Break My Fall 2/4
A/N: If you follow me on fanfiction.net, I am posting this chapter by chapter over there.
Part One
Bright colors, lights, press of people. He pushes past the crowd, fear clogging his throat. He hits the cool night air and pulls in deep calming breaths. He feels a warm, broad hand on his back, and the fear abates a bit. There is the buzz of voices talking over his head, and then the stiffening of his father’s body beside him as the man emerges from the shadows, the barrel of the gun bright as silver in his hand. The fear rushes back, twisting in his gut and he is pushed out, away. A deafening sound; one, two, three-crimson unfurling even as his parents fall, broad splashes staining grey concrete. Screaming. He falls to his knees beside them, pain a sharp bright thing in his chest--
Bruce wakes, gasping and shaking.
He goes into the bathroom and washes his face, drinks a handful of water.
He lays awake the rest of the night, straight and silent in his dark bedroom. In the morning, he gets ready for school and hides his fatigue-bruised eyes from Alfred.
He doesn’t allow himself to wish for someone to tell.
***
Grim darkness, cold wind pushing past his face, chilling exposed skin. He leans forward, ignoring everything else in the aching need to move faster, gain a few more seconds. Rage and fear twist in his belly and, far in the back of his mind, a pale face and a soft fall of hair.
He rounds the corner, kicks off from the still-moving bike and runs full-out. Pounds through the door, skidding to a stop in front of hundreds of barrels, a circle of light and lying within, the wrong face. The wrong person.
A tinny radio carries her last words. A roar, like a thousand voices screaming at once, and then the crack and shattering of concrete as the building erupts into flame-
Bruce wakes, gasping and shaking.
He levers himself up, gets to the bathroom in time to puke into the sink. He runs shaking hands across his face and stares into his own eyes in the mirror, waiting for the pain and grief to subside. He pads down to the gym in the darkness and takes out his frustration on his own aching body.
In the morning, he will return to his room and shower and give himself a cortisone shot, so Alfred doesn’t notice the stiffness in his leg and how he’s punished himself long past the point of exhaustion.
He needs to see Joker again.
***
The phone call was an invitation. Joker wants his attention, Bruce knows. And his attention might be the distraction he needs to keep Joker in Arkham until he works out a better solution. It might be enough to make Joker stay put, at least for as long as Bruce makes it interesting.
He’s fucking lying to himself and he knows it.
It has nothing to do with keeping Joker in Arkham. It is about excising Joker-finally and forever-from his brain.
It takes Bruce six weeks of research to find another way into Arkham. The solution is so simple that he is surprised that it didn’t occur to him before. He only needed to find a security guard in deep with the mob and desperate for money. The Wayne fortune does the rest, and he has a short window of uninterrupted and, more importantly, unobserved, time with everyone’s favorite clown. After that, it’s just waiting.
Bruce gets the call in the afternoon and is inside within the hour. br>
“He’s been restrained,” Bernard, his bought-off security guard, tells him. “But you should still be careful. Don’t touch him. Don’t go near him. He’s fast, even with his leg all fucked up.” They pause at a heavy steel door. “The nurses are on break but I can only give you twenty minutes. I’ll knock three times, then open.”
Bruce nods. The door opens and closes. And then, he is alone with Joker.
The madman is sitting in the corner, his left leg straight out, the other tucked underneath him. The brace is gone, no doubt taken after Joker stripped the metal parts in his comeback killing spree. He is strapped into a straightjacket, his arms bound tightly to his chest. His head is still shaved. His feet are bare.
He looks harmless.
This is an illusion.
Joker’s eyes lock onto Bruce’s face-- vivid and corrosive. His balance shifts as he leans forward, his leg twisting underneath him until he’s almost crouching. His tongue flickers out, wetting dry lips, lingering at the knot of scar tissue at the corner of his mouth. He cants his head to the side, eyes narrowing.
They stand and stare at each other as the moments tick by.
Finally, Joker relaxes, slumping back against the wall. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one,” he says. “A priest walks into a bar with a duck under his arm. The bartender says-“
Bruce punches him.
Joker’s head hits the wall with a dull thump, but Joker’s foot lashes out, hitting Bruce in his bad knee. Bruce doesn’t fall but it’s a close thing. Rage blurs his vision and he hits him again, feeling the crunch of cartilage beneath his knuckles.
