Chapter Text
When they tell the story they say it starts with a bomb in a warehouse in Ethiopia. But really it starts with a bereaved father, and a question.
“Robin, did Felipe fall… or was he pushed?”
-
We’re on patrol. Robin hears a scream and his instincts take over. He crashes into the apartment of Felipe Garzonas, unaware of the mess we’re swinging into, where we take Garzonas and his bodyguard in for kidnapping a woman.
Robin is incensed, angry. He flutters around the woman the entire way down to police headquarters. He keeps his hands always in her view, when they aren’t otherwise grounding her by holding one of her shoulders. He offers soft and careful words of comfort that have sharp and cold fury buried beneath the surface but without an ounce of judgement to be seen. It’s fine, he’s the only one that can. The woman won’t let me near her.
I don’t understand why until we hand her over to a female officer who takes her statement… and administers a rape kit.
It doesn’t come as a surprise to Robin, but I hear his gloves clench anyway.
He takes cases like these hard, too hard.
So when Gordon comes back with Garzonas’ statement… It's a tale as old as time, his word against hers and we can’t prove otherwise, so we’re going to have to cut Garzonas loose.
Jim makes the mistake of telling Robin that the law couldn’t punish Garzonas even if we could prove it. Diplomatic immunity. We can’t touch him.
Garzonas walks, he was never even booked. Jason’s fury simmers just below the surface of his skin. It comes out in cold, cutting words and a dangerous declaration. I don’t see the trouble coming, I'd blinded myself to so much when it came to this new Robin’s overload of emotional baggage. But it was there, right from the start.
We go after the father’s drug operation instead. His son has been sampling, hodling, and if José Garzonas wants to keep his political position he'll have to let his son take the fall… and lose part of the operation too.
Jason doesn’t like the waiting. He hasn’t learned yet that ninety percent of crime-fighting is waiting and he’s too emotionally involved to see the bigger picture.
A part of me whispers that it isn’t the waiting that’s getting to him. It’s the lack of justice. The law will deport him, strip him of his immunity and Felipe will never step foot in the political circle… but the crime he committed will go unpunished.
Robin dares him to resist when we confront him. He doesn’t. But he does get one last hit in the end.
Robin finds her in the bedroom, chair overturned and white towels tied together hang from an exposed pipe in the ceiling.
She had been like cracked crystal, still beautiful but someone you’d be afraid to touch for fear of shattering her. She was too fragile for a world inhabited by monsters like Felipe Garzonas. I should have seen that. I should… so many should haves but didn’t. I call for an ambulance to take her to the morgue. But when I get off the line…
“Robin?”
Gone. and he’s going to be heading for…
-
… Felipe's apartment
I hear the scream before I see Jason, but I get there too late. Felipe took a twenty story nosedive onto fifth avenue. I found Robin on Felipe's balcony, cooly staring over the parapet. When I demand to know what happened…
“I guess I spooked him. He slipped."
-
I should have known something like this would happen. Jason had dark moods, he was resentful and reckless with an attitude that would get him killed. He had a rebellious streak in him that I told myself we’d work out of his system in time, but he’s only become more difficult to control. He disobeys orders, and takes unreasonable risks.
I thought I had his best interest at heart when I rushed him into training to be the new Robin. Guess you know what they say the path to hell is paved with.
-
One night there’s an envelope waiting for me at police headquarters. Inside, a picture of Gordon tied up in a junkyard, and a note. It reads:
“Batman - come without the police or Gordon will die. Bring the boy with you - a Bereaved Father.”
It’s not hard to figure out who the bereaved father is. I should have known something like this was going to happen. José augments his income as a diplomat by the large-scale smuggling of cocaine into the U.S. A man like that doesn’t take the death of his son lightly. It’s pretty obvious why he wants me to bring Jason along.
I try to handle it alone, but Robin snuck into the trunk of the Batmobile.
