Batman Run-Off [Private] IC

Gotham, a city full of shit, whether it's fake shit, bull shit, crazy shit, or dog shit. You come to Gotham and that's what you're gonna get: everything seems real and nice on the outside, even the people, but all they do is give lies, take money, they're greedy and selfish, can't trust anyone, and on the streets, it's worse, crime is everywhere, whether it's a bank robbery, murder, or just some guy throwing toilet paper at the Wayne Tower. It's chaos, how does one live so close to one of the largest jails in the country and an insane asylum not far away. I guess it's because some people have hope, not many do after what has recently happened, Arkham City being corrupted and all, but they still have Batman and his fellow companions, and they haven't lost hope in them.

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(If you read the plot [Xikari -_-] then you get where this comes from)

It has been some time since Joker got as active as he is now. Before he used to just sit around and have Harley do everything, now that something has turned up, he's out of the clown car, and only because Poison Ivy had brought it to his attention. Some sort of infectious disease around the south entrance of the City has turned up, Ivy found out because her plants were sensing something different in the air. Joker new a lot more of his goons were just getting the flu, a lot more than usual but he paid no attention to it till now. Joker, Ivy and Harley now meet up in an abandoned warehouse to discuss their newly found evidence of this disease.

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A loud roar echo's through the streets of Gotham, a large black blur goes by with a small red one following. The Dark Knight makes his way to downtown to an old abandoned warehouse, a perfect place for planning crimes. This grew of interest when he received more reports of goon activity in the area, today he was going to check it out. He pulled into an alley about a block away from the warehouse, Robin parking behind him. He climbed out and looked around, first down one side of the alley, then the next before turning on the cloaking device for the Batmobile. He looked up at the roof of the building and shot his grappling hook at it, aka the bat-claw. He looked over to Robin, "Let's go," he said as if he had a hair ball in his throat, then hitting the switch and zipping upwards to the roof.

Ivy sighed heavily, her arms crossed as she walked into the abandoned warehouse. She wore a long brown trench coat and matching fedora to cover her signature red hair and green, leafy outfit, just in case. There was a table set up with a few chairs, and she walked over, sitting down in one and shrugging off the jacket and placing the hat on the table. She crossed her slender legs and placed her hands delicately in her lap. “Well, well, well… what are we going to do about this new… poison?” she smirked, unsure of what exactly to call this new product spreading across Gotham, her green eyes narrowed deviously under the dim lighting in the building.

She had agreed to meet up here only because of Harley. Like her little sister, Ivy always looked out for her. Unfortunately, Harley never seemed to go anywhere without the clown unless he tossed her off a roof or out in an alley. Ivy gritted her teeth just thinking about it. She hated that mad, smiling face of his. Hopefully he had some insight into the exact mechanics of this new serum, however. Ivy had yet to get her hands on it, or she’d be able to study it and its effect to a T within a day… easy.

"I've never been too fond of that woman you know that." The man sat in the back of his a car with a tube running into his veins.

"Oh come on Mr. J. She's not that bad." Harley's voice was high pitched and her blonde hair bounced from its pigtails as the car hit a bump in the road.

"You know what they say, every rose, has it's thorns." His words left his lips like a snake. They were so far off from the lyrics of the song if you had heard them from him you likely would have never got the reference.

"Where here!" Harley squealed. Joker didn't say anything but his face winced and he twisted a finger in his ear to regain hearing. His helper left the driver's seat and opened his door. The chair he sat in turned on a system of gears and out of the car. Wheels unfolded from underneath and with the help of Harley it lowed to the ground where she rolled him out and shut the door. "How long do we have to keep this up Mr. J?"

He smacked his lips with his fingers crossed. "It's best we keep it the way it is. I haven't regained all my strength and it would be better for now that everyone thought I was still bed ridden." The truth was the clown hadn't been feeling so sad lately. In fact ever since this "toxin" showed up he was feeling stronger by the day.

The two rolled into the warehouse and a series of lights cut on. The large building stayed rather dark except for the few lights over the handicapped clown. "Hi there. I'd say it's a pleasure to see you but we both know I'd be lying, which is something I do rather well." He began to laugh but it broke into a hard cough.

"I got the lights!" Harley said from the shadows. When the Joker started coughing she ran out of the shadows and knelled by his side, "Are you okay Mr. J?" She asked concerned.

He waved his gloved hand, "I'm fine, I'm fine. Let's get to business shall we? What have your green ones uncovered about this new virus?"

From beside the Bat Mobile a slick red motorcycle with a yellow R on the side sped through the streets. The speedy cycle pulled up quietly behind the large black car and its rider hopped off. Robin looked up at the building with a smirk on his face, he was feeling rather confident that night (despite the vicious viral outbreak in Gotham city), not that that was unusual for him, but he wasn't an arrogant jerk about it. The 16 year old turned the cloaking device Bruce had given him on to insure that no one would discover his motorcycle behind He nodded as Batman said, "Let's go" in his usual rough voice. "Alright" Robin replied in a hushed tone, normally he would use grappling hooks and cables to get himself up like Batman had taught him, but, he wanted to climb. He lept up and place his hand in a good foot hold then pulled himself up, than continued up the side of the building. His cape bellowed behind him upon arriving at the top before Batman. He held his hands behind his head. A black and red pair of goggles hung around his neck he pulled them up to his eyes and peered through the goggles to try and see where the goons were having their meeting. He could see the figures' inside but only by their heat signatures. "It's gotta be a big meeting about that virus that's going around. You know, the one you were talking to Alfred about..."

