The Dark Knight Legend

by Stacia Deutsch

  Batman explained to Dent what he needed to do. “You’re going to call a press conference. Tomorrow morning.”

  “Why?” Dent asked.

  “No one else will die because of me,” Batman said. “Gotham is in your hands now.”

  “You can’t! You can’t give in!” Dent shouted, but his words merely echoed off the walls in the abandoned basement. Once again, Batman had disappeared like a shadow in the night.

  Rachel went to Bruce’s penthouse. When Bruce got home, Rachel stood with him outside on the balcony.

  “Harvey just called,” she said. “He says Batman’s going to turn himself in.”

  “I have no choice,” he sighed.

  “You honestly think it’s going to stop the Joker?” Rachel stared at him as if he’d lost his mind.

  Bruce turned to look at her. “Perhaps not, but I’ve got enough blood on my hands. I’ve seen, now, what I would have to become to stop men like him.” He paused. “You once told me that if the day came when I was finished”—Bruce took a step closer to Rachel—“we’d be together.”

  “Bruce, don’t make me your one hope for a normal life.”

  He pulled her into his arms. “Did you mean it?” he asked very simply.

  “Yes,” Rachel replied before stepping away. But she knew that things would never be normal. She couldn’t marry Bruce, no matter how much she wanted to. She needed to marry Harvey Dent. Let Gotham have Batman. It was the right thing to do. For everyone.

  NINETEEN

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Harvey Dent began the press conference, “thank you for coming. The Joker’s killings will now come to an end, because Batman has offered to turn himself in.”

  “So where is he?” a reporter called out.

  Bruce Wayne began to step forward when Dent turned to the officers and said, “Take the Batman into custody.” Dent offered up his own wrists to the officers. “I am the Batman.”

  Cuffed, head held high, Harvey Dent allowed himself to be ushered out of the chaotic pressroom. He walked right past Bruce Wayne, who was staring at him, shocked and confused.

  Rachel could not believe what had happened! Harvey Dent was being arrested for claiming to be Batman. It wasn’t true. She hurried to the pressroom, where Dent was being shuttled into a police van.

  Dent smiled as Rachel approached. The escorting officers allowed the two of them to have a moment together.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t have time to talk this through with you.” Dent explained his plan. He was anticipating that the Joker would make an attempt to get to him while the police transferred him to Central Holding. “This is the Joker’s chance, and when he attacks, Batman will take him down,” he told Rachel.

  “Don’t offer yourself as bait, Harvey,” Rachel pleaded. “This is too dangerous.”

  Dent grinned and, looping his cuffed hands around her neck, pulled her in for a kiss. “I have an idea,” he said. Then, pulling back his hands, he reached down into his pocket. Dent pulled out his lucky silver dollar. “Heads, I go through with it.”

  “This is your life,” Rachel chastised him. “You don’t leave something like this to chance.”

  “I’m not.” Dent tossed the coin to Rachel. She caught it and opened her hand. It was heads. As the van’s doors closed and it slipped into place in a long line of police-car escorts, Rachel turned the coin over in her hand.

  Heads on both sides.

  Rachel watched the convoy pull away. “You make your own luck,” she murmured to herself.

  In the rear of the police van, Dent sat with SWAT in full protective gear. When the van began to slow, he knew he’d been right; the Joker was going to attack.

  Suddenly, a huge truck smashed into the front of the armored car.

  The Joker was hanging out the back door as he fired a rocket launcher at the van.

  Blam!

  He hit a nearby police car instead. It exploded.

  Through the debris, a dark form appeared. It crashed through the blast with a blast of its own.

  Batman had arrived.

  The Batmobile slammed through traffic, aimed at rescuing Harvey Dent.

  The Joker turned, pointed his weapon at Batman, and fired.

  A direct hit. The rear of the Batmobile burst into flames and spun out of control. The Batmobile flipped over and over, finally coming to rest in a smoldering heap.