It’s a mad dash around the scrapyard, dodging bullets from all sides. I climb up a precarious tower of junkyard cars for lack of cover as José and one of his men try to hit me with automatic gunfire. The tower is unstable. The gunfire doesn’t help and neither does the weight of a two hundred and ten pound man climbing up one side of them. I make it to the top in time to jump off of the stack before it can crush me. But it lasts towards me, towards Garzonas.
And gravity takes care of the rest.
All Garzonas would have had to do is step back and pick me off when I landed. But I guess his thirst for vengeance blinds him to the danger. He continues to blast away at me, even with the scrap-iron tower to babel crashing down on him.
Robin asks me about what happened.
“A lot of stupidity and some deaths, all wrapped up in a father’s righteous anger… for every action in this universe, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Consequences, Robin. There’s no escaping them.”
-
And then Robin falls, and there is no question. Just a bomb in a warehouse in Ethiopia… and the bereaved father he left behind.
-
Superman comes, sent by the state department to stop me from causing trouble. He beats around the bush, trying to be gentle, like I'm a quivering victim who needs the boy scout’s comfort. The new Iranian ambassador has diplomatic immunity.
“The police can’t touch him. Neither can you.”
My hands clench. Clark won’t tell me who the ambassador is. He tells me to go home.
I punch him.
“Now isn’t this touching?”
No.
No. NO. NO!
“My old pals, Superham and Batpest, have come to congratulate me!”
It’s the JOKER!
And he won’t. Stop. Laughing.
-
Clark takes me to another room. A C.I.A agent tells us to “work it out”. Superman’s here to stop me. That’s the law, not justice.
I might be too emotionally involved.
But he murdered Jason.
I don’t have time for Kent’s boy scout sentimentalities.
-
And go to confront the Joker anyway, who all but confirms that he was the one who killed Jason.
-
Just like Jason the Joker can’t help himself. He has no patience. And at the general assembly the next day, he loses his immunity when he tries to kill the delegates with his deadly laughing gas.
Superman handles the gas. I take after the Joker, explosions rock the building. A distraction that I ignore. I should have terminated his vile existence years ago. But I didn't. I couldn’t. His insanity granted him a stay of execution. But no longer. He’s become too dangerous, his crimes too heinous.
Jason’s dead.
He tries to shoot me. I dodge, he misses. The delegate behind me is not so lucky.
Wherever he goes… death… another hapless victim to haunt my sleep.
I snarl at him and see real fear in the Joker’s toxic eyes for the first time all day.
Let this be the end of it!
The Joker runs for the helipad but running will do him no good. No matter where he goes I will be right behind him. There’s a helicopter waiting for him. Not enough to stop me. There’s no escape!
Two Arab men stand in my way, the Joker behind them, and I tackle them. I claw their limp bodies aside to grab the Joker by the back of his neck. He chokes as I drag him towards me, until he notices the gunman and screams.
“No!"
One of the men has picked up a rifle and rains indiscriminate gunfire in the enclosed space. I let go of the Joker and dropped to avoid getting hit. Joker and the pilot aren’t so lucky.
The chopper swerves, the open door turned dangerously towards the open ocean below. The fall would be fatal.
The Joker struggles to stay balanced, hand clutching at the bleeding GSW on his chest with the violent motion; red stains his green button up. My hands reach for him
-
Above us Superman hears the scream before he sees us. But he gets there too late. The Joker falls, falls, falls. I smile. The chopper swerves again and I can't see where he lands..
Superman and his sentimentality catches the chopper when he should be looking for the Joker. He brings the helicopter safely to land. The pilot will live, as he is taken to the hospital, and the other two Arab men are taken away with the police.
Clark finds me at the pier. I scan the waters searching for red or green or purple. Any sign of him, any sign of his body. I shouldn’t have to tell Clark to get looking, but instead he asks me what happened.
“A lot of stupidity and some deaths, all wrapped up in a father’s righteous anger.”
I don’t realise I haven't said anything until he says my name. He’s frowning, face pinched. It doesn’t look right on him, it looks too much like me; bitter, disappointed.
“Bruce, did he fall… or did you push him?”
-
A bereaved father, and a question. That’s where it starts.
“Consequences, Robin. There’s no escaping them.”