Batman climbed out of the Batmobile, the engine’s low growl cutting off as he shut it down. Ahead of him sat Arkham Asylum, its hulking shape crouched on the horizon like some sleeping predator. The place had a way of looking worse every time he came back, even though it was supposed to be under tighter control now. New management hadn’t made it any less of a meat grinder for souls that couldn’t claw their way out.
It had been months since his last trip here—the night Joker had staged one of his little showcases and turned the asylum into his personal madhouse. That night had ended with bodies on the ground and blood soaking into what passed for Arkham’s carpet—but not a lot changed in Gotham. You could patch the walls and repaint over the nightmares, but they’d always bleed through eventually.
Tonight? This wasn’t about nostalgia. Word on the street said Blackgate Tower might have been Joker’s handiwork—there wasn’t proof yet (not the kind that mattered), but Batman knew better than to brush aside rumors that smelled like cordite and clown greasepaint. He needed eyes on Joker himself to rule him out or lock him in as a suspect. And if not Joker… well, Arkham had no shortage of residents with vendettas and a flair for destruction.
From where he stood, he could already see signs of upgrades around Arkham’s perimeter. The old guard towers were still there, but new automated drones hovered above them, scanning everything below in slow loops. Armored guards patrolled in pairs behind reinforced fences topped with coils of razor wire that looked like they’d been dipped in motor oil for good measure. And the rumored robot dogs? They were real, too—metal forms prowling just inside the gates, their heads sweeping from side to side on silent servos as they sniffed out anything breathing where it shouldn’t be.
Batman didn’t need confirmation to know why all this hardware was here: Arkham wasn’t just a prison anymore; it was a fortress for Gotham’s collective psychosis. They weren’t locking criminals in—they were keeping everyone else out.
He moved toward the entrance without hesitation, keeping close to the shadows. The guards didn’t notice him—not yet—but he didn’t waste time testing their capabilities either. He wasn’t here for them.
The main gate emerge ahead, reinforced steel with layers no doubt designed to withstand whatever battering ram Gotham’s criminals could dream up next. A camera pivoted in his direction, its red lens glowing faintly as it scanned everything in its field of vision. Batman fired off his grapple gun before it could register him, yanking himself upward toward an overhead ledge just shy of Arkham’s second floor. The soundless ascent left nothing but empty space where his shadow had been seconds ago.
He landed without noise, boots pressing into cold stone as he crouched low and took stock of the new defenses up close. The drones were outfitted with thermal imaging—a problem if he hung around too long—but they had predictable patterns; their programming made them predictable but blind to creativity.
Below him, one of the robot dogs padded past a guard who seemed more bored than vigilant. The dog stopped briefly—sniffing at nothing in particular—then kept moving as its handler lit up a cigarette like he wasn’t standing fifty feet from psychotic killers who’d eat his face off given half a chance.
Through an upper window, Batman caught sight of familiar faces—or at least familiar profiles behind thick glass and fortified cells. Killer Croc hunched in a corner that barely contained his bulk, chains clamped around limbs thicker than tree trunks while he gnawed on something too small to identify from this distance. Scarecrow sat quietly in another cell nearby, head turned upward as though listening to music only he could hear; if Crane noticed Batman watching him, he didn’t show it.
But no Joker—at least not yet.
Batman shifted positions again before anyone—or anything—spotted him lingering too long. Another grapple line pulled him higher still until he landed silently near an auxiliary access point that wasn’t on any schematic Gordon or Oracle had ever shown him—probably carved into existence after one too many riots demanded faster ways to deploy reinforcements without funneling everyone through the main entrance.
The lock on the panel was digital—not exactly child’s play but far from unbreakable with gear like his—and within seconds he was inside Arkham’s outer wall system, moving through service corridors lined with electrical conduits and forgotten maintenance equipment gathering dust like memories nobody wanted anymore.
If Joker really was behind Blackgate Tower? He wouldn’t be sitting comfortably here waiting for Batman to come knocking—but he also wasn’t dumb enough to leave breadcrumbs pointing back at himself either.
As far as luxuries went in Gotham’s rogues gallery roster, plausible deniability ranked pretty damn high—and Joker knew how to wear it well enough to make even seasoned detectives second-guess themselves until their brains unraveled under pressure.
Still... if Joker wasn’t behind Blackgate? That left answers Batman didn’t like much better: someone else with firepower big enough to target Blackgate Tower and turn it into history overnight without leaving fingerprints bold enough for Gotham PD (or even Oracle) to trace back yet.
Batman stopped at the last corridor in this hellscape of reinforced steel. The cell block here was reserved for Arkham’s worst—the ones who didn’t just break the rules, they rewrote them with body counts. Glass pods lined the walls like surreal trophies in some demented hunter’s gallery, each one ensuring its occupant couldn’t so much as sneeze without someone upstairs knowing.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
And then there it was Joker’s cage.
It stretched floor to ceiling, a thick pane of tempered glass framed in titanium alloy that could probably withstand a tank shell—or at least that’s what Arkham’s administrators liked to tell themselves late at night when sleep wasn’t an option.
The interior was barebones: a stainless-steel cot bolted to the floor, a small table and chair (both similarly secured), and a toilet tucked into a corner with just enough privacy to be considered humane. This wasn’t a cell—it was an aquarium for Gotham’s apex predator.
