Strategy

Housekeeping Notes & Disclaimer: I do not own and never have owned the Batman series. The originals and their many interpretations belong to a whole bunch of people, and I'm not one of those. Sorry. However, Em and this particular narrative do belong to me, so you know the drill- no taking without permission, no uncredited/undisclaimed copying, etc, etc.

Since it was alluded to but never explicitly stated in Vivisection, I thought I should make a note of the fact that this arc takes place in a universe just slightly different from Nolan's canon. The idea is that after the events of The Dark Knight, Batman is hunted by the police, but doesn't give up his nightly activities the way he does in the verse presented by The Dark Knight Rises (which I loved, but which seemed like only one of several potential endings to the story begun in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight). Rather, he keeps on fighting crime, though it's considerably more difficult now that he's got almost cop in the city after him in addition to every criminal.

You definitely should read Vivisection before starting on this—Strategy contains major spoilers and assumes that you are familiar with the first story in the series. If you're all caught up, then read on and enjoy.

I

Nine months can bring a lot of change to a person's life.

It's late December now, and December in Gotham is gray, dim, sunless, and cold. The weather people tell us that we're in for record low temperatures that could be accompanied by early snowstorms, hiding their light anxiety behind strong voices and earnest faces.

Me, I shouldn't even be in Gotham anymore. Heaven knows I've had some pretty influential people advise me to leave. After all, after the events of late February and early March of this year, the nightmare month which culminated in me walking away from a warehouse I'd set on fire, leaving the Joker and Batman fighting it out in one of the upper rooms, Gotham could hardly be said to have been good for me thus far.

Commissioner Jim Gordon said as much, once the flame burned to ashes, long after Batman dragged a beaten and insensate Joker out of the burning warehouses and abandoned him right before the police showed up to take him to Arkham Asylum, rendering him no immediate danger to me. They pulled me in for questioning, as they had to—I had been the object of the Joker's focus for a short while before the showdown, and as a result, conveniently present during several explosions that claimed the lives of more than several people.

Fortunately, the suspicions against me were greatly lessened by the fact that the officers who had worked to plant that suspicion in the first place were proven to have been working for the Joker all along. They had surveillance footage of the whole thing—the two officers slaughtering the other cops in the station, releasing the Joker from his cell so he could reach me and physically carry me out—and it was pretty damn obvious that I wasn't going along willingly, considering the concussion he'd given me seconds before he grabbed me and the hazy struggle I put up. The DA didn't even bring charges against me.

That didn't stop Gordon from worrying. Despite the Joker's incarceration and the clearing of my name, he was of the opinion that I should get out while I could, flee home to Nebraska, and he told me so in his well-meaning way on my last visit to the station to tie up a few legal loose ends. I thanked him and told him, politely but neutrally, that I appreciated his advice, that I was thinking through my options and wanted to be sure that I was making the right decision before moving. He looked worried, but how could he argue? We barely knew each other; he hardly had the right to lecture me and we both knew it.

However, he wasn't the only one who held the opinion that Gotham was getting a little hot for me.

Shortly after it was all over, I was home one night. I was still living in the very apartment the Joker had broken into in order to cook up a batch of napalm for kicks one night, but I was looking actively for another—even if I wasn't sure about moving from the city, I had no interest at all in staying in an apartment for which I suspected the Joker had keys. I had accumulated a couple of bags of garbage that needed to be dropped off in the alleyway dumpster next to the building. I used to put this task off, worried about muggers, rapists, the various scumbags that made dark alleys into hunting grounds… but it didn't take me long to realize that the situation with the Joker, the several days spent in a near-constant state of intense fear, had caused something to snap. For better or for worse, I just don't seem capable of being properly afraid anymore.

More on that later.

At any rate, I picked up the garbage bags and went downstairs to the dumpster. I lifted the lid, slung the bags up and over, and then turned to go back inside—and found myself face-to-face with a huge shadow. The old me might have leaped back, screamed a little bit (or a lot). By that point, though, my reaction was limited to a slight jump of defensive surprise and then a slow blink. I waited for him to speak first, since he obviously was taking a risk to come here and talk to me (Joker gift-wrapped for the Gotham PD or not, he was still a wanted man), and he wasted no time.

