Terra Firma

Homer

Fear screamed, pounding off the walls and into my larger-than-average ears. I couldn't help but feel the panic as it choked my nostrils, flowing from the top of still yet shaking bodies of both the young, the old, the 'special' and the 'normal' in this place the Purple Man called prison.

I could feel the fear. Smell it. It smells like sweat and onions and a cat I'd passed on the way to school that morning, rotting in the gutter. It left the taste of morning breath in my mouth, even though I brushed my teeth for three minutes that morning.

The smell was strong. Even though there was no one here in the bathroom.

(that smell is you)

I stayed stark still like I was commanded to, in a too polite voice. Like the guys they talk about on TV that you shouldn't take candy from in the alleys or follow to help them find a lost puppy.

I knew he wasn't that type of stranger--the tenseness and quickness of his hands strapping the bomb to my narrow chest told me he was--ironically--scared of any contact of the physical kind.

I dared not touch the thing measured and made for my chest with precision, tried not to listen to the tiny, sophisticated beeps that went by on it too urgently, adding to its weight on my body and mind. The only person to have seen me with it before I assumed my 'corner of the stage' would have been the lady at the front desk, but he'd hit her hard with his cane until something made an ugly sound that made me cringe.

(CRRACK)

The Flower Lady (as he called her), was blindfolded. I know because her normally steady and sharp steps were hesitant and uneven.

My blood thumped in my grand old ears, matching the counting seconds. The smell of sweat got so strong I wanted to throw up my insides. I stroked the curve of my sunglasses, trying to ignore the fact that my face felt like it was covered in rain.

(there's no one here now no one)

That's right! There's no one here. This was a restroom. Cameras weren't allowed.

So I could do whatever I wanted, as long as I stayed confined.

(I need to get attention but how)

My heart pounded a bit faster, a small rabbit thumping its legs in a cage.
Heartbeats aren't so great, they remind us how fragile we are.

Ivy

If I were any other gal, I would stay against the wall and wait for the clown.

Instead, I got up and took the blindfold off. He said nothing in the rules about that. I breathed a much needed sigh of relief, blinking up at the endless string of flourescent lights, standing out like the bloodwork of the shallow and small building.

I bit my lip, trying hard not to think about the fact that these were kids I was responsible for here, a whole building of innocent kids. I stared down at the little blinking thing he'd attached to my forearm friend. Probably connected to another set of bombs he'd rigged the building with. I settled, walking towards the first classroom I could get to. They were all in the classrooms, they had to be.

This would be easy. Find the kid, deactivate the bomb.

"You can do this. It's only a game. Like war. Or love."

Only a game.

Right?

Batman

I pulled Gordon off to the side at a distance. Even though most of the rumors of me murdering Dent had diminished, I still had to hide to be safe. Too much time had already gone past, with me rushing to the scene and parking a ways off, equipping myself with my suit and weapons, and assessing things at a distance.

"What do we got?" I whispered uncomfortably. This was one of the few times I wore my suit in broad daylight, and it made me uncomfortable.

Gordon sighed wearily, "A hostage situation. A... complicated... hostage situation. He left a note out on post in front..."

GENTLEMAN,
QUIET PLEASE.
TESTING IN PROGRESS.

NO ONE IS TO ENTER EXCEPT FOR THE MEN IN COSTUME.
WAIT FOR THE CUE.
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"Any casualties?"

"Not that I know---"

A bum beside us giggled strangely as gunshots in the distance went off wildly. I strained my ears. I only heard adults cry out, surprisingly, and something else that was distinctive to all.

"Laaaauuuugggghhhinnnnng." The bum grumbled and I hardly looked down as my mind settled on it's decision. Making a move. Doing something.

Gordon's voice hardly reached me:

"Wait wait he said there was a cue, maybe that's---"

Gordon

Goddammit.

Homer

I was suddenly very aware of the smell of pee in this stall. It made me dizzy. My breath came out in short bursts and the fuzzy view of the grey square things you call tiles running into each other were melting, reshaping. They were forming into a giant smile.

The walls around me began to close. I didn't need to see them to know that.

I reached up to the stall doors, but couldn't seem to gather up the strength to get up off my knees.

My lungs bulged.

I felt like I was drowning.
Again.

All my tiny life I'd been the quiet boy, who just drops his toy keys and claps his hands. I listened to the grown ups and colored when my teachers told me to, which I found slightly funny and offensive. I only cried three times in my whole life, and I never whined for help when Mom started leaving me alone in random places around Gotham.