Joker grins at him, wide and blood-stained. “So, the bartender says, ‘What’s with the duck?’ And the priest says-“ His voice huffs into a laugh as Bruce plants a fist into his stomach. He collapses, cackling and panting.
“Fine, okay, you don’t like jokes,” Joker says. He fights his way to his knees. The hard concrete must hurt against his unhealed knee, but he is still huffing out giggles. “Don’t suppose you’ll be a dear and help me loosen the straps on this lovely coat, will you? No?”
He pushes himself back against the wall and peers up at Bruce.
“So, you want to talk about Harvey’s squeeze,” he drawls.
He waits for Bruce’s reluctant nod.
“Ooh-ho, I can tell you stories,” he says. “You want to know how much she cried? She was scared at first, but she warmed up after a while. You know, I think she always had a thing for me. You should have seen her at the party. Mmmm…”
Bruce steps forward, livid, but Joker’s next words stop him. “She talked about you, right before I wired her up. Wanted me to tell you something. Do you want to know what it was?” His voice drops conspiratorially, and Bruce leans forward to hear him.
Joker looks up at him, a cat-smile curling his lips. “She said-“
Bang. Bang. Bang. The guard’s knock on the door is deafening.
The smile widens, mocking laughter pouring out. “Time’s up,” he sing-songs.
The door opens.
“See ya later, cupcake,” Joker chortles.
***
The week before spring break is unseasonably hot and, as if by consensus, most of the juniors at Brentwood Academy skip afternoon classes to hang out by the nearest body of water. Rachel’s school is across town, and she cannot be talked into blowing off even one class and so Bruce is on his own. He spends most of his time at the little boathouse on the far edge of the manor’s grounds, alternating between swimming in the river and sunning himself on the dock. His father’s yacht is in storage across town, but the small cottage is fully furnished with a bed, television and kitchenette. By Wednesday, Bruce has stashed enough food and canned soda in the mini fridge that he doesn’t need to sneak back into his own room until dinner time.
Bruce makes his way across the grounds, carefully avoiding the gardens and anywhere else he might encounter Alfred, and picks his way down to the shore. Long soft grass dampers his footfalls, and the wide boughs of the oaks and walnuts dapple his path in shifting patterns of sunlight. Lazy insects float on the air, and he negligently waves them away with the book he’s carrying under one arm.
As he gets closer, he can hear singing, loud and tuneless.
I’ve been to Georgia and California, anywhere I could run
Took the hand of a preacherman and we made love in the sun
I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
There is a gigantic splash and the voice cuts off, before sputtering out the last line of the chorus:
I’ve been to paradise, but I haven’t been to me .
Bruce pauses at the treeline, watching the skinny boy as he bobs in the water like a cork, pushing off from the bottom and flinging his arms wide to create ripples. His blond hair is pasted in wet ringlets to his face and neck, and he giggles and launches into the next verse with all the self-consciousness of a child at play.
Bruce steps out from the shade of the trees and down the steep path to the dock. He pauses at the lawn chair he’s placed near the door to the boathouse to set down his book and discard his shoes and socks.
“Hey-ho, look who finally showed up,” Jack crows as soon as Bruce steps back out into the sunlight.
“You swim here often?” Bruce asks drily. He twists his fingers in the hem of his t-shirt but decides to leave it on for now.
“Since this morning. Naughty naughty, keeping this all to yourself.”
Bruce drifts closer. Jack’s chest is pale and littered with scars. Something in Bruce’s stomach lurches at the sight of his wet skin, appearing and disappearing as the boy bounces in the water. Bruce breathes in slowly through his nose, stepping to the end of the dock. The boards are damp beneath his feet. The water is grey and blue, swirling with tiny orange algae and strands of limp brown seaweed. Far away, Bruce can hear the hum of traffic on the Kane Bridge. He smiles down at Jack and executes a neat dive into the water.
***
He gets the next call a month later. “No hitting this time,” Bernard tells him. “It’s not worth what you’re paying me to explain that.”
They’ve added a table and two chairs to the room. Joker is out of the jacket, cuffed with plain padded cuffs to the table in front of him. There is a newspaper spread on the tabletop.
“A gift,” he says, nodding down at it. “Because I’m making progress. There’s a lovely doctor here-Quinzell, her name is-thinks I’m just doing peachy.”
He smiles and nudges the other chair with his foot, offering it to Bruce. Bruce doesn’t relinquish his spot by the door.
“Driveby shooting, 5 bystanders dead,” Joker indicates the headline with obvious relish. “That’s the Eighty-Sixers’ turf, isn’t it?”
