Those Who Fall Down the Rabbit Hole | Batjokes |

Part 7

James Gordon is... too old for this shit.

"Is that a—"

"A tiara, sir"

"A tiara," Gordon echoes, not entirely believing his eyes. The pink tiara on the corpse's head waving hi at him.

Yeah. Too old for this shit.

He's been looking at the crime scene for three minutes straight. It's disgusting, one of the new guys threw up as soon as he entered the room. But James Gordon is still staring at the body.

He has the vague recollection that he'd met the guy before.

When he'd brought Batman into the asylum to interrogate the Joker. There had been a guy. Bob, Gordon's pretty sure his name was Bob. Bob the security guard, who was assigned to guard the outside of the door where the Joker had been kept. Bob. Bob was sitting where the Joker had been sitting, just a few hours ago. Bob is sitting in the Joker's cell. Guts pooling on the floor, lacerations in his mouth, with a... a pink tiara on his head.

Too old.

Detective Ramirez comes and stands next to Gordon, handing him a paper cup. Gordon takes it, praying to every god that the cup is filled to the rim with tequila. It's black coffee. He really doesn't need to be more awake for this. Rubbing a hand through his face, he heads out of the room. He needs a breather. But Ramirez can't take a cue and follows him out into the white hallway as well. People are coming in and out of the murder scene, the forensics team are doing their thing, the asylum is a mess. And Gordon just wants to die.

"How's Dent?" He asks her, because why not. He's pretty sure he's growing white hairs out of his ass by now. What is one or two more.

"Conscious. No serious injuries," the detective leans on the wall, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. The lieutenant would normally chastise her for it. But not today. They have a fucked up, newly found, district attorney in the hospital, an on the loose psychopath, a group of mentally ill patients that have been freed, and a tiara on a corpse. Ramirez can light as many cigarettes as she wants. "Evidence of torture," Ramirez states, her tone dimer.

"Is he talking yet?"

"No. The girlfriend showed, didn't even look her way"

They don't say anything. Just Gordon drinking his coffee and Ramirez smoking her cigarette. The lieutenant has been doing this for a while. A long while. But he can safely say that this situation right now has been one of his biggest fuck ups. If not the biggest. He didn't think the Joker was going to be such a threat, at least compared to the mob. But Gordon was clearly wrong. And now he won't be able to sleep knowing he hasn't caught him, for good.

It's Gordon's fault all of this happened.

Ramirez looks at him and sighs. She knows him too well. "Gordon, it's not your fault. How would you know that as soon as he told Batman where Harvey was he would just up and leave? We didn't know he had people on the inside."

"He wanted to be caught, and I just played along with his little plan and caught him. It's that simple."

Gordon can see the frown forming on the detective's face. "He wanted to be caught," she repeats, dubiously. As if the idea never crossed her mind. "Then why wait weeks before escaping. Why not free the patients at the beginning?"

Gordon had asked himself that same thing, he could only come up with one logical conclusion. It was just a theory, but might as well tell her, she is the detective.

"He wanted to interact with Batman." Why the Joker wanted to do that, Gordon has no idea. But right now he's regretting not having recorded those conversations. Gordon shouldn't trust the vigilante so whole heartedly like he does.