"You should leave the city," he told me in a gravelly voice that was absolutely unreal. I'd never heard him speak before—during our brief encounter in the warehouse, he'd been much more focused on the Joker than on me, and at the time, given to much more wordless roaring than chatting (unlike his talkative nemesis, who didn't seem to be able to shut up even when he was getting his face rearranged). Hearing it now, I felt like I should shudder just to be polite, but was too preoccupied with what he was saying to bother with the pleasantries.

With respect to the fact that I was pretty sure he didn't often pay house calls, especially after being accused of murdering Harvey Dent, I answered as clearly, quietly, and quickly as I could. Batman wasn't Jim Gordon, didn't have those kind, worried eyes, and although he may well have been carrying the world on his shoulders, I couldn't see exhaustion in him the way I sometimes saw it in the commissioner, even on limited acquaintance. I didn't think the truth would weigh on him the way I suspected it would weigh on Gordon, and so I gave it to him.

"I can't," I told him, finally giving voice to thoughts I'd been thinking ever since I left the warehouse that night, ever since I was free to run whenever and as far as I chose. "If I leave, I'll spend the rest of my life feeling like I'm hiding. And I can't… shake the feeling that if I do go, he'll come after me. As punishment for thinking I could ever get away from him."

"The Joker probably has the resources to follow you," he conceded, "but he won't. He thinks Gotham is his city; he won't leave it."

"Not even for a couple of days?" I asked quietly, peering up into the blackness that shrouded his face, imagining I could see eyes hidden there. "Long enough to nip out, brutally murder me, then come back?"

"You think you'll be safer right here in his home turf?"

"No, I think I'm not safe anywhere," I replied immediately, the quiet urgency in my voice matching the skepticism in his. "Not if he doesn't want me to be. And having the effrontery to run away from him is the surest way to ensure that he won't want me to be. Do you understand?"

He was silent for a moment, long enough that I began to worry that he didn't understand, but finally, slowly, he said, "He's in Arkham—for now. He's broken out before. If he manages again, if you're still in the city and he decides to come after you, I can't promise I'll be able to protect you."

I gave him a wry smile. "If he decides to come after me, I doubt the entire Gotham police force could protect me." He grunted, and suddenly getting the sense that he didn't have much more to say to me, I took a short step forward. He didn't move, and quietly, I said, "Thank you for coming for me that night. I know how risky it was. You gave me back my peace, at least for now. Thank you."

He grunted again. I got the distinct feeling that the gracious reception of gratitude wasn't exactly his forte and that my thanks may actually have embarrassed him. I quickly turned away, determined not to make a thing of it, and only turned back when he said my name (I didn't wonder how he knew. By this point, I was fairly used to mysterious men pulling my name out of a hat).

"I still think you should go," he growled succinctly from the shadows. "If he breaks out, I can keep him busy here."

I offered him a tired smile. "Not even you can keep him busy all the time," I said gently. "He's gonna have spare hours to burn sooner or later. That's where I come in. Don't worry though," I said in farewell, turning away again. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm pretty sure he's too excited by the fact that you'll come out of hiding for him to remember me."

When I turned my head again to try to gauge his reaction, the shadow had disappeared, leaving the lighter, naturally-shifting alley shadows in his wake. It was just as well. I didn't believe what I'd told him, anyway. Certainly, the Joker's prize prey was always, always Batman—but I didn't believe for a second that he didn't have room in that voluminous mind of his to carry on several "projects" simultaneously. The Joker might come for me or he might not, and I didn't think it had anything to do with his level of distraction. No, it was completely up to chance and his whim. And, at least for the time being, swimming in this new haze of dead calm and unnatural fearlessness, I was at peace with that.

Batman and Jim Gordon were the only two people who advised me to leave. To be fair, the list might have been more extensive had my address book not been so scant. After the Joker incident, I dropped out of school—I only have two semesters left and I imagine I'll go back, but at the time, I knew better than to think I could focus on grinding out ten-page history papers when the immediacy of my own life consumed so much of my focus. After all, accompanying my new fearlessness—probably actively contributing to it—is a sense of hyper-alertness, masked with a steady hand and an unsmiling face. At every moment now, no matter where I am, I'm instinctively seeking out potential threats and plotting out my reactions should the threat become realized. It's become almost a game to me, and I've gotten very good at it.

