The Second Murder
The Caped Crusader is a fearsome sight for any criminal.
“His atoms and molecules are right. Organs in the right place. I don’t know any technology, even Kryptonian, that could replicate his body to this level of detail.”
Superman’s words hung in the air as the Man of Steel gazed over the slab holding the Joker’s body.
“So we can rule out a duplicate or a clone,” Batman said. “What about a doppleganger from another dimension?”
Superman stroked his chin thoughtfully. “There are markings on the body. Consistent with the scarring he accumulated over his years fighting you.”
Batman wasn’t sure what to think. On the one hand, the Joker had absolutely possessed the sort of attention to detail that could create a convincing fake like this. But to fool Superman? Batman tightened his fists, trying to kick himself out of that bad habit. The Joker had possessed that attention to detail? No. It wasn’t “had” yet. He still couldn’t be sure that the Joker was gone.
“So it is him, then?” Gordon asked, wistful.
After what the Joker had done to his daughter, who could blame him for wanting the man’s death so badly? Batman shared some of the blame for what had happened to Barbara, even if Gordon was too damn good of a man and cop to ever admit it. But Batman knew. He knew that his own body count was the highest in Gotham City. His nightmares were haunted by all the people he’d murdered by letting the Joker live time and time again. Jason’s words flooded his mind.
Ignoring what he’s done in the past. Blindly, stupidly, disregarding the entire graveyards he’s filled, the thousands who have suffered...the friends he’s crippled. And I thought... I thought I’d be the last person you’d ever let him hurt.
Damn it, why couldn’t he just be happy? Why couldn’t he just be convinced already? Superman was telling him that the Joker was dead. The autopsy at GCPD, Oracle’s analysis, Batman’s own hours pouring over every detail, and now Superman. So why couldn’t he celebrate? Was it because this had been a murder too? Was he that obsessed with murders, that even when it was someone who likely deserved it, he just had to catch their killer? He could have been working on someone else’s case, after all. A little girl waiting to be rescued from abduction. A boy whose parents had been killed in an alley. Why focus so much on the Joker, who would never be missed by anyone?
“Batman?”
Batman shook his head.
“Batman,” Superman repeated.
“I’m sorry. I was thinking.”
Superman put his hands on his waist. He spoke slowly, his words measured. “I think this is really him. I know that’s going to be difficult to convince yourself of. But he’s really gone. You don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Later Batman found himself on patrol, muscles protesting as he pulled himself by his grapple rooftop to rooftop, overlooking the city below like a guardian angel.
This is the most relaxing part of the job. Pushing myself to the limit, muscles screaming. This is the only way to clear my head.
He landed atop the roof of a medium-sized building, around ten stories, and sprinted across it. As he leaped his cape went taut in the air and enabled him to glide to the next rooftop unassisted by his grappling hook. Batman landed again and paused to catch his breath. It started to rain.
The truth is I did want him dead. I wanted it more than anything.
An equally unsettling thought was the idea that he didn’t feel excited because he was disappointed that it hadn’t been him. On some level, deep in his subconscious, deep within the part of him that was still Bruce Wayne, he’d wanted the Joker to break him. He’d wanted the Joker to finally get him to break his code, to kill. It would have felt so sweet.
A cry in the night broke his deliberations. Batman whipped toward the direction of the sound and ran. Crossing rooftop after rooftop Batman arrived over an alley. There was a woman there, on the ground, cowering as she tried to crawl away. A man stood over her with a knife, cloaking her in his menacing shadow. The man wore nothing but underwear, exposing skin covered in little cuts drawn into counts of five at a time.
Zsasz.
Batman descended from the rooftop using his cape to glide down. He landed softly behind Zsasz, long shadow casting over the deranged killer. Zsasz turned as the woman’s breath caught in her chest at the sight of the Caped Crusader.
“I’m not in the mood tonight, Zsasz,” Batman said.
The scarred killer cackled with wicked delight. “Are you ever, Batman? Are you ever?” Zsasz grinned. “I’m in the mood, though. Enough for both of us.”
Batman looked past Zsasz to evaluate the state of the woman’s injuries. She didn’t appear to have yet suffered any critical injuries, though there were cuts across her body. He could see blood staining her clothes. Something inside of Batman snapped.
Zsasz didn’t have a chance.
The killer barely had a moment to raise his knife before Batman had grabbed his wrist and snapped it. Zsasz tried to catch the knife in his other hand, his movements nimble and well-trained. Zsasz may be insane, but he was skilled.
Batman was better. He intercepted Zsasz’s next knife swipe and broke four of the man’s fingers in one motion. The next second Batman’s boot came down on Zsasz’s knee. Batman’s full 230 pounds crashed down on the knee, shattering it. Zsasz screamed, collapsing. To his credit, he managed to fight through the pain and leap at Batman again.
Batman seized him by the neck and forced him down into a puddle on his back, next to the terrified woman, who crawled away and huddled against the wall. She stared in shock. Batman was on top of Zsasz now, glaring down at the deranged killer.
All those scars. One for every person he’s killed.
The first time his fist collided with Zsasz’s face he shattered the killer’s nose and knocked out several of his teeth. It felt good, so he hit the man again.
More than a hundred dead. How many are my fault? How many was I too late to save?
And again.
And again.
He hit Zsasz again, and again, and again, beginning to lose count of his punches in a fit of red vision.