"Hide and seek, Homer, Mommy and you are going to play hide and seek."

"Hide and seek, old friend. Think of it as hide and seek."

My fists balled suddenly and I could feel my own face tighten like Gordon's.
(hide and seek

no cameras here
I need to get attention but how)

How about marco polo?

I screamed, banging on the doors and the walls of my personal cell.

Riddler

Puff. Puff.

Suck it in, breathe it out. Take in the toxins, and exhale the worry. A simple equation of addiction, and everyone has it in one form or another.

I smirked, staring at the screens. Gotham schools were so paranoid, even the elementary students were on constant watch and the entrance was equipped with metal detectors.

Not that it mattered for me. And the tight security? An added bonus for a perfectionist like myself.

The girl crossed my mind and I tapped a restless foot, taking in more fumes of my own death.

The laughter came and I didn't worry. This was all playtime for me. Ivy was the bait for the bait, that would lead on the prize.

I would get the prize, even if it meant being sent on the verge of death. But I wouldn't die. I'd given up too much to die without knowing.

I would do what my king could not accomplish.

Joker

It's not about accomplishing shit.

It's all about the fun.

"Am I late?" I shouted, banging my gun playfully against doors and almost letting out another laugh. Maybe then Riddle-boy would come out.

But that's when The Bat knocked me down.

Gordon

"What do we do, chief?"

I cringed, hissing a breath and rubbing at my face. Who did I trust?

(The crazy bat or a bad joke?)

"...What we did four years ago, boys."

Stand by.

Joker

"Can't we all just get along?" I rolled away swiftly, jumping and skipping in the direction I guessed was the big man's office. A smarty-pants coward was sure to hide away there.

The Batman made things difficult, sure, but I threw some goons I had in his way.

Why was he attacking me, anyways? I was trying to,...

hel...

ha la lal la laaaa...

helllll.l..

Ugh. I can't even think that word.

Ivy

It was like walking through a garden, small groups of tiny children laying in rows under their desk, staying so quiet but feeling so afraid. I felt pity and concern as I tuned my ears to ticking and tried to ignore the shaking sobs of some. I knelt down and patted a few on the back, humming quietly and feeling for any signs of a bomb underneath tiny clothes. So far my search yeilded no results, and I would merely leave quietly after trying and failing at my task.

That sicko.

Hardly even blossomed little things, these poor children, learning about numbers and good people

(people who are not like you)

and probably worried about missing the new episode of Spongebob coming on minutes before all this happened.

...

Don't ask me why I know there are new episodes.

Joker

PRINCIPAL.

I took up a fire extinguisher hanging innocently on the ugly brick wall, kicking the door open and hardly able to contain my rage. There the little coward was, back turned to me and hardly looking up as I crashed into the room. I kicked the Bat when he tried to hold me back, beating him down in the back and then swinging my tool straight for the sucker's head. There was an amusing sound and he fell out his swiveling chair, dropping a dandy little cane. I swung it up easy, bringing it down upon his well-dressed back. I turned and did the same to Battyman. Why? Because I felt like it.

I plucked the cancer stick from Greeny Boy, stepping on his arm and stamping the burning end into his skin, laughing.

"RIDDLE ME THIS RIDDLE ME THAT..." I mocked in a high voice.

I knelt over his coughing face, bringing out my knife and licking my lip absentmindedly.

The Bat tried getting up, failed, tried again feebly, failed. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.

I grabbed up The Riddler's chin, squeezing and laughing at his discomfort. I waved my knife in his face, then stuck it where it had been in so many other victims.

"Joker... Joker... don't... Let me take him--"

"YOU STAY OUT OF THIS, BATFACE."

I smiled, "Hey, sh, sh. Look at me. C'mere. Here's a riddle for you smart boy, and I'll leave you alone--how did I get these scars?"

I've gotten many reactions from that phrase. Most stared--a mixture of confusion, despair, and fear on their faces. Some even mumbled guesses. That day I'd decided to twist this guy's little gimmick.

As Daisy would say,

Bad move.

He gave a reaction unlike any other at my trademark question. Laughing. It started as a short chuckle, developed into a bit of a heckle. Then it overflowed, making me back away, staring at his pretty teeth as he burst--the vein on his forehead buldging, a trickle of blood flowing down his face as the laugh filled the small office like toxic gas, his pointy nose and big eyes making him look like some kind of goon.

But what's a goon to a goblin?

I snarled, rushing forward and grabbing him by the emerald coat, shaking him. I raised my knife--

"You had a wife."

I cocked my head.

