Renee was alone in a dark room, shivering with cold. There was no trace of Batgirl in her mind; for now she had only one identity. She only wore a tank top and a pair of shorts, and wished that she had something more. The room was very cold, and very dark.
Footsteps came from somewhere both far away and very near. Renee started, and turned in their direction. It couldn’t be happening again, she thought, after all this time. She was over it.
But Renee felt no surprise when Barbara walked toward her in the darkness, her face in a pool of light that did not spread into the rest of the darkness. Renee swallowed hard, finding that she could not speak, even when she tried to. Barbara was silent as well, but something was different about her. She had only just gotten close enough for Renee to see the shape of her shoulders, her arms in the near-darkness, reaching forward to embrace her, and Renee reached back…but Barbara was changing, her skin going lighter, the frame slimmer, changing smoothly into another familiar red-haired face—
Renee woke with a start in her bed, the covers strewn everywhere but over her. She sat up quickly, pushing them to the side and smoothing the hair away from her face. It had been a long time since she’d had that dream.
She didn’t have time to think over what it meant, to analyze the ways that it was different than it had been before. Now that she was up, there was work that had to be done.
There was a strangely eerie feeling around Gotham that morning, and Renee could not be caught off-guard.
*****
In the darkest room of the small, musty apartment, Jonathan Crane awoke and treasured the thought that today, at last, was the day. Today, after so many years of waiting, after countless tests, experiments that had shaken him to his very core, it was finally time to see the fruits of his labor. Today was the day that his entire life had been leading up to.
He had been quite busy, since he had returned to Gotham City. His life’s work, his prized chemical was finished, but it had still remained to find a way of distributing it. Should he send it through the sewers, to waft up into the streets? Or off the tallest buildings, to rain down on the unsuspecting city? A thin smile crept across Crane’s long face as he thought back. In the end, he couldn’t resist either option. He had spent the last week sowing the seeds wherever he could.
Crane dressed very carefully that morning, in a clean and pressed brown suit, tailored exactly to his lanky form. He hesitated for only a moment before taking out the mask that he had made. It was a simple thing, but unaccountably chilling—a mere piece of burlap with holes cut in for the eyes that seemed to stare right through anyone it saw. An ancient straw hat completed his ensemble, and Crane stared at his reflection in the grubby mirror.
A blotchy flush was coming to his pale cheeks as he thought of going out in public like this. He decided to stay inside, at least until his chemical began to work its magic, so that he could for once in his life avoid the stares. Once it was working, they would all be far too occupied to stare.
As an afterthought, Crane took out a small device and put it into his pocket. It was possible that he had become immune to the chemical after so much time spent perfecting it, but he would rather not take too much of a chance. With a final surge of anticipation and excitement, Crane finally picked the small control off of his table, and pressed the big red button.
He thought he could hear the hiss of a hundred small canisters, each opened by the remote and distributing their toxic gas all around the city. Jonathan Crane laughed in triumph, and wished it would never end.
*****
Poison Ivy may have been the first to notice something wrong, even if she couldn’t put a finger on what it was. She was out in her garden for the morning, and looked up suddenly. Standing quite still, Ivy tried to identify the uneasy feeling that had just come into her head. She had never had a reason before to distrust her instincts. Something must be wrong.
A cold shiver ran down Ivy’s back, but no threat was in sight. Her pale brow wrinkled as she thought, trying to find some source of the feeling, but she was as alone in her garden, as usual. Ivy stood slowly, cautiously heading back into the little house.
She wasn’t alone in her unease. On the nearby streets and sidewalks, people were stopping to look around when they left their homes. Some pedestrians were walking slowly, looking behind themselves every few steps; some drivers were racing down the streets, anxious to get back indoors. Small children cried for their parents' arms, and many of the city’s workers took the day off to remain home with their families.
Something was wrong. And all over Gotham, people were beginning to feel it.
*****
The eerie feeling drifted through the air, even to the quiet and secure streets in the better part of the city. Despite the early hour, Barbara Gordon was already awake when her phone rang. “Hey.”
“Hey Babs.”
There was a pause, as Barbara waited for Renee to say more, but no words were coming. “You okay?”
“I don’t know.” Renee sighed into the phone, curled up in a chair in her own apartment. “Something feels…”
“Off?”
“You know what I mean? We don’t have ‘bat-senses’ or anything, do we?”
Barbara chuckled, but was suddenly aware of the tight, uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t think so…Do you want to come over?” she asked suddenly.
“Yeah,” Renee answered, just as quickly. “Yeah, I think I could use the company.”
“Don’t forget your suit, though. Bat-senses or no, something tells me you’re gonna need it.”
