Slipping Into Entropy - Part 2
Sweeping off the rooftop, Batman caught a thermal of warm air rising along an adjacent building and rode it up into the sky. Underneath, cop cars sped down the roads, both followed by and pursuing ambulances. He had a clear map of the city in his head, but no idea what street cars 852 and 176 had been patrolling.
"Alfred," he spoke into the communications system for the first time that night, hoping the butler had been keeping tabs on the situation.
"Ready and awaiting, master Bruce."
"I need you to get a street address for Spring Meadows Assisted Living."
Within minutes he had the location, but was sorely missing his car. Gliding short distances was wonderful, but trying to cover a vast amount of ground on the thermals of air rising out of the city was extremely difficult. He had to guess at the currents half the time, and it was very hit and miss, sometimes riding smoothly one moment only to run into a gust around the corner of the next building. He felt slow and slightly ridiculous that he hadn't had enough time to reach the car, waiting patiently in his underground hideout. Alfred was on top of that already, sending it out to him on autopilot, but he knew that by this time he would still be quicker on his own.
Finishing the black around the other eye, he lifted the stick of brilliant red for the final touch. Drawing the mocking half-moon with a ridiculous amount of care and ending with a flourish, he licked his lips and smirked at his double. "There. Now you look much more like yourself. A twinkle in the eye and grin on the face," he intoned, breaking into breathless giggles at the end. Pocketing the little tube of lipstick, he wandered back into the halls. It was time to gather up other supplies.
Stepping quickly down the hallway, chuckling every time he spotted another person huddled, shivering, in a room, he passed by a large Rec-Room full of oblivious ancients tottering to and fro, knitting and reading and snoozing and playing cards. Those with the sense and the sight enough to note his presence stopped what they were doing and stared. "Don't mind me, people. This is just a drill. ....oh, don't mind if I do," he muttered, snatching the joker card out of a wrinkled hand, ignoring the weak protests of its owner. Spying what had to be the kitchen, he edged inside. Sneaking up behind the cook that had apparently been left to her own devices, he laid her out with a frypan.
"...oops. That's gonna be a whopper in the mornin'." He picked his was through the utensils. "Hmm...I wonder if this is sharp enough..." Eying one of the kitchen blades, he thrust it down into the wooden cutting board, burying the tip by at least an inch. Jiggling at the hilt, unable to budge it, Joker grinned and shrugged, pocketing the rest of the set. Slinking out through the door, he found himself being attended by a rapt, if myopic, audience. "Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe I've overstayed my welcome. Perhaps I'll bring some presents next time I pay a visit!"
Realizing that there was only so much time, he moved quicker than before, knowing that the distraction at the asylum would only tie down so many coppers for so long. And then there's the overgrown flying rats... Running down a different hallway than the way he came, he rounded a corner at the same time a lone, exploring Boy in Blue did. Much quicker to react, he shoved the shocked man's head into the wall with a crack, wresting his gun away from him and hitting him with the butt of it for good measure. "One down! How many to go...?"
Batman had not beaten the three arriving squad cars to the assisted living home. He caught sight of them rushing to the front doors, greeted by anxious looking staff. One person was holding an armful of bandages and ice packs. They had obviously been waiting outside the building, none appeared injured, and he flew over them without a second glance. Instead he landed on the rooftop, and swung over the side of the building with a hook and a line of wire, checking the windows as he went. Most were rooms belonging to the residents of the home, and most were unlit; their owners already having gone to sleep. He found one that was opened to let in a breeze. He used one of the spikes on his gauntlets to rip the bug screen, and slipped in as quietly as possible. He listened carefully once inside, there was no commotion to be heard of, and he couldn't make out sounds of any disturbances on adjacent floors either. Indiscreetly, he exited the room and moved down the hallway, listening as he went.
Batman quickened his pace, hoping to run into the least amount of civilians possible in his search. The cops in his ear were still calling back and forth as they apprehended escaped patients, some were more cooperative than others, but there was no news of particularly odd sounding business going on. Bruce began to wonder if he'd made the right decision in checking up on this call. It seemed to him like a place the Joker would hit, just for the fun of it. Hospitals, boats, carrying passengers both felons and civilians, that in Bruce's mind was forming an idea of the Joker's style. An elderly home would fit the bill perfectly. But as he went from floor to floor, he wasn't finding anything amiss. It was possible that one of the other escapees had threatened the staff, trying to get into the building.....and he was beginning to feel guilty about not being on the streets with the rest of Gotham's police.
His gut told him otherwise when he first heard the call on the police line, and he felt it important to stick to that feeling. The Joker....he didn't always do things that made sense.
Finally he decided to hell with it, and took a stairwell straight down, knowing he would eventually run into the cops taking stock of the first floor, but confident that he could lose them if sighted.
