Re: Joker/Batman: In person at the Science Building
[It wasn't repulsion that turned violent in Batman's stomach, like a thing caroming off fascia and abdominal wall and ricocheting back empty to its cavity. But, surely, it was something, even if the man couldn't put his finger on it. It wasn't an ache either. It was shooting, sudden pain that electrified muscles and organs in contraction reaction, and for the first time in hours, the smile frozen on his lips faltered—faltered—but did not fail.
He took the compliment, of difference. Here he was, Batman, gore-covered, his vision of Gotham—well, it was a lot like the professor's. The one who blew his brains out on the wall over there. Explosive, destructive, a ruin. Of course he was different. But the clown was correct, he was as well. Younger. Deadly in a way flower's squirting acid onto faces wasn't.—Batman stepped closer to the podium, to the man with hands clasped together; he stepped over the wreckage of the skull, bone crunching under heel.
Again, twitching muscles dropped the death's grin, and the scowl that came through was all Wayne. But worse was the chemical reaction of rage, two potent elements—Wayne and al Ghul—in veins and shaken violently, and Damian could see the faces of children gone waxy, bloodless, and lax, all an afterimage seared—neurons firing to occipital lobe in a frenzy.
What had he done?—He came back to himself in pieces, slowly, but nothing could stop him from driving forward, his still-bloodied hand wrapping inextricably tight around Joker's throat, compressing carotid artery beneath fingers.] Oh, I'll kill you—[There was no more valor in the eyes that were a torrid sol. It was hatred and nothing more.] I'll crush you.