image of the Joker in his head to find this young man–hair meticulously combed and gelled into place, ducking his head behind horned-rimmed glasses, his mouth quirked up at one corner in a shy half-smile–lurking underneath.
But he can’t.
If Clark’s glasses are a foolproof disguise, then the Joker’s disguise is immaculate. Even having carefully connected the dots back from the flashy Gotham rogue to the twentysomething engineer in the photo, he has a hard time believing it really is him.
Clark finds his eyes drawn to Bruce’s hand, splayed easily on the elbow patch of Valeska’s sleeve, the tight grip of Batman’s glove on the Joker’s glittering suit layering over the image in his mind.
His shoulders tighten, the spark of tension he felt watching Bruce interact with the Joker that night returning.
When he finally gets to the last article, it raises more questions than it answers.
“Valeska’s Reign of Terror Continues!” the headline boldly declares, muddling the narrative Clark has now spent weeks constructing in his head. A quick scan of the text reveals that the Valeska in question is not Jeremiah, however, but Jerome Valeska, Jeremiah’s twin brother. As part of a larger scheme in which he had held the mayor and other prominent figures hostage at the Gotham Music Festival, Jerome had demanded his twin brother and Bruce be brought to him. The mere existence of Jeremiah seems to have been a revelation, based on the tone of the reporter writing, while Jerome and Bruce’s antagonism, by contrast, appears much more well-established.
Though a combination of the GCPD and dissent from inside his own operation derailed Jerome’s ultimate goals, further details reveal that the stunt was part of a much larger ploy to expose the crowd present to an airborne toxin deployed by an overhead blimp. No one uses the term “Joker Gas,” but, based on the potential effects described, it seems clear the substance is the same.
The entire incident is so reminiscent of the Joker’s schemes, it could be from an article published yesterday.
If there was any question of whether or not Jerome was Jeremiah’s twin, the accompanying photo dispels it. There he is, sandwiched between a glaring Bruce and a sneering Jeremiah. Though his face is scarred around the edges, his mouth carved into a rictus grin–reminiscent of the Joker, though not nearly as severely ravaged–his features are identical to his brother’s.
Mention is made of some of Jerome’s previous exploits, including orchestrating a mass Arkham Asylum breakout and a city-wide blackout as well as participating in a much earlier crime spree alongside a group of accomplices known as “the Maniax.” The name is unfamiliar, Clark having yet to encounter it in his recent investigations of Gotham’s organized crime.
The article concludes by mentioning a final rooftop confrontation between Captain Gordon and Jerome which ended with the latter deceased.
Again.
It’s an aside worthy of the Wall of Weird, and a troubling reminder that, for all his and Bruce’s upbringings were vastly different, in some ways they were startlingly the same.
No more mention of Jeremiah Valeska is made in the backlog, confirming his presence in Gotham had been unknown prior to his twin dragging him up onto that stage. Jerome Valeska’s name does crop up several times in the years leading up to that final encounter, confirming his briefly mentioned past crimes as well as a few prior interactions with Bruce. Finally, even his presence peters out, ending with the inciting incident in which 18-year old Jerome was apprehended from Haly’s Traveling Circus, arrested, and comitted to Arkham Asylum for his mother’s murder.
Despite the fact that the research Clark compiles makes clear there is a prior connection between Bruce and the man who would become the Joker, after everything he uncovers, he ends his search feeling even more uncertain than when he started.
Once the archives have been exhausted, Clark figures the best place to follow up is a direct source.
Which is how Clark finds himself deep in the bowels of Wayne Enterprises a few days later.
Despite having agreed to an interview with Clark on the phone, Lucius Fox, head of Research and Development at Wayne Industries, is surprisingly tight-lipped.
“Everything you could possibly want to know about our projects is a matter of public record, Mr. Kent,” he informs Clark, smile placid in a way that reminds him of Bruce, “and anything beyond that is entirely above board, but protected for the sake of privacy and personal security. I can assure you, nothing untoward goes on behind Wayne Industries’ walls. If it did, I wouldn’t work here. I quit when corruption was unearthed within the company years ago, and only returned to my position when Mr. Wayne was able to root it out.”
“I was more curious about some earlier research done at Wayne Enterprises,” Clark says, direct but with the apologetic, unassuming smile that usually disarms people. “Maybe even what they might have been working on down here during your time away from the company?”
Nothing about Mr. Fox’s expression or posture changes, but, even so, there’s something about his eyes that hardens.
“Well, Mr. Kent, as you have pointed out, I wasn’t employed here during that time. Which would make me a somewhat unlikely source to cover that period, wouldn’t you agree?” his eyebrow ticks up slightly, a question and a challenge. “Besides, if you want to know more…why don’t you simply ask Bruce himself? The two of you are acquainted, are you not?”
“I guess I should write that down as a ‘no comment,’ then?” Clark asks, pencil poised over his notepad as he keeps his eyes trained steadily on the other man’s face.
“Yes,” Mr. Fox replies, tight smile frozen on his face, “I recommend that you do.”
When Clark stumbles upon the gas, it’s practically an accident.
Mr. Fox’s office is located surprisingly deep within Wayne Industries central lab. Keeps him close to the action, Clark guesses.
But that means it’s a whole journey to get back to the Gotham City street above. As Mr. Fox leads him through the corridors to the elevator that will take him up to the main lobby, the air between them now far chillier than it had been during his welcome, Clark can’t help but sate his curiosity. He’s come this far, and though it won’t give him much information about the company’s past connection with Jeremiah Valeska, he is genuinely interested in what exactly Bruce is working on down here.
He tamps down the niggling voice in the back of his head, warning him not to dismiss Mr. Fox’s caginess as a simple Gothamite quirk.
But that’s what it is. The folks Clark has encountered in Gotham City are notoriously private and mysterious, Bruce perhaps most of all, but with good reason. After all, Bruce’s secrecy is a matter of heroism instead of anything nefarious.
And Clark knows all about keeping secrets for the greater good.
Even so, as they pass through the lab’s lowest level, Clark lets himself have a peek, the walls around him melting away to reveal the Wayne Industries scientists hard at work on a variety of experiments.
One lab they pass seems to be devoted to some sort of organic gardening project. A myriad of plants, some of which Clark didn’t recognize, flourish in rows that fill the entire space. Another houses a scientist utilizing what appears to be some kind of healing agent, the tech taking an eyedropper and applying green liquid to a small white mouse’s slight abrasions. The cuts immediately vanish as soon as the drops hit its fur.
They have almost come to the end of the hall when Clark sees it.
This final room is overrun with clear tubing, a single researcher carefully monitoring the meticulous combination of various chemicals into the final product: a liquid, strikingly purple in color.
A sinking feeling settles into the pit of Clark’s stomach. Almost without thinking, he notches up his x-ray vision to microscopic, narrowing in so he can examine the formula Wayne Industries is producing down to its very atoms.
He recognizes the arrangement of molecules immediately.
After all, Clark had seen the chemical composition of the substance that night, as he watched the Joker’s victims succumb to agonizing, cackling madness.
“Mr. Kent?” Mr. Fox calls from several paces ahead.
Clark had stopped dead in the middle of the hallway without even realizing it.
“Sorry!” Clark blurts the apology automatically, swallowing hard as he comes out of his stupor.
As he launches into a purposefully awkward jog to catch up and meet Mr. Fox’s steady stride, the brief glimpse he had caught inside that final lab replays again and again in his mind, running on an endless, dread-inducing loop.
Joker Gas. Wayne Industries is synthesizing Joker Gas.