Bruce doesn’t respond. They both know it’s true, and what it means. That someone is moving in on Eighty-Sixers territory.
“Which means it’s either the Russians or Maroni.”
“Maroni’s dead,” Bruce says.
Joker cackles delightedly. “Harvey?” He doesn’t wait for Bruce’s confirming nod. “Oh, I knew he would be good for so many things. Well, that puts you in quite a pickle, doesn’t it?”
Bruce takes the proffered chair. “How so?”
“Well, with your friend Gordon minting new cops, and Batman branded the murderer of our dear, departed Dent…”
Bruce’s mouth flatlines. “I am not discussing that with you.”
“Fine, fine. So, what did you want to talk about?” Joker cocks his head and regards him. “Last words, wasn’t it? You wanna know what my old man’s last words were? ‘Son, if you do that one more time…’” He chuckles to himself.
“Your jokes haven’t gotten any better,” Bruce observes.
“Eh, it’s a matter of perspective,” Joker waves his fingers, substituting for the grander gesture he obviously wants to make. “I told you before, it’s about choices. You chose to be a frowny face from day one. I chose to always smile.”
He leans back as far as his shackled hands will allow, grinning brightly at Bruce.
“I don’t have to come here,” Bruce states.
“Oh-ho, you think so?” Laughter bubbles out of him, sharp as glass. Bruce clenches his fists until the laugher sputter down. “You’ll come for me, Brucie,” Joker’s purr makes the double entendre evident. “You always have.”
Bruce’s mouth tightens. He is not going to talk about his friendship with Jack when the man in front of him is nothing but his enemy.
“Choices,” he prompts.
“Oh yes,” Joker says, leaning forward again. “You made your choices. She made hers.” His eyes catch and hold Bruce’s. “And she didn’t choose you.”
“Liar.”
Joker’s smile is almost pitying. “That’s what she said. ‘Tell him I’m sorry,’” he affected a high-pitched voice. He laughs, then drops his voice into his regular timbre and continues, “She couldn’t take it, what you are. She wanted someone normal. Can’t blame her.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
Bruce stood up, stormed to the door. He knocks three sharp raps. The door swings open.
“She left you a letter,” Joker calls after him. “Ask Jeeves about it, if you don’t believe me.”
Bruce slams the door shut, leaving Bernard to stumble along after him.
***
Jack often shows up unexpectedly. Sometimes he’ll be absent for days, sometimes weeks. Bruce finds him at the lakehouse or, as summer turns to autumn, seeking shelter under the trellis beneath Bruce’s balcony. Bruce opens the sliding glass door and Jack climbs up and they play chess, or cards. Jack knows dozens of variations of poker, and shuffles the cards with the showmanship of a Vegas dealer, cards appearing and disappearing between his long fingers. Sometimes he performs magic tricks and even shows Bruce how to do them when Bruce demands to be let in on the secret.
Bruce thinks they are friends, of a sort.
It’s nothing like his friendship with Rachel. He’s never really sure that Jack likes him. Indeed, sometimes he seems more resigned to Bruce’s company than anything else. He is sometimes sulky and belligerent, picking fights with Bruce until they nearly come to blows, only to reappear a few days later like nothing happened. And when he’s not being antagonistic, he’s straight up annoying. Jack is constant noise and energy, tearing through the room like a hurricane, mouth running a continuous stream of nonsense.
Sometimes, Bruce hates him.
But there are other times when Jack comes to him pinched and hollow-eyed with exhaustion. Jack seldom sleeps, Bruce knows. He sometimes stays awake for days at a time, only to show up at Bruce’s window looking seconds away from collapsing. Bruce watches him rove around the room like a wind-up toy until he finally runs down, folding himself onto the nearest piece of furniture and curling up like a child.
There is a shocking intimacy to this, to having Jack warm and pliant and totally unguarded in his presence. It pierces Bruce’s chest with unexpected warmth. Jack’s face is still and pale, the scars on his cheeks pink and shiny. His blond curls fan out like seaweed, the pale shell of an ear peeking out. The top knot of his spine protrudes from the gapping back of his t-shirt. Bruce’s eyes trace the long, lean curve of his spine before he steps back, hands fisted, and retreats to the other side of the room.
This, he tells himself, is why he keeps their friendship secret for so long.
They are sitting in Bruce’s room one blustery October evening.
“Flush,” Jack says, laying down his cards.