Only once, late one night as I lay awake well past two a.m., did I think about visiting him in Arkham, and only then for a second before I angrily expelled the idea. I didn't care to wonder why it had come to me in the first place; my only concern was in making sure it didn't happen again, and after that one time, whichever sick, twisted little corner of my mind came up with that idea fell totally silent.

The attempt to slowly, slowly return to normalcy—as much normalcy as I could achieve after my dealings with the Joker, anyway—was arrested by my great aunt's sudden death of a stroke in late May. I found myself on the first plane back to Nebraska, where I had grown up, to arrange the funeral and deal with legal affairs. I was vaguely startled by my lack of emotional response to Aunt Katherine's death. She had raised me since I was ten years old, after all, had become as dear to me as a parent, even if (or perhaps because) we both preferred our quiet solitude to chitchat and socialization. Still, my return to the house that had been my home for eight years inspired nothing but a faint sense of unrest.

That was when I realized that fear wasn't the only thing I lost in the warehouse that day. I searched my memory of the months between the last time I saw the Joker and my aunt's death in Nebraska and realized that I hadn't felt a single strong emotion since that night. Oh, there were vague traces—a smile of amusement here, a flicker of worry or sadness there, but they were all… muted. Like I was watching someone else react to things.

And, identifying this, I couldn't summon the worry I needed to care all that much. This was easiest. I wasn't totally numb, after all, but it was as if my emotions were being run through a filter, being cut down to something easily manageable. It eliminated bad decisions hastily-made in the grips of extreme fear or anger or sadness. I trusted myself more this way, trusted myself to think rationally and to handle bad situations more effectively.

I could have stayed in Nebraska. Aunt Katherine's introverted nature, much like my own, had ensured that she was cut off from most people, including distant family, and so she left the house and her modest estate to me alone. I could have lived there in peace among the flat lands where I'd grown up, away from the gray city that had held nothing but trouble… and yet the inheritance made it possible to go back to Gotham, as well, something that wouldn't have been a reality for much longer, what with the loss of the scholarship I'd forfeited when I dropped out the spring semester.

I took care of the funeral. I dealt with the legal issues. I put the house up for sale. I flew back to Gotham. Part of this decision was exactly what I told Batman—that I believed moving away would draw the Joker's attention—but part of it was that the longer I stayed in Nebraska, the more restless I felt, the more uneasy. I didn't know why I felt this way, nor did I care to dig for a reason. I simply knew that I needed to get back to the city.

Once I returned, the uneasiness went away. I found a new apartment near Cathedral Square and a job working at a fairly upscale hotel, manning the front desk until eleven o'clock at night. I kept a holstered stun gun in my bag, always within reach, and, given the fact that I was far less reserved about walking down dark streets alone than ever before, had occasion to use it several times.

In July, I drove upstate to a gun fair in a county with more relaxed regulations and bought a revolver. My stun gun is best for business that takes me out and about, but I keep the loaded gun in a shoe box beneath my bed. If the police raid my apartment, I'm in deep shit, since the gun is unregistered, but I'm less worried about cops than the alternative.

I took up calisthenics and kickboxing and watched my arms and legs change slowly, going from skinny and soft to hard and taut. I'm only 5'3; I'm never going to be a physically imposing person, which means that my advantage must lie in deceptive strength, speed, and, essentially, cheating, taking advantage of the fact that people will always underestimate me. I understand this and so I work to improve my chances in a fight—I don't plan to involve myself in any, but I want to be prepared. Just in case.

In August, the Joker broke out of Arkham and folded himself seamlessly back into the Gotham underworld. I felt like I was holding my breath for weeks, but as time passed and he didn't show up, I started to breathe again. That was when the dreams started—not nightmares or terrors, nothing to inspire insomnia, but… it seems as if he's making an appearance in all of my dreams. Usually, he's just sort of lounging around in the background, observing, sometimes commenting sarcastically on the proceedings. Sometimes, though…

Sometimes, he gets up close and personal, all invasiveness and knife blades and bony, bruising fingers. And it disturbs me—not too much, but disturbs me nonetheless—that I don't wake up from those dreams afraid.

It's winter now, or about to be. I'm at work, safe indoors from the thirty-degrees-and-dropping temperatures outside, and the sun is going down. My job is fairly easy—I give new arrivals their keys, handle customer complaints, run night logs, things of that sort. It would all be too tedious and too small to bear if not for the fact that after dark, I get hours of undisturbed time, hours to think and read and think some more.