Ivy raised an eyebrow once the Joker began hacking a lung. Her eyes darted over to Harley as she flicked the lights ones. Ivy squinted for a few moments until her eyes adjusted. She ignored the clown’s question at first and shook her head at Harley attending to the maniacal monster like he was a poor puppy. She sneered for a moment. “Hey Harley,” she said politely before turning her eyes to ‘Mr. J’, her look darkening a bit.

“I doubt I know much more than you do, clown. I know it is airborne and contaminating the food and drinks of Gotham. Apparently it’s undetectable once airborne, but not to me,” she said with a simply, one shoulder shrug. “I have no idea what it’s capable of doing, considering I have no way of feeling the effects firsthand. I need a pure sample to study anything about it,” she grumbled. “Which means I have to get to the source of whatever or whoever produced it. That’s where I was hoping you had some insight,” she said, doubt filling her voice. Sure, the Joker had plenty of goons to do his dirty work, but the clown looked so weak she was surprised he hadn’t been killed in his sleep yet. Then again, Harley probably watched him 24/7… wouldn’t want anything to happen to her ‘puddin’’. “If you get me a pure sample, all our questions will be answered. You know no one knows a good toxin like I do,” she smirked, running a hand through her hair.

Batman continued to stare at the warehouse in the distance, the vision in his mask showing 3 bodies within, one in a wheelchair, probably Joker but no way to tell for sure. "Maybe, but we don't know for sure yet, why would they have interest in such a virus?" He crouched down, his charcoal black cape flailing over him and part of the roof as he watched with intent, trying to figure out his best way to the warehouse without arising suspicion. "We'll go quietly, don't confront," he leaped off the building hard, his muscles in his legs straining the suit a bit as if it was too small. He extended his cape and started a slow decent and glide towards the warehouse roof, slightly lower than the one they were on.

"Hmmm." The joker said thinking. "Perhaps we follow the people of the Gotham to the source. Those at the source would have gotten sick first, or even be suffering more." He thought about it. What he said was absolute bull. If the virus had been released in a small area, sure what he said would work. But the virus from what he knew, was throughout Gotham. An airborne pathogen could have spread through the city in a couple of hours and would nearly be untraceable.

"I could break into the security network." Harley suggested with a thumb pointed upward. "If someone released the virus in the city that was capable of spreading surely they needed a machine of some sort and a big one too. Thing is watching the hundreds of cameras and the hours of recording would take ages by myself. Honestly it's a task worthy of henchmen but those morons wouldn't be able to tell a fly from a bat."

"And a bat is indeed something to look out for." He didn't make it obvious but his fingers were counting down. He knew what would happen next.

Ivy rolled her eyes at Joker’s suggestion, not finding it helpful in the least. Ivy listened to Harley though and nodded a bit. She could be right… the source could have had a machine to disperse the virus over the city. It would make sense, though there could be other ways of getting it around and going after such a machine could just be a colossal waste of time. Ivy sighed and rubbed her temples, hearing Joker mention something about a bat. Her eyes narrowed and she gritted her teeth a bit.

“Don’t even talk about him. It’s almost like he can just hear when people speak about him,” she growled. Ivy looked back over to Harley and tucked her hair behind her ear before speaking. “The idea of finding out if any machine capable of dispersing this serum into the air has been stolen or even brought into Gotham is a start. Just don’t spend so much time on that road that we get distracted from any other possibilities. After all, there are many ways to release something to create biological warfare,” she said. “It could have been used as an herbicide to get in our foods, it could have been sent through the mail and just gotten in the air, it could have been carried into by someone who didn’t even realize from somewhere else entirely. So many possibilities and we have to determine the source before anyone else,” she said, slamming her fist down on the table, causing it to rock a bit. After a second to calm down, she sighed heavily as if tired and stood up from the table though her fingertips still rested on it.

“I’ll be paying a visit to some… old friends soon. I’ll see what information they can get me without exposing our agreement,” she said with a small smile, reaching over to grab her trenchcoat.

That was indeed an excellent question, why would they be interested in such a virus. But Robin personally thought it was obvious. Anything that was harming the people of Gotham was worth the villains' time of course, surely the brilliant Bruce Wayne already knew that. Still, Robin said not a word as he dropped the goggles from his hands and let them hang around his neck once again. "We'll go quietly, don't confront," Batman leaped off the building, Robin followed suit, leaping from roof to roof with ease until jumping high into the air, flipping a few times and landing silently on the warehouse rooftop. He knew they were expected, but Batman had an idea of what they were going to do, so he simply stayed quiet despite every instinct to go and fight.

Batman crept on the rooftop, crouched low as he tried to be as silent as possible. He made his way to a glass opening on the roof, listening to the conversation, he heard that Harely was going to hack into the security network and Ivy was going to visit a friend of hers. He looked over to Robin in a whisper, "Keep Harley busy, stop her from finding anything useful on the network," knowing that Robin was an excellent hacker on his own, "And tell Nightwing I want him to keep an eye on Ivy for me, don't want her to get a hand on this virus." Batman didn't know what this virus could do, to him it was just a strong flu and the doctors hadn't figured a cure, if Joker and Ivy were interested then there was for sure trouble ahead. "I'll keep a watch on Joker, don't want to intervene as we could use what they learn, rather than going in blind," he scooted away from the glass and zip lined back to the previous building, knowing Robin was probably upset about not fighting but it was for the better and wiser.