“Cheater,” Bruce says without anger.
“Not if you don’t catch me,” Jack rejoins. Jack cheats outrageously, and encourages Bruce to do the same. It’s all part of the game, according to him.
“All games of chance are loaded against you,” he had told Bruce one long-ago evening at the lakehouse, insects buzzing in the heat and the shuffle of the cards between his fingers almost hypnotic. “Winners make their own luck.” He picks four cards out of the deck, seemingly at random, and sets them down in front of Bruce.
Bruce turns them over at Jack’s urging, revealing four identical red jokers. Bruce chucked them at Jack’s laughing face. “Always the joker,” he scoffs.
Bruce lays down his own hand, “Royal flush.”
“Oh-ho, and I didn’t even notice you holding onto that suicide king. Very nice.”
Bruce gathers up the cards, makes to shuffle them again when he hears a familiar voice calling down the hallway, “Bruce?”
He freezes for a second. He’d forgotten that Rachel was coming for a study session.
“I hope you’ve got your brain fired up,” she continues. “Because this chemistry stuff is really kicking my-oh.” She stops when she rounds the corner. “Sorry, I didn’t know you invited someone else.”
“It’s okay,” Bruce says hastily, the cards spilling from his hands as he stands. “I mean, he’s not here to study. Rachel this is Jack. Jack, Rachel.”
Jack waves a laconic hand at her, his eyes sharp on Rachel’s face.
“Oh, well nice to meet you,” she says, drifting closer. Bruce can tell the moment when she notices the scars. Her eyes widened and then narrow, her mouth tightening in sympathy. “Do you go to Brentwood?”
“Ah-no.” Jack’s voice sounds strange, too casual, but with an undercurrent of menace. “School’s for fools.”
“You don’t go to school?” Rachel sets her books on their table and sits down between them.
Bruce cuts Jack a look. Take it easy. She’s my friend.
“Don’t your parents care that you aren’t getting an education?”
She means well, Bruce knows that. Rachel isn’t mean-spirited. Her question is an honest attempt to understand. But it sets Jack’s teeth on edge, all the same. Bruce can see him bristle, even though his posture becomes even more casual, his tone more diffident.
“Dead, both of ‘em. Oh it was tragedy, let me tell you. Huge fire, could be seen for miles around. Arson, they said. I was the only one that escaped.”
Rachel’s brows knit together at Jack’s tone and the way he seems to relish telling the story.
“Sometimes though,” Jack says, leaning close to her, peering up into her face and flashing his scars to full advantage. “Some-times, I still hear them screaming. The smell of burning flesh…have you ever smelled it?” Rachel’s face is horror-stricken. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever smelled before, let me tell you. And the smoke-“
“That’s enough,” Bruce says. He seizes Jack by the wrist and lifts him from the chair. “Come on.”
He hustles Jack towards the door. Jack throws a bright “Too-da-loo!” at Rachel before Bruce shoves him out onto the balcony and shuts the door.
“Did you see her face?” Jack sputters around a laugh.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Bruce tells him.
“Uh-oh, looks like someone’s mad,” he chirps, still giggling. He reaches out to pat Bruce’s cheek and Bruce has had enough. He catches Jack’s wrist, squeezing hard. Jack ignores the obvious warning, or maybe he doesn’t care. His laugh is high and shrill and it sends Bruce right over the edge. Bruce’s fist snaps out, catches Jack on the chin and Jack rocks back. There’s no place for him to go with Bruce still holding his wrist, so he bounces back instead, surging towards Bruce with all the energy of a coiled spring, landing a blow to Bruce’s ear that makes his eyes water.
It’s all a blur after that. The fight is frenzied and uncoordinated, the balcony too small for them to do more than clumsily jab and scratch at each other. The angles are all wrong, and Bruce won’t relinquish his hold on Jack’s other wrist, even as Jack twists and bucks against his hold like a pissy cat. Bruce kicks Jack in the shin, and Jack responds with a weak punch to his stomach. He’s pretty sure that Jack tries to bite him at one point.
It is completely ridiculous.
It feels wonderful.
Bruce’s mind is utterly blank, but everything is bright and sharp. His skin burns where Jack has scratched and punched and gouged-a dozen bright sparks that remind him that he is alive. They are grinning at each other like idiots, trying to tear each other apart and it feels wonderful.
