Cold Winter's Night

Part I: Too Late, Two Breaths

Set during the Batman: No Man's Land saga. All recognizable characters belong to DC Comics, not DC Luder.

^V^

The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways.

Gene Hackman

^V^

The last week of November succumbed to a vicious cold snap that left the shattered streets blanketed in nearly six inches of snow. Thankfully, the sub-freezing temperatures had convinced even the most violent of gang members to seek shelter rather than cause trouble. I had spent most of the night checking in with Oracle for any sightings of any of the major threats still left roaming the streets.

Namely Bane and the Joker who, thankfully, were working against one another.

Bane had been in the employ of Lex Luthor, first to destroy the hall of records using explosives to annihilate Gotham's written history. From there, he rhad remained in No Man's Land as a hired muscle to scare off the Joker.  The white faced and green haired target we shared had taken to destroying Lexcorp construction sites in order to delay rebuilding Gotham. It had been my assumption that the Joker enjoyed the chaos that No Man's Land had brought to the city and would do anytihing to maintain it.

The thought itself was just as insane as he was.

In my last encounter with Bane, I had learned that Luthor promised him a sizeable payment in order to get rid of the Joker.  Although his target, for once, was not me, i still had to find a way to stop him.  Upon asking what the reward was, he had explained that he would gain possession of his homeland, Santa Prisca. Rather than engage in another physical encounter that would no doubt have me limping to Leslie's MASH unit, I had tried reasoning with him, bartering for the clown's life.

In the end, I had made a counter offer.  Leave Gotham and i would see to it that the island was his.

Even beneath his mask, I had been able to see his grin.

One homicidal maniac down...

The Joker had been on and off our radar since No Man's Land had begun, slowly collecting followers, weaponry and territory. When the federal government had shut down Gotham following the earthquake, the residents of Arkham Asylum had been left free as opposed to locking them i their cells to die.  As a result, hundreds of inmates and patients roamed the city at will, adding to the already violent pot that was brewing.  In the months I had spent trying to bring order, I had maaged to apprehend a majority of the low level offenders but the heavy hitters had claimed their own territories.  Harvey-TwoFace, the Penguin and even Poison Ivy had their corners of Gotham and had no problem taking lives in order to defend them.   Little blips of the Joker had surfaced every so often with random killings, smiley faces spray painted on buildings and people talking of the clown either pulling pranks or threatening to kill them.

For the last few days, there had been no sign of him, not even a green hair.

Calm before the storm...

"Boss?"

Sitting atop the fairly stable remains of Gotham's First National bank in Midtown, I kept my eyes on a group of bundled up men huddled around a fire below, "Yes?"

"One of my Eyes is calling in from the J. P. Prewitt Reservoir… figured since you're in Coventry, you're the-."

"What's the situation?" I snapped, quickly sizing up the best place to anchor a line in order to descend to the streets. For years, I had used the rooftops as a means of making it across the city, but considering less than fifteen percent of them were structurally sound, the pavement offered the quickest and safest path.