When Batman reached the first floor landing he immediately happened upon a small group of officers who, more than a little startled to find the Batman in their building, were too slow to get a gun on him. He ran past them, seeing a discreetly labeled fuse box next to a fire extinguisher and a water fountain, and stabbed his gauntlet into it, taking out a good portion of the lights nearby. The cops shouted to each other, now far more frightened than they were before. One of them even shot into the dark, imagining he'd seen a cape lurking in the shadows. Too bad really, Bruce was lurking in the shadows on the opposite side of the lobby, quickly taking stock of who was in the area and the sectioned off rooms close by. He found nothing.
Running now that he knew the hounds were close, not wanting in the slightest to go back to the boring, banal hospital with its white-washed rooms and it's humorless staff, green eyes darted, searching for a handy exit. What it found was a blue-capped head cautiously peeking around the corner, and the instant-reaction was the same as any kid at a carnival game. BANG! The head dropped in a flash, though not as cleanly vanished as those BB targets of years past. Racing past the prone body, bloody footprints following in his wake, a plan began forming in his head.
Peering around another corner, spotting another group of cops, he made a choked sound halfway between a tsk and a chuckle. You can't go anywhere without running into them. Worse than cockroaches! Darting across the hallway, he rushed up the steps of a stairwell, hearing a pattering of footsteps echoing up from below. Up, up, and awaaaaay... Now all he had to do was find the right spot...
He was really getting frustrated at this point, so much so that he almost, almost, wished he still had the sonar system installed into his suit. The cops on his floor were losing it. They'd called in for backup, but were now wary of venturing further into the building. That was fine by him, but he really needed them to be quiet so he could listen, and think.
No sign of Arkham patients here, besides overturned chairs and an empty wheelchair in the corner. Bruce was about to exit and check things out from the exterior when the elevator dinged softly and the doors slid open. By a stroke of luck, one of the elderly women stepped out, leaning heavily against a crutch, one of the metal ones with the tennis balls on the bottoms.
"Excuse me.....excuse me?" she called into the room, seeing the lights out and obviously confused as to what was happening. The officers had jumped about a foot into the air upon her arrival, and Bruce was sincerely glad none of them had the notion to shoot at the disturbance. The old woman continued on obliviously. "There is a very rude man running amok upstairs," here voice was watery and so quiet that the cops might not have heard her anyway, but Bruce did loud and clearly, "he took some of our playing cards...."
He was back into the stairwell before she could finish her sentence, scaring the poor lady half to death on the way.
Barrelling through the doors at the top floor, he took stock of the empty corridors in front and beside him before jogging along the outer walkways, looking in each room for a glimpse of his target. There's gotta be one of these up here. This city don't run on buried lines...
Finally spotting what he was searching for out of one room's window, he twisted on the door's handle only for it to refuse to budge an inch. Pushing and shoving at the door with a grimace, pounding against the wood with his fists in a tantrum for a few seconds, he stepped back and glared at the thing. A lightbulb popped on, and he raised the gun. The lock exploded into a scattering of shards, although the Joker jumped slightly as the bullet continued to ricochet, finally lodging in the wall beside him. Moving into the room, he struggled with the window locks and slid the thing open, punching the screen out of the frame entirely.
Batman took the stairs at breakneck speed upon hearing the resounding gunshot at the top of the floor. All the frustration up until now was easing off of him as he closed in, reaching the doors to the hall. He came through, seeing the damaged door and splintered pieces of wood scattered about the floor, and swept into the room.
He told himself before entering that he wouldn't be surprised no matter what he found, that he'd keep going, and so he did without hesitation. There stood the Joker, face made up just like Bruce remembered him, with one hand on the window and the other sticking outside, the screen falling out of view. Bruce's body left his mind behind, acting on his original intentions when his eyes were still stuck on the other man's gruesome makeup. He grabbed the Joker by the wrist and pulled him as forcefully as possible back into the room, spinning them so that he was between the crook and the window.
The shock was short-lived on his pallid face, breaking into a manic grin as his other hand moved without a pause, something silver glinting in the low light... Snik. Snik. The little metal circlets closed around two very different wrists as the insane man beamed up without concern at the intruder. "Well, you took a little longer than I thought you would. I knew you just couldn't stay away for long..."
Batman's fierce scowl faltered. He looked at the handcuffs between them as though not realizing how they got there before his anger and frustration returned full force.
"YOU--" he bellowed deeply, his hands, though still attached to one of the Joker's, reached for the man's neck, grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the wall nearest the broken door. "Of course I couldn't stay away, Joker," he continued with less volume, deliberately playing along because he was that angry, "I live to bring down scum like you."
Helpless laughter bubbled up from the throat pinned by black leather, tears of mirth and pain rimmed kohled eyes. "Oh you do, you do!" he giggled, not even struggling in the slightest. "I never would have thought you the type. It takes all tastes I suppose, hmm?" Peering at him curiously, using the moment to record little details, his fevered gaze actually looked... pleased. Using the confusion that resulted to slip out of the Batman's momentarily relaxed grip and under his arm, he backed up towards the window. "Well, then, I suppose there's nowhere for me to go but down, if you insist. You should know that I dearly enjoy company, however. May devils flight us..." The quote was cut short as he closed his eyes with a smile, leaning backwards and falling out of the open window.