Bruce has no idea how long it goes on before Rachel’s voice intrudes and they spring apart like guilty lovers, breathing hard. Bruce feels a trickle of blood on his cheek. There is the sound of the trellis scratching against the wall as Jack clambers down and away.
“Oh my god, were you guys fighting out here?” Rachel asks incredulously.
“It’s not a big deal,” Bruce says, brushing past her and back into the room.
“Uh-huh.” Rachel follows him to the table. Bruce sits down heavily, the hum of adrenaline still thumping through his blood. He is still smiling, he realizes. Rachel digs in her backpack and hands him a Kleenex. “You’ve got blood on your lip,” she says.
“Yeah?” he says. He takes the proffered tissue and wipes it away.
***
”Did you bring any cards?”
Bruce’s mouth is set in a grim line.
“I didn’t come here to play with you, Joker.”
“Of course you did,” Joker rejoins with a laugh.
Bruce scoots his chair closer. “I want to know how you knew about the letter.”
“Ah, your honeybun told you, did he?”
Joker twists his wrists in the shackles, making the chain rattle.
“How did you know he destroyed it?”
Joker leans back as far as he can, peering into Bruce’s face.
“’Yet each man kills the things he loves..’” he quotes from memory. “’The coward does it with a kiss.’” He smacks his lips contemplatively. “Do you think he ever would have told you?”
“He was trying to help.”
“And that makes it all a-okay, does it? That he was helping?”
Bruce breathes a slow breath in, trying to hold his temper. Because no, it doesn’t make it okay. Alfred had lied to him and the betrayal stings worse than any loss Bruce has ever known. To lose her last words to him, even if those words were a rejection-- Bruce cannot even fathom a way to forgive him, or to retrieve their friendship. It burns him that Joker is the cause of yet one more broken relationship in his life.
“I told you before,” Joker tells him gently. “You aren’t one of them, however much you try to be. I know you, Bruce. I know that you will fight yourself bloody to fit into the cage you think you’re fit for. You will clip your wings. You will cripple yourself.” He holds Bruce’s eyes. “You will break your heart.”
“By what? Caring? Having people in my life that I can trust?”
“For not trusting the right people.”
“And who should I trust?” Bruce demands. “You?”
Joker erupts into laughter. “Is that what you think I’m after? Nonono, Brucie. I want you to trust you.”
***
He doesn’t see again Jack for six weeks.
It is the day before Thanksgiving break and there is already a few inches of snow on the ground. The student body is buzzing excitedly, anxious for the bell to announce the beginning of the holiday. Bruce just finds it depressing. With his parents gone and no extended family to speak of, the holidays are always difficult. Alfred tries, Bruce knows he does. He always prepares a big meal--turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings--but there is only he and Alfred, and sometimes Rachel and her mother, to eat it all. It’s not the same as the picture in Bruce’s head of a big family talking and laughing around the table. What should be a celebration always manages to come off dreary and sad.
This year, Bruce had finally worked up the courage to ask Alfred to stop observing the holiday. Alfred hadn’t liked it, but he’d acquiesced, announcing that Bruce was old enough to decide for himself which holidays to observe. Bruce was ridiculously grateful for the respite from the enforced gaiety of the holiday season.
The school bell rings and the students break for the door. Bruce lags behind, fiddling around in his locker until the halls clear out, and then heads for the exit.
Jack is slouched in the vee of the entrance and the science wing. “Thought I might have missed you,” he says.
Bruce shakes his head, clutching the straps of his backpack awkwardly. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure that he’d see Jack again. Not after their fight. “Here I am,” Bruce says, trying for casual and utterly failing.
Jack looks amused. “Come on.” He starts across the frozen lawn, slipping and sliding on snow that’s been packed down by hundreds of feet. Bruce falls into step beside him as they head towards the mostly-empty parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce says after a few moments of silence. “That I hit you.”
Jack abruptly stops walking. Bruce stops too, looking around for the reason until Jack swings to face him. His looks absolutely murderous, his mouth set in an angry, flat line, his green eyes livid. He’s always been taller than Bruce, but at this moment he seems to tower over him.
“No you’re not,” Jack says flatly.
It’s true; Bruce is not sorry. But he knows he should be. People-normal people-don’t hit their friends. And they certainly don’t feel good about it afterward. The truth is that Bruce loved every last second of their fight, could think of nothing for days afterward but the feel of Jack’s hands on him. But he knew that that was wrong.