Renee hung up the phone, the short conversation enough to set her even more on-edge. Despite the workout and coffee that had made her alert, her dream was still hanging over her head. She tried another time to shake it away, but the cold, empty room wouldn’t leave her.
“I’m over that,” she told herself firmly, sweeping her hair away from her face. “It’s done.”
But as she stepped out the door into Gotham, she couldn’t get rid of the nagging doubt. Something was very wrong.
*****
In the less prestigious parts of town, the people were even worse off. Harley Quinn looked out the blood bank window to watch a fight that had broken out in the streets. Three men had banded together against a fourth, and the circle of people around them was shouting and cheering, their frenzied energy lifting the gloom for a brief moment.
Harley stood at the windowsill watching, and before very long the footsteps and sudden heat behind her told her that the Joker had wanted to see the show as well. He laughed uproariously as the lone fighter decked one of his opponents, and Harley smiled to herself.
“Can you feel it, Harley?” She jumped a little to hear his soft voice in her ear. “There’s something wonderful in the air.”
“Something…yeah, yeah I feel it!” She said with a bright smile, although ‘wonderful’ was not the word she would have used. ‘Scary’ or ‘creepy’ might have been better choices, but the Joker didn’t need to know that she felt that way.
The Joker grinned his pointed grin, and Harley was happy. “Yer in such a good mood today, Puddin’,” she said to him, her own smile growing.
“It’d be better without you around.”
Harley blinked and shook her head, sure that she had not seen the glare that she thought she had. “What was that?”
“Better than I’ve been in months!” Joker repeated, stepping back up to the window, and Harley breathed a sigh. “The birds are singing, the sun is shining, the bums are fighting in the streets.” Joker paused for a moment before lightly touching her chin and giving her a smile. “And I have my Harley back home where she belongs.”
“Aww, Puddin’.” She gave him a sappy grin, and must have imagined his eyes rolling slightly.
“Now come on Harley, back to work,” said Joker, turning away into the room as the fight below started to break up. “A good plan takes diligence and preparation! Not a useless little cow jingling her bells.”
Harley stopped short and Joker kept on walking toward his workshop. He turned back around to look at her, this time with annoyance. “What is it?”
Her bright eyes were blinking and squinting. “What did you say, Mister J?”
“I said go get me a drink you stupid bitch!”
“What?” She cried, wide-eyed and teary.
“What?” he replied, throwing up his hands. “What did I say? All I said was get me a drink from the kitchen!”
“No, you said…you called me…” Harley couldn’t bring herself to repeat the words, but the alarm and—did she really see it?—worry in his face brought her slowly back to coherence.
The Joker looked her over with his eyes narrowed in confusion. There was obviously something strange going on—normal old commands were not enough to merit this kind of reaction. But he had work that he had to do. He didn’t have the time or energy to waste consoling her. “Oh forget it then.” He turned his back to Harley and went off for his work, leaving her staring at him, and leaving an unwelcome, uneasy feeling in his chest.
*****
By noon, Crane deemed it safe to leave his apartment and venture into the city to see his dream come true. He had been pacing the floor for hours, unable to decide if he should wear the mask or not. He had been rather proud of the effect the first time he wore it, but there was always that fear of ridicule. His fist clenched in his pocket. The time to be afraid had passed long ago. This was his day.
He steeled his face and put on the mask, and then opened his door. The dingy, dark hallway would be the perfect place to ease the Scarecrow into public. Still he almost jumped when another door opened, and his neighbor stepped out into the hall.
The man took one look at Crane and stepped back into his doorway. “What the hell? What is this, who are you?” he asked, and Crane shivered with joy to see him start to panic.
“Fear,” he croaked, drawing a small pellet from his front pocket. When the long fingers crunched down, the shell cracked, and the colorless, odorless gas rushed for the stranger’s lungs.
The neighbor started to run back inside, but his eyes went out of focus, widening in terror at a sight that only he could see. “No…No don’t, oh God, no! No, NOOO!” He slid to the ground, shaking and screaming. Jonathan Crane smiled.
It was with hope and excitement that the Scarecrow left down the stairs, leaving the other man trapped in his worst nightmare.
*****
Across town, surrounded by her favorite poisons and deadly plants, Ivy was not faring well. She had paced around her home fervently until she could no longer stand, and now she sat curled tightly onto her chair. Her fingers shook as she tried to wipe the sweat away from her brow, and every time she tried to look around she felt dizzy.
It had to be poison. There was no other explanation, not for the effect that was spreading through the entire city, though Ivy wracked her brain to find another option. Poison didn’t affect her—most poison. When she’d started to figure out her powers after the accident, she’d discovered that no natural toxin could harm her. Nearly everything that she’d come across would have some essence of former plant life; it had seemed impossible to create a poison that was entirely man-made.