“You think we’re just going to keep putting up with you?” Batman growled. “That we’re going to keep trying to rehabilitate you in the asylum?”
He hit the serial killer again. Zsasz’s face was bruised, bloodied, and destroyed. His nose was caved in and most of his teeth were knocked out. There were cuts on his face too.
“You think...” Batman said, his voice growing louder until it was a bellow. “THAT SOCIETY OWES YOU MONSTERS ANYTHING? AFTER ALL OF THE LIVES YOU’VE TAKEN? ALL THE PEOPLE YOU’VE TERRORIZED?! I’VE HAD ENOUGH, VICTOR!”
Batman kept hitting him. There was a crunching sound, a wet and hollow break. Zsasz held up his mangled hands before his face, gasping for breath as he choked on his own blood.
“W-Wait...” he tried to say, but Batman grabbed the killer’s already mangled hands and smashed them against the ground again and again with full strength, shattering other, smaller bones. He heard the crunch.
“P-Please.. Stop..!” Zsasz begged, holding ruined hands before his face as Batman continued wailing on him.
Batman turned Zsasz over and dunked his face in the filthy puddle beneath, holding him there. The unclothed man struggled weakly against Batman’s grip, bubbles rising to the surface of the puddle as his oxygen began to run out. Batman let Zsasz up for a moment.
The killer gasped and choked. “Mercy...”
Batman dunked him again, longer this time. He realized that he enjoyed this. That he wanted Zsasz to suffer. It wasn’t until only a handful of bubbles remained, and Zsasz began to go limp, that Batman realized what he was doing. He released the killer. Zsasz wheezed, rolling over, his chest heaving.
When Batman looked at Zsasz the killer looked back with an expression Batman had never before seen in his eyes. Fear. The primal terror of knowing how life ended, of having been so close to the end. Instinctively, even an insane man’s body knew what it took to extinguish a life. This was the closest Batman had ever come to killing him.
Batman paused. He was panting, his gloves covered in Zsasz’s blood. The red began to fade from his vision as brisk rain washed scarlet from his gloves. Batman stood, vision swimming. He stared at his bloody hands.
I lost control.
“You should do it,” someone said behind him.
Batman turned to see a lanky teenager in red standing before him, black mask across his face. Damian. His son.
“Robin.”
Damian Wayne, raised not by Batman but by the boy’s mother, Talia Al Ghul. Imagine that. Being born in the darkness that was the League of Shadows. Batman only existed because at some point Bruce Wayne had. Because he’d still had a childhood, and his pain was having that ripped away. Damian’s pain was a different kind of pain. The sort of lonely and bottomless darkness that could only exist to someone born in it, molded by it. Batman had merely adopted the dark, but Damian had been sculpted by his pain from the very beginning. He had the eyes of a killer. He always had.
“You should kill him,” Damian repeated. “He’s beyond help. And no one would miss him.”
“What are you...?”
“I heard the scream while I was patrolling,” Damian sauntered toward Batman, almost casual in his demeanor. “I hear the Joker’s dead.”
Batman narrowed his eyes. “Maybe.”
“Well good fucking riddance,” Damian glanced down at Zsasz, who was barely conscious.
How can I ever hope to help the boy? How can I help someone struggling with something that I’ve never experienced? Ras poisoned Damian’s mind long before Talia introduced us. And now he’s caught me on the brink.
“We could make it two of your worst enemies who are gone,” Damian suggested.
“Damian..” Batman warned.
Damian shrugged. “One of these days you’ll have to come around on your so-called rule. All of you will.”
Again, Jason’s words echoed in Batman’s mind. What do you do with the ones who aren’t afraid?!
Batman didn’t say anything. He linked up to his comm instead. “Alfred. I need an ambulance at my location, and the police. It’s Zsasz.”
Batman approached the woman huddled in the corner. He knelt by her. From his utility belt, he produced a fold-up blanket, the type that could be condensed into a little square. He unfurled it and placed it on the woman, who wrapped herself with it. “The police will take care of you. We’ll wait with you until they get here.”
The woman nodded. “Th-Thank you..!” She was still shivering.
Damian folded his arms as Batman turned back to him. “Admit it. You’re a little relieved. The Joker is never going to haunt this city again. Tell me you’re not at least a little bit happy about that?”
Batman hesitated.
“Oh, come on!” Damian exclaimed. “After what he’s done to this city?! To Barbara? To Jason?! To you?!”
“I’m not convinced that he’s dead,” Batman said at last. “It doesn’t add up.”
“It does add up. You’re just too damn stubborn to see it.”
“Help me stand him up,” Batman replied, hoisting Zsaz out of the puddle.
Damian obliged, and they put handcuffs around the killer’s wrists. For all the good his wrists and hands would be doing him. After tonight, it was possible that Zsasz would never hold a knife again. Despite the shame at his loss of control, Batman couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved about that.
Sirens sounded in the distance. The police were moments away.
“Look, I’m not going to fight you on this,” Damian said. “All I’m saying is you don’t need to mourn the Joker, okay? It’s okay to be happy, dad. You won. And you didn’t even have to kill him yourself.”
Batman wished that he could agree.
There was a spitting sound, like a small gunshot. A bullet wound opened in Zsasz’s forehead, and the killer slumped, dead.
Batman and Damian both gasped, whirling in the direction the shot had been fired from.
“Stay here,” Batman ordered. “I’m on it.”
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