Bruce looks down, not wanting Jack to see it. Jack doesn’t make too much of those effort through. He takes Bruce’s face between his hands and forces his head back up. His hands are warm on Bruce’s cheeks, his thumbs pressing into the soft underside of Bruce’s jaw as he gazes into Bruce’s eyes.
“Don’t ever apologize to me again,” Jack says.
His fingers tighten for just a second, and then he lets go, turning back to stride across the parking lot, leaving Bruce to trail along in his wake.
Part Three
Part One
Bright colors, lights, press of people. He pushes past the crowd, fear clogging his throat. He hits the cool night air and pulls in deep calming breaths. He feels a warm, broad hand on his back, and the fear abates a bit. There is the buzz of voices talking over his head, and then the stiffening of his father’s body beside him as the man emerges from the shadows, the barrel of the gun bright as silver in his hand. The fear rushes back, twisting in his gut and he is pushed out, away. A deafening sound; one, two, three-crimson unfurling even as his parents fall, broad splashes staining grey concrete. Screaming. He falls to his knees beside them, pain a sharp bright thing in his chest--
Bruce wakes, gasping and shaking.
He goes into the bathroom and washes his face, drinks a handful of water.
He lays awake the rest of the night, straight and silent in his dark bedroom. In the morning, he gets ready for school and hides his fatigue-bruised eyes from Alfred.
He doesn’t allow himself to wish for someone to tell.
***
Grim darkness, cold wind pushing past his face, chilling exposed skin. He leans forward, ignoring everything else in the aching need to move faster, gain a few more seconds. Rage and fear twist in his belly and, far in the back of his mind, a pale face and a soft fall of hair.
He rounds the corner, kicks off from the still-moving bike and runs full-out. Pounds through the door, skidding to a stop in front of hundreds of barrels, a circle of light and lying within, the wrong face. The wrong person.
A tinny radio carries her last words. A roar, like a thousand voices screaming at once, and then the crack and shattering of concrete as the building erupts into flame-
Bruce wakes, gasping and shaking.
He levers himself up, gets to the bathroom in time to puke into the sink. He runs shaking hands across his face and stares into his own eyes in the mirror, waiting for the pain and grief to subside. He pads down to the gym in the darkness and takes out his frustration on his own aching body.
In the morning, he will return to his room and shower and give himself a cortisone shot, so Alfred doesn’t notice the stiffness in his leg and how he’s punished himself long past the point of exhaustion.
He needs to see Joker again.
***
The phone call was an invitation. Joker wants his attention, Bruce knows. And his attention might be the distraction he needs to keep Joker in Arkham until he works out a better solution. It might be enough to make Joker stay put, at least for as long as Bruce makes it interesting.
He’s fucking lying to himself and he knows it.
It has nothing to do with keeping Joker in Arkham. It is about excising Joker-finally and forever-from his brain.
It takes Bruce six weeks of research to find another way into Arkham. The solution is so simple that he is surprised that it didn’t occur to him before. He only needed to find a security guard in deep with the mob and desperate for money. The Wayne fortune does the rest, and he has a short window of uninterrupted and, more importantly, unobserved, time with everyone’s favorite clown. After that, it’s just waiting.
Bruce gets the call in the afternoon and is inside within the hour. br>
“He’s been restrained,” Bernard, his bought-off security guard, tells him. “But you should still be careful. Don’t touch him. Don’t go near him. He’s fast, even with his leg all fucked up.” They pause at a heavy steel door. “The nurses are on break but I can only give you twenty minutes. I’ll knock three times, then open.”
Bruce nods. The door opens and closes. And then, he is alone with Joker.
The madman is sitting in the corner, his left leg straight out, the other tucked underneath him. The brace is gone, no doubt taken after Joker stripped the metal parts in his comeback killing spree. He is strapped into a straightjacket, his arms bound tightly to his chest. His head is still shaved. His feet are bare.
He looks harmless.
This is an illusion.
Joker’s eyes lock onto Bruce’s face-- vivid and corrosive. His balance shifts as he leans forward, his leg twisting underneath him until he’s almost crouching. His tongue flickers out, wetting dry lips, lingering at the knot of scar tissue at the corner of his mouth. He cants his head to the side, eyes narrowing.
They stand and stare at each other as the moments tick by.
Finally, Joker relaxes, slumping back against the wall. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one,” he says. “A priest walks into a bar with a duck under his arm. The bartender says-“
Bruce punches him.
