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"Hello," Damian says politely. "You touched something of mine."
Inside his cell, the Joker laughs. He is still laughing when Damian puts a sword through his heart.
–
"We have," Sgt. Alvarez says, "a situation."
Alvarez is one of the less corrupt cops on Gotham's police force. He takes bribes—most of them do—but he isn't running any protection rackets, and he doesn't beat down civilians. And he has a general sense of what's a true enough issue to actually escalate to Jim’s attention.
So Jim is not enthused to hear that coming from him. "What's going on?"
"Well," Alvarez says, sucking on his teeth. He takes a drink from the coffee cup that's perpetually glued to his hand. Jim never sees him fill it, but it always seems to have coffee in it—real coffee too, not booze. "Someone killed the Joker."
Jim chokes on his own coffee, sputtering and spitting it out into a vaguely crumb-ridden napkin. "Did we miss an escape?"
"Nope." Alvarez takes another drink of coffee. "Someone broke into Arkham, stabbed him to death."
"And we're sure it's a break-in? Not an inmate?"
"Not unless they're giving the inmates swords these days." Alvarez taps on Jim's desk. "I'm just going to say this out loud, because I know you won't: do we really need to look into this? It's not a death anyone's going to mourn."
"We can't just not investigate a murder," Jim says unconvincingly.
"I have not investigated so many murders," Alvarez says, more convincingly.
“We at least need to…” The Joker is the reason Barbara is in a wheelchair. “We need to figure out who did it, at least, to make sure it’s not someone taking his place.”
Alvarez shrugs. “Whatever you say, Commish.”
“The body still there?”
”You think anyone wanted to touch it?”
The Joker has been known to boobytrap bodies, so Jim can’t really blame them.
Sometimes he thinks cops in other cities don’t deal with quite the same things as cops in Gotham. But on the other hand, other cities have to deal with shit like UV rays and Superman’s alien enemy of the week.
And they swim in natural bodies of water, apparently. Jim would never.
–
Jim looks at the sword impaled all the way through the Joker and fights the urge to put his head in his hands. He knows that sword.
He has stretched the idea of plausible deniability so far beyond what any rational human being would believe, but he’s only been able to do that because they’ve been nice enough not to leave weapons that can be traced back to their civilian identities inside of people they’ve murdered.
They’ve been nice enough not to murder people.
But he knows that sword, because he saw it on a wall in their living room when he was over to visit.
“Clear out the body,” Jim says. “I’ll take the sword.”
Alvarez glances at him, then asks, “And the case?”
“Accidental death,” Jim says, and feels very little regret about it. There is only one person in the world he can imagine mourning the Joker’s death, and he is not particularly interested in Harleen Quinzel’s opinions on things.
“Yes, sir,” Alvarez says.
Jim has done worse.
Everyone in Gotham has done worse.
–
He takes the sword with him to Wayne Manor.
Mr. Pennyworth greets him at the door, and he barely bats an eye at the sight of the Gotham police commissioner standing in his doorway holding a giant-ass sword. He asks, “What can I do for you today, Commissioner?”
“I need to talk to Damian al Ghul,” Jim says.
“I see,” Mr. Pennyworth says. “And what should I tell him it is about?”
“I would rather not say.”
“I see,” Mr. Pennyworth says. He steps back, letting Jim in. “Please, come sit in the living room. I know you know where it is.”
Jim does. He heads to what they call the living room, which is just one of half a dozen or so sitting rooms or parlors or whatever the fuck rich people call those sorts of rooms, though he doesn’t sit down.
Instead, he stands in front of the sword display on the wall, where a sword identical to the one he’s holding is situated just so in the mounting.
From behind him, a man’s voice says, “You were asking after me.”
Jim startles before he can help himself, even though he should be used to them by now, then turns and looks at Damian Al Ghul. He’s an older teenager, but something in his body looks hardened, like he aged too fast. There’s a scar visible just on the edge of his neck.
“You seem to have misplaced this,” Jim says, holding up the sword towards him. There was no sheath, but Jim really didn’t want to carry around a naked blade, so they made a makeshift one out of cardboard.
Damian’s face twitches, looking at it—not like the sword bothers him, but like the cardboard does.
“As you can see,” Damian says, “we are not missing a sword.”
Jim arches an eyebrow at him. “Are you telling me that this isn’t your sword?”