  From the wreckage of the Batmobile, the motorcycle-like Bat-Pod shot forward. The sleek vehicle cleared the churning wreckage of the Batmobile and set off after the armored van and the Joker’s truck.

  When he reached striking distance, Batman fired a harpoon. It caught the truck just below the bumper. Batman zoomed ahead, wrapping the cables attached to the harpoon around a lamppost.

  The cable forced the speeding truck to flip end over end. From beneath the twisted metal, the Joker crawled out. He rushed into the road, placing himself directly in the path of the oncoming Bat-Pod.

  Batman swerved. The Bat-Pod slipped off the road and slammed at full force into a large brick wall. Batman lay motionless in the street.

  The Joker walked over and reached for Batman’s black cowl, ready to unmask the injured vigilante. An electric shock shot out from the mask and made him pull back.

  As the Joker crouched lower toward Batman, the armored van skidded to a stop by the side of the road. The driver jumped out of the van, weapon raised.

  “Got you!” the driver announced, pulling off his SWAT helmet to reveal himself. It was Lieutenant Gordon.

  The rear of the van opened, and Harvey Dent came rushing forward. “Back from the dead?”

  “I couldn’t chance my family’s safety.”

  Dent nodded; respect showed in his eyes.

  Gordon shoved the Joker into the back of a waiting squad car and drove off to MCU. Dent rode home with Detective Wuertz.

  Batman managed to get on the Bat-Pod and drove away.

  The Joker was under arrest.

  TWENTY

  Barbara Gordon turned off the TV to answer the doorbell. When she saw her husband standing on the stoop, she started to sob.

  They held each other a short while before little James came out of his room. “Did Batman save you, Dad?” James Gordon Jr. asked, rushing into his father’s open arms.

  Gordon lifted his son tenderly and said, “Actually, this time I saved him.”

  The phone rang, and Barbara went to answer it. “It’s for you,” she said, handing her husband the phone. “Commissioner Gordon.”

  Jim grinned as he reached for the phone, knowing that with Loeb gone, he was being promoted to the head of Gotham’s police department.

  Gordon moved through a room of detectives crowded in the observation room. They all wanted to talk to him and congratulate him.

  It took a few more minutes than he’d wanted, but when he finally reached the holding cell, he knew exactly what he needed to do. There was a new problem, and he was certain that the Joker was involved.

  He stormed into the room and told the Joker, “Harvey Dent never made it home.”

  “Of course not,” the Joker replied.

  Gordon surveyed the man’s pasty white makeup and snarled purple jacket. His detectives had told him they were having difficulty identifying who the Joker really was. But his identity wasn’t Gordon’s primary concern; finding Dent was.

  “What have you done with him?”

  The Joker laughed. “Me? I was right here. Who did you leave him with? Your people? Assuming of course they are your people. . . .”

  “Where is he?” Gordon asked, his patience fraying.

  Leaning back in the cold metal chair, the Joker looked at his wrist, as if he were checking a watch. “What time is it?” he asked.

  “What difference does that make?” Gordon asked.

  The new commissioner walked out, intentionally leaving the room unguarded.


  Flick!

  The overhead lights came on. “Where’s Dent?” Batman’s voice exploded in the small, closed room.

  The Joker started laughing.

  Batman asked another question: “Why do you want to kill me?”

  Now the Joker was laughing so hard it sounded like crying. “Kill you? I don’t want to kill you. What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, you . . .” He pointed at Batman. “You. Complete. Me.”

  Batman shook his head. “You’re garbage who kills for money.”

  The Joker replied, “We’re exactly the same. And as soon as the chips are down, people will turn against you. To them, you are a freak like me. They need you right now. But as soon as they don’t, they’ll cast you out like a leper.”

  “I’m not a monster,” Batman countered. “I’m just ahead of the curve.” With that, Batman grabbed the Joker and pulled him upright. “Where’s Dent?” In one swing he tossed the Joker against the wall.

  The Joker didn’t even groan. Instead he picked himself up, saying, “You live by society’s rules, and you think they’ll save your soul.”