Tonight, though, has been a rough one, a fact betrayed by the painfully split skin on my knuckles. Normally, annoying customers bother me no more than moths bumping around a light bulb, but tonight I was thrown a curve ball. Tonight, I had a large group in town for a Christmas family reunion, and the daytime clerk had mistakenly under-booked them, presumably thrown off by the last name in common and not realizing just how many people there would be. They all rolled in at nine o'clock in the evening, when management was all gone and it was essentially me and the janitorial staff on the clock.

I managed to find new rooms for the unexpected extra numbers, but the confusion drew the process out longer than anyone would have liked. I'd sent most of the group off to their respective rooms and was beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel when someone seized my elbow from behind.

I didn't think. I reacted. I twisted around and slammed my fist as hard as I could into the guy's jaw. Problem being that he wasn't a mugger, rapist, or sick psycho terrorist—just a cranky customer who thought it would be safe to put his hands on me. A year ago, he may have been right, but like I said, nine months makes a difference. I'm stronger, more on edge, and much more likely to hit first and ask questions later.

I didn't apologize, though I probably should have. I just stared at him, and he seemed too shocked to make a big deal, just putting his head down and shuffling away in a hurry. He won't stay cowed forever, though. Eventually, he's going to process what happened, and if he doesn't press charges, he'll at least have my manager on the phone to call for my head. I'm not worried about being charged with assault (I think I have a legal leg to stand on, what with the defense that he had grabbed me and I felt unsafe), but as far as my job… I honestly don't have the energy or will to fight my superiors if they decide I'm a liability to the hotel. I may not have a job to return to tomorrow.

The thought doesn't bother me the way it should, but I'm used to that by now. I focus instead on a fact that's becoming harder and harder to ignore.

This incident makes four—four times that I've reacted violently to people who may or may not have posed a legitimate physical threat to me. Twice I used my stun gun on men who had approached me on my way to the train at night (there's a station near my apartment, and since my car was stolen by Joker henchmen early this year and since I only really go to the gym, grocery shopping, and to work, places that are all located within two blocks of a train station, I figured it'd be easier to ride the rails these days).

Once, a guy got huffy with me on the train because I'd made it quickly and explicitly clear that I was not interested in his advances nor did I feel obligated to pay attention to him, and so, acting like the rational adult he was, he stood by the pole nearest my seat, looming over me, glaring at me, and muttering foul things under his breath. I sat dead-eyed and unresponsive until we reached my stop, then, unwilling to take the chance that he might follow me from the train, I decked him on the way out. It stunned him long enough for me to get safely off the train just before the doors closed. I knew at the time that I could easily run into him the next time I took the train, but I accepted it and did what I needed to in order to eliminate the perceived threat. So far, I haven't seen him again, but I've got the stun gun ready if I do.

The point is this: I've had some time to do some research and self-evaluation in the past few months. Hyper-vigilance is one of the most significant and telling symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. My inability to let my guard down combined with my increasing proclivity for violence all point towards the disorder (and that's not even getting into the dreams).

And it's all because of him.

By rights, I should be seeing a shrink, but even if I could afford to fork over $300 an hour just so someone could tell me in various ways that I need to stop repressing my trauma and work through my memories of the event so I can heal, I'm just not… concerned enough to subject myself to that, not concerned that these changes are for the worse. After all, I'm stronger and more dangerous now than I ever was before, and that's a direct result of my experience.

I'm not saying that I'm glad it happened, and if I could go back and stop myself from going into that bank, if I could remove every trace of that madman from my life, I would… but I'm not sure it would do any good. While I don't spend much time philosophizing and have no interest in dwelling on the idea of fate, I do suspect that there's no escape from certain eventualities, that there are fixed points in the timeline of a person's life. The Joker was one of mine. I have accepted the event, along with its side-effects, and I may as well focus on the silver lining. Namely, that I no longer live in fear.

Eleven o'clock rolls around and my replacement shows up, looking half-stoned, as usual, and so of course he doesn't noticed the scraped and broken skin of my hand. I turn the desk over to him without telling him about the little confrontation—he doesn't need to know—grab my coat, purse, and stun gun, and beat a quick retreat.