But this must be it. The strangest things were beginning to affect her, and Ivy kept her eyes tightly closed. She felt sick, but more so, she felt afraid. Horribly afraid. Her stomach was in a tight knot, and she knew that the worst was coming, the most awful thing she had ever dreaded.
And then Ivy opened her eyes, to find herself in new surroundings.
She looked around. Instead of her home, she saw a vast, dry desert. In every direction was tan and brown, rocks and sand and gravel. She was still curled on the ground as she had been sitting, but the small comfort of her own house was gone. She was alone, among miles and miles of sand—and then she saw the buildings in the distance. Before long she could see them all around her, a city in the sand. Her city, Gotham City…but without any trees. Her park was missing, replaced by only empty pavement. The grass that lined the better sidewalks had gone. There were no gardens in any windows, no bushes or shrubs, no plant life of any kind, even as the city grew bigger around her.
Phantom people went about their daily business, and Poison Ivy stared in horror at this world without flora. “No….No, how could this happen?” she whispered, though no one heard her. “All my efforts…all my work…and this….”
The thought never occurred to her that what she saw was not reality. A few hot tears splashed onto the ground as Ivy broke down in her nightmare.
*****
She never arrived at Barbara’s house. Only a few minutes after walking out the door, Renee was called into action. She was still close enough to her house to duck back inside when she had to become Batgirl. And now, hours later, she still hadn’t gotten the chance to change back. It was all she could do to get a minute’s worth of time to call Barbara, before another emergency broke out.
Renee didn’t understand it. Never in her entire crime-fighting career had there been this much to do this quickly. She had run from one tense, terrified situation to another—attempted suicides, lethal-looking fights, people screaming, people crying, people only lying in the streets, horrified of nothing.
And Renee’s own fear was bubbling up in her stomach, making every job harder. Each time she walked past a sewer gate, another burst of anxiety hit her, and soon Renee was angrily shaking her head every few minutes, trying to get it away.
“I can’t do this,” she said to herself, as another wave of panic ran through her body.
Renee had been fighting crime in different ways since the age of sixteen, when she’d worked taking calls and getting coffee in the police station. In the six years that had followed, she had never once backed down from her duty. She had never let fear, pain, injury, heartbreak or anything else get in the way of her job.
But as the edges of her vision started to black out, and she felt herself sob, Renee tore off her cowl and gave up. She barely managed to stumble into an alleyway and pull on her street clothes before sprinting for Barbara’s apartment, needing her friend to get her back on her feet.
Renee didn’t know that Barbara Gordon was feeling the same effects as the rest of Gotham city, and had more than enough problems of her own.
*****
Barbara Gordon had always been called fearless. Whether she had been diving headfirst into any new opportunity, or dodging bullets and knives in the dark of night, or only reaching out to new friends without any thought of being hurt, Barbara had never been afraid for herself. She took risks that would have made the bravest balk, as long as her own life and limb were on the line.
And then suddenly, there had been other people involved. First there was Flamebird, and for the first time, Barbara had been truly afraid. Dick and Dinah she had worried for, but each night that she sent Bette out she was terrified, from time to time convinced that she had failed as a teacher, and that her failing would have dire consequences.
And before long, Renee had joined her little team, and Barbara’s fear had doubled. She’d watched the way her new protégé behaved—fearless and daring, just like her. And the weight on her shoulders grew heavier. Then there were Outsiders, and then there were Titans. So many souls under her command, so many who could be hurt so badly if she failed.
And after all that time, her fears were coming true.
There, right in her own apartment, Bette had died. Barbara was on her knees and shaking by the body, still new enough to be warm. Bette stared up with vacant eyes at the woman who had trained her, taught her, looked out for her, and finally failed her. Barbara’s trembling hand stroked some of the hair from her face. She didn’t even know what had killed the girl, only that it was her fault. If Bette had only stayed away from crime-fighting, or had a better teacher, or any number of other ways that she could be alive.
Before long, another tragedy struck. There was a spark of hope in her heart when she heard the window open, but that spark went out quickly when Renee staggered in through the window.
“Babs…” she croaked, and then collapsed, a trickle of blood leaking from her mouth.
“NO!” Barbara lunged, but fell over her broken legs, helpless as her partner, her protégé, her closest friend lay dying only a few feet away. She had to watch Renee go still, until one more she was alone with dead friends, with only her guilt and terror to keep her company.
They couldn’t be dead. If they were dead, it was because of her. Because she had caused it. If they were dead, she had killed them.
Denial and despair fought in her heart until nothing else could get in, and she lay on the floor shaking and sobbing, left helpless in the face of real fear.
*****
Harley stayed in what served for their kitchen alone, wondering what she could have done to upset her Joker. She’d been working so hard to be good, to keep him happy and to do well. Something must be wrong, she thought. He’d never spoken that way to her, not even the last time he had been mad. And she knew she’d seen worry in his eyes, she knew that he cared for her, whether he really admitted it or not.