At first glance, it looked empty. The cot was unmussed, the table clear of clutter. Batman scanned the pod, taking in every inch—the faint scuffs on the floor tiles where restless feet had paced over years, the scratches etched into one of the table legs like someone had tried carving poetry with their fingernails. He lingered for just a moment longer before movement stirred in the shadows at the back of the cell.
Joker stepped forward like he’d been waiting for this exact moment—a phantom surfacing from dark water. His suit, as always, was immaculate: deep purple with green accents so loud they practically shouted over his pale skin and shock of slicked-back hair. He moved casually—too casually for someone locked in what amounted to an anti-apocalypse bunker—but his grin? That hadn’t changed. Still wide, still unnatural, still daring you to assume anything he didn’t want you to.
“Well,” Joker said, dragging out the word like it was candy melting on his tongue. “If it isn’t my old friend! Here I thought you’d forgotten me.”
He threw his arms out like they were about to hug through three inches of reinforced glass, teeth bared in something between a smile and a snarl.
“Spare me,” Batman said, stepping closer until only the glass separated them. Joker leaned forward too, hands pressed against his side of the barrier like he wanted to crawl through it. “There’s been an attack.”
“Oh no!” Joker gasped, eyes widening as if someone had just told him his clown car caught fire on prom night. “What kind of attack? Pie-related? Please tell me there were pies.”
“Blackgate Tower,” Batman cut him off. “It’s gone.”
That made Joker pause—not long enough to seem genuine but enough to sell whatever game he was playing today. His eyebrows lifted with mock surprise as he tapped a finger against his chin.
“Blackgate Tower? Really? That’s… wow.” He whistled low and long before leaning closer again. “Kaboom?”
“You know exactly what happened,” Batman shot back.
“Do I?” Joker tilted his head like a curious bird and shrugged. “Honestly, Batsy—it sounds like my kind of party: big explosions! Screaming crowds! The whole shebang! But alas…” He sighed, clutching at his chest like he felt actual regret. “I wasn’t invited this time.”
“You knew this would happen,” Batman pressed. His glare bore into Joker like he could pull answers straight from that twisted skull if he stared hard enough.
“Wrong!” Joker sing-songed before wagging a finger at him through the glass like Batman was an unruly child caught sneaking cookies from the jar. “Don’t go pinning your messy little crime scene on me just because it smells like fireworks and fun times.” Then his face dropped—grin gone, eyes narrowing as some darker thing flickered in their depths. “Because I promise you this: if I had done it... you wouldn’t be standing here asking questions.”
Batman didn’t flinch; he rarely did around Joker anymore. But he also didn’t buy a single word coming out of that painted mouth.
“I’m supposed to believe you’ve been sitting here quietly while someone else tries to torch Gotham?” he asked.
“Yes!” Joker clapped his hands together. “Yes! Exactly! Finally catching up, Detective! This time—and write this down if you need to—I am not your guy.”
“You’re lying.”
“About what?” Joker leaned all his weight into one hand braced against the glass while gesturing with the other. “About sitting here? About not blowing things up lately? About NOT HAVING ANY FUN?! Because let me tell you…” His voice dropped lower than usual—a whisper layered with venom while that grin snapped back into place wider than before: “…if I’d done Blackgate? You wouldn’t be digging bodies out—you’d be picking up pieces smaller than fingernails.”
The silence between them stretched long and thin before Joker broke it again with laughter.
He didn’t respond—not because he believed any part of Joker’s denial but because lies from him weren’t always useless; sometimes they pointed toward truths buried underneath layers of madness even Joker didn’t realize he let slip.
Batman walked out of Arkham without another word. There was nothing left to gain from standing around trading verbal jabs with a lunatic.
He strode through the asylum's service corridors. Outside, the cold bite of Gotham’s night air greeted him as he slipped back into the shadows and made his way to the Batmobile.
The car started with a low growl. He guided it down Arkham's winding access road, pushing thoughts of Joker to the back of his mind for now. Oracle would’ve called if something came up while he was inside—but her silence told its own story: still nothing.
The comm crackled as soon as he hit the bridge leading back into Gotham proper.
“Got anything?” Batman asked without preamble.
“Still working,” Oracle said, the faint clatter of her keyboard was audible in the background. “No new leads yet. I’ve combed through traffic cams, satellite footage… nothing actionable.”
"Keep looking," he said. "Someone left a trail."
"Bruce," she started, hesitating just long enough for him to mark it as unusual. "Nightwing’s at the cave."
Batman frowned and glanced at the dark stretch of road ahead. "Why?"
“I don’t know,” she replied. “He just showed up. Said he needed to talk to you.”
Before Batman could ask more, Dick’s voice cut into the line.
“Hey there,” Nightwing said with just enough levity to be irritating under the circumstances. “Glad to see you’re still taking my calls.”
“This better be important,” Batman said.
“Really? No ‘hello there’ and ‘how’s Blüdhaven?’ You’ve got to work on your bedside manner, Bruce.”
“Talk,” Batman growled.
“Alright. It’s about Blackgate.”
“What do you know?”
“Not here,” Dick said. “We’ll talk when you get back.”
Batman didn’t argue, didn’t push for details over comms where they could be intercepted or distorted by bad signals or worse intentions. Instead, he rerouted toward the cave.
Whatever this was—whatever Nightwing had—it had better be more than theories and guesswork. The clock was ticking too fast for anything less than answers that mattered.