The frigid air rushes against me as the door opens, but aside from snapping my teeth together and tightening my jacket, I ignore it, keeping my head up and eyes open so I can keep an eye out for possible threats.

There aren't that many people out at this time of night and in this kind of weather. It's bone cold, must be in the teens at most—and even gangbangers don't seem to have the energy to prowl around tonight.

It's a short walk to the train station. I stick close to buildings and move quickly, maintaining the appearance of being relaxed. The train is at once the best and the worst part about the trip home. On the one hand, it's well-lit and does not necessitate me crossing through dangerous areas on foot. On the other, if someone unpleasant gets on, I can't really avoid them. I just have to stick it out until I get the opportunity to move.

One might think that I'd be wary of the train after what happened last March, but the tiniest hint of superstition in me comes out here—I'm weirdly convinced that making a concession to the incident, by avoiding the train or letting myself be nervous about it, I'll only be giving power to the association. Jinxing it, as it were.

So, I ride the train. And so far, aside from the incident with the impolite passenger, nothing bad has happened. I doubt tonight is going to be an exception. The train car only holds two other people, an old man sleeping in the back and a middle-aged woman with a bruised face.

I've had enough time for introspection at work, so I spend the train ride winding down (or what passes for winding down these days, anyway) so I'll be able to get to sleep soon after I reach my home. I slow my breathing and force my tense muscles to relax. I can't shut it off completely—my eyes still obsessively track any and all movements and I'm constantly preparing myself to react in the event of danger—but I can uncoil that tight spring of tension just a little with effort.

My stop is two blocks from my apartment. I tighten my coat and get moving. Fortunately, no one disturbs me and I disturb no one. A hobo hunched by a trash can fire calls out to me as I pass his alleyway, but I ignore him and he doesn't pursue. I reach my building safely, jog up the two flights of stairs lit by flickering bulbs, and finally reach my apartment.

Again, though, I'm far from relaxed. I have a routine, and I stick to it. First, I checked for forced entry before going in—scratches, splintering of the frame, etc. Finding none, I let myself in and lock the door and two deadbolts behind me. Next, I check every room in the little apartment, making sure the windows are whole and locked and that there are no unpleasant surprises awaiting me.

Only when I'm sure that my apartment is clear and tightly sealed with me inside it do I let my guard down, just a bit. I shed my clothes and climb in the shower. I work out when I get up rather than before bed—exercise tends to wake me right up, and I have enough problems sleeping.

Once I'm clean and dry, I put on long gray sweatpants and a black tank top and go to the refrigerator to find food. There's some pizza left over from yesterday, and I settle down in front of the TV with it. This is the best part of my ritual—getting lost in fictional drama as my food digests and my hair dries. I know better than to think my house is safe, but this is the closest I ever feel to it.

I get to bed around 1:30. It's not easy for me to quiet the noise in my own head for long enough to fall asleep, but fortunately, I don't have to—being so aware, so paranoid all the time is exhausting, and without fail, my body and mind both shut down shortly after the aforementioned routines are put into practice.

When I wake, it's to a vague feeling that something is wrong. I'm used to waking up abruptly in the middle of the night—it's become routine, as has lying in bed awake for an hour afterwards, waiting to fall asleep again.

This time, though, there's something tickling the back of my bare arm, which has fallen out from beneath the covers. Also not unusual. My hair is long and I often lose strands here and there, so, still drowsy, I twist my other arm behind me to stop the offensive tickling, thinking I swear, if it's a spider…

It's not a spider. My hand collides with solid, animated flesh. Warm fingers lock around mine.

I gasp, launching myself into a sitting position and twisting to look. I just have time to see a ghastly white face floating in the dark of the room and register, for the first time in nine months, a spike of fear, before—

A/N - ...yes, I did. I know it's cruel to leave you with a cliffhanger on the first chapter, but it was a logical stopping point considering what follows. I know, no Joker except by mention, I'm a horrible person, but indulge me just this once- I needed this first chapter to set things up before the action really starts. Rest assured, the Joker won't be absent from a single chapter after this.

Now, I'm off to get some sleep. Sound off in the reviews, let me know who's still on board this weird little ship, and I will do my very best to update quickly- ideally, after I finish up with my midterms mid-week. Things are about to get fun, so stay tuned. :)