"You hated her. You hated everything, secretly. But you went on, determined to be normal like the rest of the world you found so confusing. You said 'uh' too much. You had the looks, but not the talk. You loved a girl you could hardly remember. You were afraid of everything. The woman you hated was going to have your baby. She was also very sick. You tried to help. And failed. You survived an attack by the mobsters, survived a chemical explosion like a cockroach hit by Raid. But in the end..."

He smiled at me and it looked so very familair:

"In the end, you could not escape from yourself."

Batman

Watching The Joker from a "good guy" point of veiw, watching his frightening mug on a gritty tape or analyzing his face through the use of computers, talking to him in the walls of a jailhouse...

It was different, on the ground. Staring at him with a swimming head between ragged breaths. I thought I must be dreaming the sudden distant look in his eyes as The Riddler told him--told me--what his past was like.

I first thought he was man who was just completely maddened. A terrorist, an anarchy loving sonofabitch. I mean, there was no doubt he'd suffered. But I hadn't really thought about just how much. When Cosette tried to talk to me about it I would shove it away. I didn't want to think of this horrible thing the earth spit up as a person, as a human soul.

Until then.

He let go of The Riddler, twitching like he was remembering some things. He mumbled odd words and The Riddler--although badly hurt and bleeding profusely from the head--was chuckling up at him. The Joker spat, shrugging and turning his appalling head towards me.

"He's all yours now, Batman."

Pocketing his knife, he left.

But not without hurling the fire extinguisher into the wall of security screens first.

(and I'll leave you alone)

I blinked at the revelation that there was more to the clown than I ever thought, but didn't have too much time to ponder over it.

For the man in green was getting up. Crawling like a scrawny child at first, feeling his head and grabbing for the cane inches away. I realized, seeing the familair maddened look in his face, that I was in trouble and tried getting up. But the way The Joker had gotten me in the back sent fierce cries of pain through my body, and it was getting harder to breathe in the heat of my suit.

I'd overequipped.

The Riddler, however, stood up shakily. Walking--practically dancing--over to where I lay, seemingly growing bigger and stronger as he grasped up the golden glittering cane more tightly within gloved hands.

He smiled at me, despite the obsession and rage haunting his face.

"This won't hurt but for a second. Old.... friend..."

Homer

I banged the door of the stall desperately in my panic, for the beeps were getting extra loud and extra fast.

"HELP ME HELP ME I'M GOING BLIND!"

Ivy

The little device on my arm blinked urgently. I shouted, frustrated. I could've sworn I'd heard struggling and

(laughter)

some other noise a few minutes earlier, but I wasn't sure at the time. I wasn't sure of much at all. Such is the state of a mad woman.

All I was sure of right now, was there was a child screaming. I followed it without hesitation.

I stared at the handicapped sign hanging on the restroom door. The universal sign of the stick figure seated rigidly upon what looked like the letter 'c' to me, although everywhere it was accepted as the wheel of a chair.

Isn't it funny... in the end, we can all be defined and stripped down to stick figures, standing frozen on false wooden doors?

I swung it open, rushing to the familair voice within the nearest stall.

The boy. Angel's boy.

"Homer? Homer! It's alright sweetie, I'm here."

"Flower Lady." I smirked at the smile lingering in the otherwise discomforted boy's voice, "I think it's almost time."

"Yes." I said in a-matter-of-fact voice. I grabbed at his outstretched hands, pulling him out from underneath the door.

"We have to get it off." He said.

I unstrapped the sophisticated thing from him quickly, standing up at full height and placing a high-heeled foot over it.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP.

Joker

PLINKPLINKPLINKPLINK.

I could hear it in my head. Loud and unyeilding.

I hummed, turning to see some children peeking out of the doorway of a classroom. One twitched like me and had a mop of curly black hair, the other was staring vacantly.

"Homer n-never came to school. H-h-h-h-e never misses a day."

"Homer, eh?"

"Yes. We know he's the one."

"H-h-h-he never missed a day. Even when he Mom left him on the bus across town or--"

I nodded, sure I'd heard Ivy shouting out of frustration down this hall.

"Jokerman."

"Hm?"

"Where's The B-b-b-b-at."

"Being the nice guy." I shrugged.

And everybody knows the nice guys finish last. Like Harvey Dent or Jack Napier or Marius Nygma.

I giggled, swinging a handicapped restroom door open ironically, inhaling the scent of flowers like a drug.

Ivy

I brought my foot down, but it hit nothing but tile floor in a fluid movement.

