For Laughs - Batman/Criminal Minds - Chapter 10 - 11/17
Title: For Laughs
Fandom: Batman (Nolan universe, mostly)/Criminal Minds
Links: Prologue + Chapter 1 + Chapter 2 + Chapter 3 + Chapter 4 + Chapter 5 + Chapter 6 + Chapter 7 + Chapter 8 + Chapter 9
Rating: T (overall), but ventures into M
Warnings: Joker-level violence, serial killer activities
Summary: If the BAU wants to catch the Joker, they'll need to profile the Batman. But will all of the team survive to close the case? Gen fic.
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman or any related characters in the franchise, nor do I own the television show Criminal Minds. Written for fun and sick kicks, not profit. I also don't own the rhyming lines from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Chapter 10
Victimology
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.
This wasn't supposed to be the way it happened. She was the one the victims came to for help. She wasn't supposed to be one of them.
The thought passed through J.J.'s mind, but she knew there was no merit behind it. The thing about victims was, they could be anyone. And thinking about how wrong this situation felt wasn't going to save her life.
J.J. winced, the pain in her head intense. Had she been hit over the head with something? Not remembering, that was a bad sign. The dusty taste of a gag was filling her mouth, nearly scraping the back of her throat. Movement was impossible, the blood flow in her hands and feet almost cut off by the straps holding her the chair. She listened, first, for the sound of her captor's pacing, before slowly opening her eyes wide enough to see. Her vision was slightly blurred, the edges of her world black, and she wasn't sure if the cause was the minor concussion she was no doubt sporting or her shadowed surroundings.
She quickly took them in: it was a room in a house. Bushes crawled up the length of one blackened window. It was night outside. How long had she been out? She pushed that to the back of her mind and went back to examining the room. A house bedroom. The bed itself was no more than a box of springs, its top layer ripped to shreds. Once, this had been a nice house, middle income or higher, but now it was decimated, the carpet pulled free from the floor, the walls covered in graffiti. The power wasn't working. Gas lamps were sitting on two boxes placed at either side of the bed frame, some mocking form of normality in the arrangement.
But for her short study, there was nothing that told her exactly where she was located. No way of recognizing it if she survived and needed to return. If. If she survived.
J.J. felt her body seize up at the notion of not surviving. She was an F.B.I. agent. There were always risks. But that didn't make the possibility any less terrifying.
The pacing stopped. J.J. forced herself to look, to stare at the man. He had his back to her, his front to the box of springs. His hands were moving in front of him, unbuttoning his shirt. When he finished, he slipped it from his shoulders and laid it up upon the bed.
He turned, and she knew him. She had been printing pictures of his face for most of the day. And, now, she would never forget it.
Zsasz stared at her, watching her reaction as she took in the healed stripes across his skin. Scars. Each one from either a hit for Falcone or…from his own collection. He ran a finger over his abdomen, where a set of tally marks hadn't been marked through.
"Where should I put you?" he mused, as if deciding where to place a piece of furniture. One corner of his mouth curled into a half-grin. "Ah," he said, "I have a spot, a perfect spot. Would you like to see it, Jennifer?"
As soon as he said her name, all that she'd learned of profiling left her mind. For her life's sake she couldn't think of the proper reaction in this particular situation. All she could think of was an image of Spencer. It had only been a few months, hadn't it? When she had been watching him on the screen, tied to a chair, his tormentor standing over him. The team had barely gotten there in time...
J.J. swallowed hard, trying to find resolve, but her throat was dry, tickled by the cloth.
Zsasz reached into his pocket and pulled free a phone, the model a few years old. Prepaid, she had no doubt. He stared at its open face a moment before sliding it back down again.
"Jennifer, Jennifer," he breathed, "you're not worth giving a name, you know." He smiled faintly and crouched down, pulling the gag free from her lips and pressing a dirty finger over her mouth, encouraging her to stay quiet. "We have time to talk. I haven't had that luxury in quite a while, but my employer is running a bit late at the moment. Which is good for us. Both of us. You're going to appreciate this, Jennifer."
J.J. wanted to spit the musty taste onto his face, but she resisted the urge. This soon into it… she needed to keep him talking.
"Appreciate it?" she asked, barely holding back her disgust.
"My work," Zsasz clarified.