So when Joker walked back in with that glint in his eye, Harley didn’t know whether to be afraid or hopeful. Something about the day, and the sinking feeling in her stomach pushed her toward fear. But she tried to smile brightly. “Hi, Puddin’…I got that drink like you wanted,” she said, holding out a sweating glass.
He smacked it out of her hand and the glass shattered on the floor. Wincing, Harley stepped back away from him, unable to tear her eyes away from the hatred in his smile.
“Look what you’ve done, Harley,” he said softly. “How could you be such a simpleton? How could you make me waste my time on you?”
“I’m sorry, Puddin’, I—“
“Just shut up!” His hand came across her face, and Harley did nothing to stop it. “I’ve had it up to here with you and your whining little apologies! You’re useless, Harley. You’re a mistake, and you’re a waste of my time.”
She looked up at him from the ground in disbelief. “But Mister J—“
His foot jabbed into her stomach and ripped a scream from her throat.
When she started to cry he kicked her harder, until Harley was curled on the floor and sobbing, begging him to stop and only earning more of his hatred. It felt like hours had gone by before he grabbed the front of her shirt and pulled her up to look at him.
“I never loved you,” he hissed, and shoved her back down. That was the final straw.
“Nooooo!” Harley wailed, pounding the floor with her fist. “It’s not true! I know he loves me, I know it! It isn’t true, it isn’t real, no, no, no!”
And suddenly he was gone. Harley sat up shaking from head to toe, the bells on her hat ringing incessantly. She looked around to see the shattered glass close by, but there were no marks on her. None of the injuries that she should have had were there. It hadn’t happened.
Harley sobbed in relief and fell back to the floor, breathing hard and wiping tears away, and too full of emotion to wonder why she had seen what she just had.
*****
Meanwhile, only a few doors away, the Joker had heard nothing. He was having enough trouble concentrating with this fog in his brain, and that irritating darkness around the edge of his vision. It didn’t unduly bother him, though. The Joker was used to his various madnesses, and this was just a particularly unhelpful one.
Even so, it was bothersome. He thought he may have heard Harley say something, but he couldn’t be sure, with the amount of buzzing and noise in his ears. His eyes narrowed and closed, and he tried to blink away the scene that was swimming before his eyes. It seemed quite tame, for a hallucination, but it was fighting to draw him in, and finally the Joker was just too curious to keep resisting. He placed his pen back on his small desk, put up his feet, and leaned back in his chair with eyes closed to see what it was.
He was on a crowded street, with people milling all around him, some walking past, a couple bumping into him. None seemed to notice the mass-murderer who had fallen into their midst.
“Watch where you’re going!” Someone shouted at him, to Joker’s indignation.
“Don’t you know who I am?” he called back threateningly, but whoever had spoken was long gone.
And it hit him exactly what this scene was meant to be. He stopped still on the street, earning more glares and mutters. As more and more people walked by, he held up his hand to make sure. Yes, his skin was still deathly white, his distinctive appearance hadn’t changed.
But the people of Gotham had. They didn’t recognize the man who had caused so much wonderful terror. They only walked by, absolutely uninterested in him.
No one knew who he was. No one feared him.
As someone else set off an explosion in a nearby building, the crowd shrieked and stared, and the Joker was only a face among them.
“That should be me!” he shouted, pointing up angrily at the masked man standing in the blasted hole.
But no one was listening.
*****
Renee burst into Barbara’s apartment to find her shaking on the floor, fallen from her chair and blinded by tears.
“Babs!” She ran over and knelt beside the redhead, feeling for a pulse. The fear didn’t go away when she found one, and heard a rattling breath out of Barbara’s mouth. “Babs, Babs, what happened? Are you okay? Oh God, Babs, talk to me, say something!”
Renee thought she saw her friend’s eyes fluttering open, but before she could be sure, the darkness that had been threatening all day finally won out. For a moment, Renee was blind, seeing nothing but black, not knowing where she was, or what had happened to her.
When her eyes finally opened, she didn’t believe what she saw. She was back in her dream, in the cold, lonely room where she had been so many times before. Renee folded her arms over her chest, hugging herself to stay warm, and waiting, and wondering.
She was waiting for Barbara. Always in the dream, Barbara had come to take her out of the darkness. Always, she was rescued. But the time went on, and no one came.
Soon enough, Renee’s breathing started to quicken, as the realization hit her. The darkness seemed to be closing around her, and no one was there to help. Se was all alone, in every way.
“Help!” She shouted, growing desperate. “Babs? Someone?” There was no response. No one was going to come.
Renee was alone in a cold, dark room, shaking with fear.
