As the Batmobile’s engines screamed, a new thought began to surface in Batman’s mind, cutting through the haze of fury and adrenaline. The grim satisfaction of getting past the League faded, replaced by a cold knot of regret in his gut. He thought of the look on Clark’s face as he fell, the fear in Diana’s eyes, the bewilderment of Hal and Barry. They were his friends. They had only been trying to help.

He reached for the comm, his gauntleted hand hovering for a moment before he pressed it. “Oracle?” he said, his voice a low rasp.

A moment of static, and then Barbara’s voice, sharp and furious, filled the cockpit. “Don’t you ‘Oracle’ me, Batman! What the hell was that?! Superman is barely conscious, and the others are still trying to figure out what hit them! What in God’s name did you do?!”

Batman swallowed hard, the bitter taste of regret in his mouth. He clenched his jaw, but the words still came out. “Oracle, tell them… tell them I’m sorry.”

The fury in Oracle’s voice softened, replaced by a quiet, strained concern. “Just be careful, Batman. Please.”

He didn’t respond. He just killed the comm, the silence of the cockpit a heavy, suffocating thing. His mind, now clear of the initial rage, was cold and analytical. As the skeletal silhouette of the Ajax Chemical plant rose in the distance, a monument of twisted metal and rusted pipes, he activated the Batmobile’s onboard scanners.

“Scan for heat signatures,” he commanded, his voice a low monotone. The thermal imaging screen flickered to life, painting the abandoned factory in a kaleidoscope of blues, greens, and yellows. The heat signatures were everywhere, a buzzing swarm of glowing red dots that confirmed his suspicions: the Joker was here, and he wasn’t alone.

A synthesized voice responded instantly. “Thirteen heat signatures. One is a high-density, concentrated mass, likely a large explosive device. The other twelve are mobile, scattered across the main warehouse floor and catwalks.”

The holographic display pinpointed each dot, showing the goons moving between rusted vats and broken machinery. He studied the layout, his mind already calculating the most efficient path. The regret was gone now, replaced by the methodical calm of the hunter.

They had hurt his friends and taken his family. They were about to learn why he is Vengeance and why criminals fear the night.

He never slowed as he approached the plant, he accelerated and took aim. The Batmobile’s engines were a furious sound that was drowned out by the thunderous crash as the vehicle tore through a reinforced section of the perimeter wall, sending a shower of bricks and twisted metal into the abandoned warehouse. The cockpit canopy opened, and Batman was launched with a roar into the upper levels of the facility. He landed silently on a metal catwalk and went to work.

He was a blur of dark motion, a specter of violence. He moved very loudly and very purposefully, the sounds of snapping bone and cracking metal echoing through the vast, empty space. His focus was narrow and absolute: clear the path.

The goons never saw him coming. The first three near the landing zone were taken out with devastating speed: a concussive strike that crumpled a knee, a gauntlet across the throat, and a specialized sonic dart that overloaded a man’s equilibrium, sending him tumbling headfirst into an empty chemical barrel.

He leaped from the catwalk, landing on a rusty pipe platform where four more clowns were stationed. The fight was less an engagement and more a brutal, controlled explosion. Batman used their environment against them: he slammed one man’s head against the cold steel of a corroded vat; he threw another with such force that he cracked the man’s ribs against a structural beam. A third goon tried to bring a baseball bat down, but Batman caught it mid-swing, snapping it in half before driving the blunt end into the man’s solar plexus.

Each blow was delivered with a brutal, focused rage that left them broken and unconscious, but not dead. He stopped just short of killing them, a line he refused to cross, even now, with the taste of desperation in his mouth.

He reached the warehouse floor, where the final five stood guarding a central clearing. They were smarter, spreading out and raising their rusted firearms. Batman didn’t hesitate. He launched a burst of smoke pellets, plunging the entire space into darkness. Then, in the blinding haze, a nightmare came to life. He was the only shadow in the shadows. He used the echoing acoustics of the warehouse, bouncing off the walls to disorient them. A final, desperate cry of fear was cut short as the last goon was dropped, his weapon clattering harmlessly to the floor.

Soon, only the Joker was left.

***

The smoke, thick with the smell of scorched air and residual chemicals, began to dissipate. Batman walked forward, emerging from the swirling haze toward the center of the vast, empty space. He was a colossal figure of dark purpose.

The Joker sat in the center of the warehouse on a makeshift throne of steel drums, a single spotlight shining down on him. He was still and silent, a terrifying contrast to the chaos Batman had just unleashed.

A slow, sickening laugh began to build in his throat, a sound that seemed to scrape against the walls of the factory. Tied to chairs on either side of him were Richard and Hailey. Richard was beaten, his face a swollen mass of purple and red, quietly crying. Hailey was a barely recognizable heap of bruised and bloodied flesh, her head bowed and her body limp.