I looked down at the floor stupidly, staggering back at the sudden scent of gasoline and rain and bullets--so heavy I could feel the tiny hairs in my nostrils get slaughtered.

I looked up to see him standing in front of me, gun set lazily on the floor and knife in hand, unscrewing the back of the complex but well hidden chest weight. He cut a red wire without breaking a sweat. He then grabbed my arm, releasing me from my own beeping, black prison.

"Little sucker copies my tricks..." He muttered in that nerdy, rough voice I'd missed so much.

I wanted to be romantic and fling myself into his purple clad arms.

For some reason I moved backwards, holding Homer next to me and patting the small boy's head.

His face and hair were damp, but he smiled weakly. He swayed unstably, like a pendulum in its glass case.

"That was close. I almost couldn't breathe."

"C'mon c'mon." The Joker simply yanked at my free arm, and the tiny boy skipped to keep up.

"I was doing fine by myself." I said impatiently.

Silence. His enclosed hand slipped down to my wrist, and the way he clinched into it desperately reminded me of that first night...

"Hey can I go with you guys?" Homer piped up.

"Uh lemmee think--NO."

"Why?"

"Act. Read a book. Find uh, something... better to do."

Joker

I wasn't about to put another kid at risk.

You don't mess with them.

Otherwise, you get a good stab in the eye from me.

I didn't want another Daisy, girl had enough of her own problems with us being in her life for a couple of weeks anyways.

Besides. This was Gordon's mess to clean up. I didn't care that Riddle "knew" me. Didn't care what or where The Bat was headed now.

I just wanted my lady back.

Jay

"Ey! Ey!"

I giggled harder at the two figures. One extra tall like a foot long sub, the other brown and bulky, like a mailing package.

"Goofy..." I croaked happily, "Grumpy! How are you guys?"

"Better than you." Grumpy said.

"He needs water." Goofy suggested.

I laughed when I saw Grumpy reach into a little man purse and pull out a bottle of water.

He splashed so in my face and I coughed.

"That's for making fun of me...." He smirked, handing me the rest, "Now drink up."

I downed the thing, wiping my mouth sloppily after snapping awake. I had some stubble. Nasty.

"You know," I chuckled, amused that this was the only concern I had in this moment, "You guys spotted me a mile away... Gordon was standing right there? And he didn't even notice."

Grumpy seemed to not hear, rummaging in his little bag, "You want some crackers? I got peanut butter crackers in here..."

In bad situations, you find good friends.

Maybe they happen for a reason.

Naah.

Ivy

I should've been thinking about going after the little weasel, on trying to remember through the sense of hearing and touch where my daughter was being kept.

But the scent of gasoline was strong, and it intoxicated my mind.

The far walk to the hidden van was tiring, and difficult. Mostly because we didn't speak. And us not speaking meant hostility in the air.

Well, more of it anyways.

I watched his painted face fix itself in quiet anger as he shut the driver's door, hands clenching on the wheel although the keys were resting idly in the ignition. I merely sighed from the passenger's side, looking out the window. I tapped my leg impatiently--partly from the shock and nerves of what just happened still floating in my head, partly due to the fact that I was reunited with him but couldn't seem to grasp that fact.

He coughed oddly, staring straight ahead, "Wanna hear something funny."

"..Sure."

"So do I." He cackled his high pitched laugh then, turning serious--too serious--again abruptly.

"Dent touch you?" He snapped out of nowhere and I looked repulsed to myself, staring in the side view mirror at my face.

"What... what... No! No, no, no."

A quick inspection of my body and he nodded, turning back to fixing on that one point of nothing. I frowned. Why do men always think they can get away with staring hungrily like wolves? Do they really take women for such dense, blind little creatures?

I crossed my arms, "It took you long enough."

He laughed, "Ohohohohoho, sure took you a long time to find the bomb."

"Yeah well... I didn't ..."

"What? Miss me?" His lips and scars extended across his face in his usual gesture and I turned away.

"Nope." I said shortly and threw my head into the air, giving him the cold shoulder. He grunted, turning his back to me.

He growled a word: "Feminist."

"Idiot." I shot back.

"Ungrateful." He spat.

"Baby." I whined in a mocking voice.

"House plant."

The Ivy on my arm boiled instinctively.

"Clown."

I could hear him scratching his green hair.

Joker

5. 4. 3. 2. ....1....

Ivy

And we turned, pouncing at each other with the force and speed of two converging armies in battle. Attacking with the hands, the mouth, the mind, and the heart in the affectionate yet extremely aggressive way only a couple that hated and loved each other at the same time could accomplish.