Work. She could use that. "Do you know what I do, Mr. Zsasz?" she asked.
He was fully on his knees in front of her, his elbows propped on her knees, like a child waiting for a story. But he looked nothing like a child. The gleam in his eyes seemed to indicate an insurmountable level of hate, despite, for her.
"Yes," he said, softly, staring up at her. "I know exactly what you do for a living, Jennifer. It makes you feel like you're special, like you're doing something that gives you life. But it doesn't. You're just like all the rest, aren't you, Jennifer? A zombie like all the others, following your daily grind."
J.J. didn't like that he was repeating her name. He wasn't dehumanizing her, in fact her humanity seemed to be the thing he wanted to rid her of.
"You're not special," Zsasz explained. "Not from day to day. Not right now. In the unfolding of the grand scheme. You are simply a distraction. One of many."
"Distraction from what?" J.J. asked.
Zsasz pushed himself off of the floor, knuckles pressing painfully into J.J.'s thighs when he lifted himself. He encircled her chair, ran his fingers through her hair lovingly. When his voice reappeared, though, he was further away, standing in the shadow of the room, just out of her sight.
"I'm so happy you were the one," he said. "You, of all of them, need liberating most of all. From that pretty flesh bag you haunt. It could have been any one of you, but it was your room. My employer, see, he left it up to chance, an homage to an old associate. Said to take whichever agent was in the room with the mirror."
Zsasz stepped out of the darkness, the pale yellow gleam of the lamp crawling over his half clothed body. "You were just the luckiest, I suppose."
"The Joker," J.J. said, more to herself. Her blue eyes were unblinking, steady on the man across the room. "Mr. Zsasz, you can't trust him. You know that you can't trust him."
Zsasz grinned. "No, I suppose not. But I don't need to trust him to do what I'm meant to do. To do my work." Another step. And Jennifer saw why he had moved away. He'd retrieved a razor blade, held hidden between two fingers like a coin. "It's charity. You'll understand when I'm done. You're just another zombie. Waiting from something to happen, something to change in your pathetic existence. I have arrived. I am the change. I am your salvation."
He held the razor against his abdomen and slowly drew it down. A line of crimson remained behind. "A promise," he said, tasting the blood that had spilled onto his finger, "to you, to the one fate chose for me. When the phone rings, Jennifer, I'm going to give you my gift."
The concrete was soaked by the hoses, the fire mere embers, a snaking trail of smoke rising between the crowded buildings toward the freedom of the gray-black sky above. Though the sirens had been silenced, emergency lights were still rolling, throwing color over the street and the crowd of onlookers.
The hotel had long since been evacuated and the large space along the sidewalk taped off, the street blocked so that debris could be checked for evidence. It was too loud, though, between the voices and the well enunciated speeches from the on scene reporters and the shouts of emergency workers as they checked the floor for the umpteenth time: Morgan was tempted to cover his ears to block it out.
This was the sound of panic. Gotham, after dark. It reminded the city of the time before heroes, when the night was a sanctuary for criminals and a nightmare for the innocent. A time before Batman roamed the streets.
But for Derek Morgan, his thoughts didn't venture to this city. It was not his home, its citizens not his family. No, he was reminded, instead, of so many bad times, so many hairy situations, where lives had been on the line. And lost. Yet this one seemed so much worse. Because it this fortress of metal in front of him was missing only one room. And that room belonged to Spencer Reid, a man he considered a younger brother.
Not for the first time, Morgan dodged an EMT, referring the paramedic to a half dozen other people with small contusions and breathing issues. He knew Emily was behind him, calling his name, asking him to stand still, but Derek ignored her, almost without realizing it, and snatched the arm of a firefighter as the uniformed man stepped out of the hotel lobby.
"Did they find anything yet?"
The fireman blinked up at the agent, confused until he recalled Morgan's face.
"Did you find a body?" Derek snapped, his fingers unintentionally tightening over the man's jacket. "Was there a body?"
The firefighter didn't reply immediately, called by one of his superiors to the emergency vehicle. "We've still got people looking," he replied, brushing past the agent.
Derek was looking for a wall to throw his fist through. Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! "This isn't happening," he hissed.
Prentiss eased a hand over his shoulder, holding him secure enough to maneuver him back to a waiting cop car. Gideon blocked their path, in his own animated conversation with an officer Derek recognized from the Major Crimes Unit. Gideon frowned, his body tense, and walked away from the cop, toward Emily and Morgan.