  “I only have one rule.” Batman grabbed the Joker by his neck. “No one dies by my hand.”

  “Tonight you’re going to break your one rule,” the Joker replied.

  Tightening his grip on the Joker’s throat, Batman leaned in closer to his face. “I’m considering it.”

  The Joker choked out his next sentence. “There are just minutes left, so you’ll have to play my little game if you want to save”—he paused a beat—“one of them.”

  “Them?” Batman realized that the Joker had Dent and Rachel!

  “Where are they?” Batman bellowed.

  “You will now choose one life over the other.” The Joker grinned as he laid out the options. “Dent is at Two-fifty Fifty-second Boulevard, and Rachel is on Avenue X at Cicero.” The Joker raised his eyebrows, challenging Batman to pick one.

  Batman could only stare at the Joker, furious at this terrible game he was playing.

  Rachel or Harvey Dent. Who would he save?

  Batman gave the Joker one last swift kick in the side and hurried out into the night.

  Soon after, the Joker made his one permitted phone call. It was linked to a cell phone that triggered a bomb in the basement of MCU.

  The Joker was now free.

  Rachel Dawes was alone in an abandoned warehouse. She was tied to a chair, scared, but hopeful that she would soon be rescued.

  “Can anyone hear me?” she called out into the empty space.

  “Rachel, is that you?” It was Dent. Rachel struggled against the ropes that were holding her. She couldn’t move. Looking around, squinting in the blackness, she spotted the source of the voice. A small speaker was on the ground. Rachel discovered something else, too. Behind the speaker stood metal barrels hooked to a car battery and a clock. The timer read five minutes.

  Rachel started to cry.

  Dent spoke softly, comforting her. “It’s OK, Rachel. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

  Harvey Dent was also tied to a chair, across town from Rachel. He shoved his feet on the ground, hard and firm. His chair turned slightly.

  Slam.

  Now he could see his surroundings better.

  He saw metal barrels, a car battery, and a timer that read three-fifteen. Counting down.

  Dent dragged his chair, inches at a time, across the cold cement floor. “Look for something to free yourself,” he told Rachel as he struggled to reach the barrels and the battery. He was close when his chair suddenly caught a ridge in the floor, and Harvey Dent toppled over, slamming into a barrel and spilling gasoline onto the floor.

  “Harvey? What’s happening?” Rachel called out.

  Harvey couldn’t move. The left side of his face was pressed into the floor, drenched in gas. . . .

  “They said only one of us was going to make it. They’d let our friends choose.” Rachel sighed. “Harvey,” she said, as the seconds clicked away, “I want you to know something.”

  Dent was choking on fuel. “They’re coming for you, Rachel,” he assured her. “It’s OK. Everything’s going to be just fine.”

  Ten seconds remained.

  “I don’t want to live without you. Because I do have an answer, and my answer is yes,” Rachel said.

  Wham!

  The solid basement door smashed open. With seconds to spare, Batman rushed inside only to find Dent, not Rachel.

  The Joker had lied. Batman should have known. Batman was good at games, but his emotions had gotten the better of him and he hadn’t thought it through.

  Now Batman could only hope Commissioner Gordon had reached Rachel in time.

  The counter hit five seconds. Batman grabbed Dent.

  “No! Not me!” Dent shrieked. “Why did you come for me?”

  Over the loudspeaker Harvey Dent could hear Rachel’s last words before the explosion ripped through the warehouse.

  Back in his apartment, Bruce had taken off the Batman uniform and had collapsed into a chair. Nothing had gone the way he’d hoped. Rachel was gone. He wanted to give up.

  Alfred handed Batman’s mask to Bruce, saying, “Gotham needs you.”

  “Gotham needs its hero,” Bruce replied. “And I let the Joker send him to the hospital.” Bruce couldn’t shake off the images of Harvey Dent being taken away in an ambulance.