Batman’s rage was absolute, and so was his resolve.

The Joker’s laughter faded into a snicker. He smiled a wide, terrifying grin, basking in the spotlight. “Oh, there you are, my little bat! I was just telling my dear ‘Harley’ here how much I missed her.” He punctuated the taunt with a sharp whack of his cane on Hailey’s chair. The cane connected with her arm, and her body flinched. The Joker chuckled, a high-pitched, manic sound.

He leaned forward, his voice a low, cooing whisper, enjoying the attention.

“You know, I was wondering if you’d even show up, Batsy. After you were so rude to all your little friends—the League!—I thought maybe you’d run away and cry in your little cave.” He looked genuinely disappointed. “But no! You came! All for a pregnant criminal and a boy who’s an orphan… again! I always knew the Bat had a soft spot for the rejects of the world, didn’t I?”

He whirled his cane around, tapping the metallic floor. “And the rich kid. Such a brave little boy. He was so worried about his little family.” He whacked his cane on Richard’s leg, and the boy cried out. The Joker threw his head back and howled with laughter, the sound echoing through the rafters. “So tragic!”

He pointed the cane at Batman, his eyes gleaming.

“This is all the Bruce Wayne’s fault, you know. He had to try and save her. He had to try and make her normal.” His voice dropped to a whisper, as if sharing a profound secret. “He had to try and be a hero, and look what it got him. Laying dead in his burning mansion.”

He smiled, his voice laced with the finality of a curtain call.

“The house that love built is now just an ash heap! And what’s left of his broken family, I get to finish!” He brought the cane down on Hailey’s head. The sound was a sickening thud, and Hailey’s body went completely limp.

The Joker erupted into a final, triumphant fit of laughter, turning his back to Batman, as though the fight were already over.

Richard, his voice trembling but defiantly screamed,“GET HIM, DAD!”

The words hung in the air, a final, damning truth. The Joker’s laughter died in his throat, his maniacal grin replaced by a look of genuine surprise. He now knew. He finally knew the truth.

“Dad?” The Joker’s voice was barely a whisper, a sound of profound, reverent disbelief that quickly swelled into an awestruck roar. He clutched his cane, his eyes wide and fixed on Batman. “DAD! HA! HA-HA-HA! Oh, the irony! The sheer, cosmic joy! All this time, I was trying to break the Bat… and I was actually breaking Bruce Wayne!”

He threw his head back, a sound of pure, unadulterated ecstasy ringing through the rafters, a hundred times louder than his previous laughter.

“The playboy! The smiling, boring billionaire! You were the mask! You built this little house of cards—this beautiful, pregnant little doll and the little sidekick—and you hid it all behind money and a grin! You’re a cheat, Batsy! A magnificent, beautiful cheat!”

He stepped a single, eager step, his face inches from Richard, then back towards Batman, a terrifying energy vibrating off him.

“You gave her the good life so I couldn’t have her! You gave the orphan boy a father! You gave Harley a family! Oh, this isn’t just a party, Batsy! This is my masterpiece! I didn’t just break the Bat, I destroyed the father! I killed the husband! And I get to watch the billionaire weep!”

The maniacal grin stretched impossibly wide, revealing his teeth. “You lose everything, Brucey-Boy! Everything! And you have no one else to blame but yourself!”

With a final, deranged shriek of laughter, the Joker ripped the revolver from his belt. He raised it, the cold steel barrel leveled precisely at Richard’s battered head, his finger already tightening on the trigger.

But it was too late. All the guilt he had felt over his friends, all the rage that had been bottled inside him, erupted in a single, devastating moment.

Batman attacked the Joker, his hands blurring into a vengeful storm of fists. He pounded the Joker’s face again and again, his rage a fiery blur of motion. The Joker’s body absorbed the blows, but his spirit reveled in it. He laughed.

Batman’s fists, fueled by fury, kept coming. His mind was a blank slate of pure, unadulterated anger. He hit him again and again, the sickening wet sound of bone and flesh giving way. The Joker’s laughter slowly turned into a wheezing, desperate gasp. Batman raised his fist for a final, crushing blow, the intent to kill a red, screaming thing in his mind.

“BRUCE!! STOP!!”

The cry, raw and filled with pain, cut through the red haze of his rage. It was Hailey’s voice. His fist froze, inches from the Joker’s broken face. His breath hitched, the momentum of his rage brought to a dead stop by the one person he could not ignore.

Hailey, her face a canvas of bruises and cuts, had used the distraction to work at her bonds. She had managed to free one hand and then the other, quickly untying Richard.

As Batman stood there, chest heaving, tears filling his eyes, they ran to him. He knelt down, and they threw their arms around him, a small island of love and broken humanity in the middle of a destroyed warehouse.

Everything he had inside poured out as he hugged his family.

© Copyright 2025 J.R. Geiger. All rights reserved.