"Hotch is on his way," Gideon said. The older agent stopped before he could say more, holding a tight fist to his lips, as if to stop himself from going further. Where was a shutter there, between his mouth and his chest. It was a sob, dry, no tears to follow, but a sob nevertheless.
Morgan recognized the tension in the man, recognized the emotion. Because he was feeling it too.
Reid.
Shit.
Why'd it have to be Reid's room?
"They haven't found a body yet?" Emily reminded them, her voice clear, not patronizing. The voice she used with victims. "He could have gone out. He could have…"
Morgan's fist finally found a home in the hood of the police car. The agent stayed there, hunched forward over the vehicle, as if catching his breath. "It was the Joker," he said. And they all knew that the statement was unnecessary.
The agents remained silent, the only hint of silence amongst the panicked crowd.
The choice was a simple one.
His patients needed him. A doctor's duty to his patients didn't end when they left his office. In fact, his job became even more important once they returned to the outside world. A world not ready for them. A world not ready to provide assistance, to see them as any more than freaks. No, the outside didn't understand, didn't empathize, didn't know how to cure them.
For surely, each one of them could be cured of their madness.
Jeremiah Arkham believed so with all his being. His life was founded upon that ideal. And he would prove to the outside, the harsh misunderstanding outside, that he was correct.
But in order to do so, sacrifices had to be made. For the sake of modern medicine, for the sake of the science of the human mind. And so he left his main office, dismissed the security on the south wing, and pulled the slender bottle of lighter fluid from his coat.
The human mind could not function properly if its needs were not met. It was an elementary concept even the most amateur of psych students understood. A mind in need allowed for certain destructive behavior, but if those needs were met, then the mind could begin its recovery.
The Joker had a need, a simple one. And Jeremiah had promised to provide for his patient. The administrator slid his card into the wing's control panel, typing in four of the five digits required to take control.
"Dr. Arkham?" a voice called. "Mr. Administrator, is that you?"
Jeremiah froze, his gaunt face shadowed from the poorly spaced florescent lighting of the corridor by the rim of his bowler's hat and the bundle of his scarf. His turn was slow, deliberate, and the movement allowed him to hide the bottle of fluid against the fold of his coat. He found Dr. Thomas a few paces behind, nearly running to catch up.
"I was just taking my leave, Harrison," Arkham said tightly.
"Yes, sir, yes," Dr. Thomas huffed, taking in the man's outerwear with a small frown. Nevertheless, he continued his pursuit, coming to a stop only a few feet away. "I'm afraid we have a bit of a situation, though, Dr. Arkham, in the security room."
Jeremiah raised a thin brow. "Surely, it is nothing you cannot take care of, Dr. Thomas. Unless you still find the position of Director too strenuous, of course…"
Harrison's dark skin blanched, he sputtered, "N-no, sir. Only, the cameras, there seems to have been an issue with the south wing of the hospital, as well as the perimeter. A glitch of sorts. I'll send extra men to patrol the area, but until then, I think it best that we all remain in our offices, for our own safety."
Jeremiah's jaw tightened, close to trembling in restrained fury. "No, Harrison. You will do no such thing. A glitch is nothing to worry yourself over."
"But, doctor," Dr. Thomas's eyes drifted past the other man. His brow wrinkled in confusion. "Sir, that access code… it's not to open the outer doors. You must have pressed in the wrong one. That one opens the whole corridor…"
Dr. Thomas's voice trailed off, and he became very quiet, eyes wide with the disturbing thought that… Harrison gasped, the sudden tightness in his side leaving him without air. When he looked down in time to see a pen being pulled from his shirt, dark brown blood spilling out of the wound. The liver, both men had time to reason, before Harrison's legs gave out beneath him.
The Director's fingers reached out, grabbing hold of Jeremiah's coat for support. But the other doctor kicked him away, looking down first in panic, then in unhidden disgust. "Have you ever been successful with any patient at this facility, Dr. Thomas?" he hissed down at the squirming body. "Your methods are incomprehensible, your manner of treatment unfounded and ineffective. I am afraid, Dr. Thomas, that you've been terminated." His frown twitched. "For the sake of the patients," he concluded.