“I could hardly comment one way or another on whose sword it is.”
Okay, then. “Well,” Jim says, “I’m going to leave it with you anyway, just in case.” He turns to put the sword down on the table—then nearly jumps out of his shoes when he sees Bruce standing in the doorway, looking at them.
“Commissioner,” Bruce says.
“You should teach your kids to look after their stuff better,” Jim tells him.
Bruce looks down at the sword, then up at his face. “Where did you find it?” he asks.
“Through the Joker’s heart,” Jim says, and that, that gets a reaction.
But then Bruce packs it away, the way that he always does, the way that Jim has been watching him pack things away since he was a little kid who just saw his parents murdered. “I see,” Bruce says.
“It’s been ruled an accident,” Jim tells him, because it’s hardly a secret.
That gets another reaction, and this is practically a banner day for Jim. He should send himself a postcard to commemorate it.
“A sword accidentally ended up in his heart?” Bruce asks, politely incredulous.
In Jim’s periphery, he sees Damian’s lips twitch, just a little.
“Stranger things have happened with the Joker.”
Bruce opens his mouth, but from behind Jim, he hears dead-but-not-anymore Jason Todd ask, “What happened with the Joker?”
Jason Todd died in Ethiopia years ago, except for all that he’s standing in Bruce Wayne’s mansion and has been here for the last six months, and there was never official confirmation of what happened, but the rumors say that the Joker was behind it.
“Accidental death,” Jim says.
Jason glances at the cardboard-wrapped sword, then asks, “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Jim says.
“Well,” Jason says. He looks a little like he was punched in the stomach, except for the smile growing on his face. The streak of white is stark in his hair. “What do you know. Break out the fucking champagne, I guess.”
Bruce frowns. “Jay—”
“I'm sure we can spare some for the good commissioner. Right, Commish?”
He sounds like the old Jason Todd, the snarky teenager who talked with a Park Row's accent that got stronger whenever he was being condescended to by some society priss, the one who Jim mourned. “I have time for a glass,” Jim says, even though technically he doesn't really.
“I will go fetch some,” Mr. Pennyworth says. “Master Bruce, perhaps you might call Master Richard and inform him of the news.”
–
Jim stays longer than he should, drinking one glass of champagne that is no doubt more expensive than his monthly rent far too fast and then holding on to the glass a little too hard as he watches four people pretend not to know who killed the Joker.
Five, if he includes himself.
He tries to be a good cop, but he can’t make himself feel bad for his decision here.
He does need to get some actual police work done today, and the effort of trying not to think about the shitshow left behind by the Joker’s death is starting to fray around the edges of his mind, so finally he wishes them all well, asks Bruce to give Dick his best, and leaves.
Outside, Damian is standing in front of the door to Jim’s car, even though Jim is pretty fucking sure when he left the house Damian was still inside it.
“What is your price?” Damian asks.
Jim blinks at him. He’s not well versed in this kid—and they’re all kids, even this one, too-old and having killed a man in a way that suggests he’s killed more—and so he doesn’t even need to play dumb when he says, “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Your price,” Damian says. He steps towards Jim, and Jim has to fight every impulse in his body to not back up. “I assume this is blackmail.”
Jim stares at him, this predator in the suit of a teenager, and then he laughs before he can stop himself. “Kid, if it were blackmail, I wouldn’t have given you my main piece of evidence. As far as I’m concerned, whatever put that blade through the Joker’s heart did the world a public service.”
“Commissioner—”
“He shot my kid,” Jim says. Damian’s mouth closes. “The case is closed. It was an accident.”
Damian’s eyes stay on him for a long moment, sharp enough that it feels like the kid can see through him the way Superman supposedly can, down to his bones. And then he steps out of the way, leaving Jim a clear path to his car door.
The tension eases like the lifting of fog, sunlight burning it out of the air. Jim lets out a slow breath.
“Commissioner,” Damian says, a farewell, and turns to go back into the manor.
“I want to be clear, though,” Jim says, and Damian stops. “This is not a free pass. I’m not going to put up with this shit in my city.”
“I believe, in this, it is the Batman’s city,” Damian says.
Jim rolls his eyes. “It’s my city. Keep your swords on your wall.”
“Have a good day, Commissioner,” Damian says, and heads back inside.
Good enough, Jim figures, and gets in the car to head home.