  “Which is why for now they’ll have to do with you.” Alfred handed Batman’s cowl to Bruce. Reluctantly, Bruce accepted the black mask, searching in its empty eyes for greater meaning.

  At Gotham General Hospital, Commissioner Gordon entered Harvey Dent’s room.

  “I’m sorry about Rachel,” Gordon said softly, then waited patiently for Dent to reply. But Dent said nothing. He kept his face turned away. “The doctor says you are in agonizing pain but won’t accept medication. That you’re refusing skin grafts. . . .”

  Dent interrupted Gordon, not commenting on the medication but asking a question instead. “Remember that name you all had for me years ago, when I was at Internal Affairs? What was it, Gordon?”

  “Harvey, I can’t—” Gordon protested. It wasn’t a very nice name.

  “Say it!” Dent shrieked. His voice echoed off the walls.

  Commissioner Gordon was embarrassed that his team had ever called Harvey Dent names behind his back. “Two-Face,” he said softly. “Harvey Two-Face.”

  Dent turned in his hospital bed, showing Gordon his two faces. His right side was normal, but the left . . . the left side of his face was hideously burned. Gordon gasped.

  “Why should I hide who I am?” Dent asked, his voice bitter and scathing.

  Gordon took a deep breath and apologized from his heart. “I’m sorry, Harvey.”

  Harvey Dent would never accept Gordon’s apology. “No, you’re not,” he responded. “Not yet.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  A voice attracted Bruce and Alfred to the TV. “We have with us today a lawyer for a prestigious consultancy. He says he waited as long as he could for the Batman to do the right thing. But now he’s taking matters into his own hands. We’ll be live at five with the true identity of the Batman—stay with us.”

  After a short commercial break, the host began taking viewer calls for the lawyer.

  An old lady came on the line. “Mr. Reese,” she asked. “What’s more valuable? One life or a hundred?”

  The lawyer didn’t hesitate. “I guess it would depend on the life.”

  But the caller wasn’t an old lady at all. It was the Joker. “I’m glad you feel that way. Because I’ve put a bomb in one of the city’s hospitals. It’s going off in sixty minutes unless someone kills you. I had a vision of a world without Batman. And it was so . . . boring.”

  The line went dead.

  At MCU, Commissioner Gordon shouted to anyone within hea
ring range, “Call in every officer! The priority is Gotham General Hospital. Wheel everybody out of that place right now. My hunch is that’s where the bomb is.”

  “Why Gotham General?” Detective Murphy asked.

  Gordon took a deep breath. “Because that’s where Harvey Dent is.”

  The police rushed to the hospital to help patients, nurses, and doctors evacuate. They were being loaded onto local school buses to be taken to safe spots throughout the city.

  The Joker laughed as he walked slowly through the empty halls, pressing the large red button on a detonator. Blasts exploded behind him, one after another like the steady beats of a drum. Grinning madly, the Joker strolled out of the hospital and onto one of the crowded school buses.

  After igniting one last enormous explosion, he gave a thumbs-up to the bus driver.

  The hijacked bus merged into traffic and headed off to the next stop, where the Joker’s full day of fun would continue.

  During the chaos at the hospital, Harvey Dent walked out and went straight to the warehouse at 250 Fifty-second Boulevard. He would always consider the place Rachel’s tomb.

  A glitter in the burned-out wreckage caught his eye. Harvey Dent bent low and picked up his silver dollar. On one side, the face had a charred scar across it from the explosion. Dent flipped the coin over in his hand. Ironically, the other side looked as good as new.

  As Dent rubbed the coin between his fingers, anger, frustration, and sorrow consumed him until he could no longer think clearly. He would get revenge on those who had failed to save Rachel. He’d get his justice.

  Bruce Wayne had secretly been supporting the development of a sonar tracker. The technology allowed Bruce to spy on every cell phone user in the city.

  He asked Lucius Fox to monitor the machine and help him locate the Joker.

  Fox refused. “Spying on thirty million people wasn’t in my job description.”