Dr. Arkham stepped back, pressing in the final digit. The doors of the corridor became unlatched, their inhabitants unaware of the change. They would remains so for a few moments longer, Arkham was sure. He reached out to the closest door, and pulled it open. With only a moment's hesitation, he kicked over Dr. Thomas's body, using it to prop open the door.
The patient inside looked up from his seat on the pallet, the glare of his beady eyes barely visible in the poor light. "How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly he spreads his claws…" the man muttered.
"Mr. Tetch," Dr. Arkham called. He removed his hat, gently setting it on top of the body at his feet. The patient jerked to awareness, feet quickly landing on the cold floor. Jeremiah smirked at the movement, understanding the reaction. "Mr. Tetch, 'group' will be held outside this evening. Why don't you gather the others and being the session without Dr. Thomas."
Tetch took a careful step forward, one hand outstretched, curling fingers pointing at the hat. "And welcomes little fishes in, with gently smiling claws."
Jeremiah stepped back to the main access door, walking through it before the other patients realized what had taken place. His pace quickened, the first glimpses of anxiousness tearing at his calculating demeanor. The bottle in his sweaty grasp suddenly seemed very heavy. He would have to hurry, if he were to complete the task, if he were to be of any real aid to his patient.
Dr. Thomas… it had been necessary, he assured himself. For the greater good. Jeremiah nodded once, curtly to himself. What was one man's life when it came to the greater good? And no one else need be hurt during the exercise. In the end, when the Joker was cured, many lives, more important lives, will have been saved by that single action.
SSA Aaron Hotchner was good at his job. And because he was good at his job, he knew what to expect from the grieving. He knew that this heavy feeling of guilt was natural. That he should be blaming himself. And he was. He knew that, in order to be a professional, he had to squash that emotion, put it away to get the job done. To get the answers he needed. He wished, not for the first time, that he could switch off his soul like so many of the unsubs he arrested.
But when he looked out at his team, loosely gathered in front of a cop car, their expressions lost, devastated, angry, he could not stop the self hate that pulled at every little string inside him. He wished the stony expression that remained a constant fixture on his face was actually reflective of what he felt. It wasn't. He couldn't change that, not now, not ever.
And the hurt was only just beginning.
He hadn't told the team, not yet. Not about J.J.
"Hotch," Morgan looked up, eyes wide, not with surprise but with realization. "Hotch, you can get these guys moving. They won't tell us what's left up there. They've got to clear the area. We need to know if--"
Hotch raised a hand to stop the other agent. "Are there any reported fatalities thus far?" he asked, his voice distant.
Prentiss shook her head. "No bodies were found." And she stared her superior down, knowing he understood the meaning behind those words, before she went on, "There were four serious injuries in two other rooms effected by the explosion. All guests. They've been taken to the hospital."
He didn't need to ask if the explosion was meant to directly effect one room. He already knew the answer. A part of him froze, unsure for a split second where to go from here. Commissioner Gordon placed a hand gently between his shoulder blades.
"I'm sorry, Agent Hotchner," Jim said. The man looked a decade older. He stared over his glasses at the rest of the agents. "I'm sorry for what happened here," he continued, "that I called you here in the first place, Derek."
Morgan didn't look at him, unsure of what he might say or do. When he did glance up, his brow was drawn together. "Hotch, where's J.J.?" he asked.
Aaron would have rather of taken a bullet to the stomach at the moment. "She… We're not sure."
Gideon pulled himself from his own thoughts, looking to Gordon, then to Hotch, as if noticing them for the first time. "What do you mean, you're not sure? She was at the precinct. With you."
Hotch pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing some of the tension there would ease. It didn't. "That's where she was last seen. Her phone has been turned off, and her contact in the media never heard back from her. We have officers checking surveillance from the building and surrounding areas."
Prentiss pushed the breath from her body, putting a balancing hand on Morgan's arm, as if afraid of what the man might do.
But there was no time for reactions. Detective Stephens was jogging up the group, his phone out. "You're going to want to see this," he huffed, holding out the device. "There's been an incident at Arkham Asylum."
Hotch raised a brow, stepping forward. "What sort of incident?"
He didn't hear the reply, though. He only heard the sound of a firefighter as he removed his helmet, telling the coroner that they'd found the remains of a male.
A body.
Reid.
READ CHAPTER 11