Joker’s head hits the wall with a dull thump, but Joker’s foot lashes out, hitting Bruce in his bad knee. Bruce doesn’t fall but it’s a close thing. Rage blurs his vision and he hits him again, feeling the crunch of cartilage beneath his knuckles.
Joker grins at him, wide and blood-stained. “So, the bartender says, ‘What’s with the duck?’ And the priest says-“ His voice huffs into a laugh as Bruce plants a fist into his stomach. He collapses, cackling and panting.
“Fine, okay, you don’t like jokes,” Joker says. He fights his way to his knees. The hard concrete must hurt against his unhealed knee, but he is still huffing out giggles. “Don’t suppose you’ll be a dear and help me loosen the straps on this lovely coat, will you? No?”
He pushes himself back against the wall and peers up at Bruce.
“So, you want to talk about Harvey’s squeeze,” he drawls.
He waits for Bruce’s reluctant nod.
“Ooh-ho, I can tell you stories,” he says. “You want to know how much she cried? She was scared at first, but she warmed up after a while. You know, I think she always had a thing for me. You should have seen her at the party. Mmmm…”
Bruce steps forward, livid, but Joker’s next words stop him. “She talked about you, right before I wired her up. Wanted me to tell you something. Do you want to know what it was?” His voice drops conspiratorially, and Bruce leans forward to hear him.
Joker looks up at him, a cat-smile curling his lips. “She said-“
Bang. Bang. Bang. The guard’s knock on the door is deafening.
The smile widens, mocking laughter pouring out. “Time’s up,” he sing-songs.
The door opens.
“See ya later, cupcake,” Joker chortles.
***
The week before spring break is unseasonably hot and, as if by consensus, most of the juniors at Brentwood Academy skip afternoon classes to hang out by the nearest body of water. Rachel’s school is across town, and she cannot be talked into blowing off even one class and so Bruce is on his own. He spends most of his time at the little boathouse on the far edge of the manor’s grounds, alternating between swimming in the river and sunning himself on the dock. His father’s yacht is in storage across town, but the small cottage is fully furnished with a bed, television and kitchenette. By Wednesday, Bruce has stashed enough food and canned soda in the mini fridge that he doesn’t need to sneak back into his own room until dinner time.
Bruce makes his way across the grounds, carefully avoiding the gardens and anywhere else he might encounter Alfred, and picks his way down to the shore. Long soft grass dampers his footfalls, and the wide boughs of the oaks and walnuts dapple his path in shifting patterns of sunlight. Lazy insects float on the air, and he negligently waves them away with the book he’s carrying under one arm.
As he gets closer, he can hear singing, loud and tuneless.
I’ve been to Georgia and California, anywhere I could run
Took the hand of a preacherman and we made love in the sun
I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
There is a gigantic splash and the voice cuts off, before sputtering out the last line of the chorus:
I’ve been to paradise, but I haven’t been to me .
Bruce pauses at the treeline, watching the skinny boy as he bobs in the water like a cork, pushing off from the bottom and flinging his arms wide to create ripples. His blond hair is pasted in wet ringlets to his face and neck, and he giggles and launches into the next verse with all the self-consciousness of a child at play.
Bruce steps out from the shade of the trees and down the steep path to the dock. He pauses at the lawn chair he’s placed near the door to the boathouse to set down his book and discard his shoes and socks.
“Hey-ho, look who finally showed up,” Jack crows as soon as Bruce steps back out into the sunlight.
“You swim here often?” Bruce asks drily. He twists his fingers in the hem of his t-shirt but decides to leave it on for now.
“Since this morning. Naughty naughty, keeping this all to yourself.”
Bruce drifts closer. Jack’s chest is pale and littered with scars. Something in Bruce’s stomach lurches at the sight of his wet skin, appearing and disappearing as the boy bounces in the water. Bruce breathes in slowly through his nose, stepping to the end of the dock. The boards are damp beneath his feet. The water is grey and blue, swirling with tiny orange algae and strands of limp brown seaweed. Far away, Bruce can hear the hum of traffic on the Kane Bridge. He smiles down at Jack and executes a neat dive into the water.
***
He gets the next call a month later. “No hitting this time,” Bernard tells him. “It’s not worth what you’re paying me to explain that.”
They’ve added a table and two chairs to the room. Joker is out of the jacket, cuffed with plain padded cuffs to the table in front of him. There is a newspaper spread on the tabletop.
“A gift,” he says, nodding down at it. “Because I’m making progress. There’s a lovely doctor here-Quinzell, her name is-thinks I’m just doing peachy.”
He smiles and nudges the other chair with his foot, offering it to Bruce. Bruce doesn’t relinquish his spot by the door.
“Driveby shooting, 5 bystanders dead,” Joker indicates the headline with obvious relish. “That’s the Eighty-Sixers’ turf, isn’t it?”
Bruce doesn’t respond. They both know it’s true, and what it means. That someone is moving in on Eighty-Sixers territory.
“Which means it’s either the Russians or Maroni.”
“Maroni’s dead,” Bruce says.
Joker cackles delightedly. “Harvey?” He doesn’t wait for Bruce’s confirming nod. “Oh, I knew he would be good for so many things. Well, that puts you in quite a pickle, doesn’t it?”
Bruce takes the proffered chair. “How so?”
“Well, with your friend Gordon minting new cops, and Batman branded the murderer of our dear, departed Dent…”
Bruce’s mouth flatlines. “I am not discussing that with you.”
“Fine, fine. So, what did you want to talk about?” Joker cocks his head and regards him. “Last words, wasn’t it? You wanna know what my old man’s last words were? ‘Son, if you do that one more time…’” He chuckles to himself.
“Your jokes haven’t gotten any better,” Bruce observes.
“Eh, it’s a matter of perspective,” Joker waves his fingers, substituting for the grander gesture he obviously wants to make. “I told you before, it’s about choices. You chose to be a frowny face from day one. I chose to always smile.”
He leans back as far as his shackled hands will allow, grinning brightly at Bruce.
“I don’t have to come here,” Bruce states.
“Oh-ho, you think so?” Laughter bubbles out of him, sharp as glass. Bruce clenches his fists until the laugher sputter down. “You’ll come for me, Brucie,” Joker’s purr makes the double entendre evident. “You always have.”
Bruce’s mouth tightens. He is not going to talk about his friendship with Jack when the man in front of him is nothing but his enemy.
“Choices,” he prompts.
“Oh yes,” Joker says, leaning forward again. “You made your choices. She made hers.” His eyes catch and hold Bruce’s. “And she didn’t choose you.”
“Liar.”
Joker’s smile is almost pitying. “That’s what she said. ‘Tell him I’m sorry,’” he affected a high-pitched voice. He laughs, then drops his voice into his regular timbre and continues, “She couldn’t take it, what you are. She wanted someone normal. Can’t blame her.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
Bruce stood up, stormed to the door. He knocks three sharp raps. The door swings open.
“She left you a letter,” Joker calls after him. “Ask Jeeves about it, if you don’t believe me.”
Bruce slams the door shut, leaving Bernard to stumble along after him.
***
Jack often shows up unexpectedly. Sometimes he’ll be absent for days, sometimes weeks. Bruce finds him at the lakehouse or, as summer turns to autumn, seeking shelter under the trellis beneath Bruce’s balcony. Bruce opens the sliding glass door and Jack climbs up and they play chess, or cards. Jack knows dozens of variations of poker, and shuffles the cards with the showmanship of a Vegas dealer, cards appearing and disappearing between his long fingers. Sometimes he performs magic tricks and even shows Bruce how to do them when Bruce demands to be let in on the secret.
Bruce thinks they are friends, of a sort.
It’s nothing like his friendship with Rachel. He’s never really sure that Jack likes him. Indeed, sometimes he seems more resigned to Bruce’s company than anything else. He is sometimes sulky and belligerent, picking fights with Bruce until they nearly come to blows, only to reappear a few days later like nothing happened. And when he’s not being antagonistic, he’s straight up annoying. Jack is constant noise and energy, tearing through the room like a hurricane, mouth running a continuous stream of nonsense.
Sometimes, Bruce hates him.
But there are other times when Jack comes to him pinched and hollow-eyed with exhaustion. Jack seldom sleeps, Bruce knows. He sometimes stays awake for days at a time, only to show up at Bruce’s window looking seconds away from collapsing. Bruce watches him rove around the room like a wind-up toy until he finally runs down, folding himself onto the nearest piece of furniture and curling up like a child.
There is a shocking intimacy to this, to having Jack warm and pliant and totally unguarded in his presence. It pierces Bruce’s chest with unexpected warmth. Jack’s face is still and pale, the scars on his cheeks pink and shiny. His blond curls fan out like seaweed, the pale shell of an ear peeking out. The top knot of his spine protrudes from the gapping back of his t-shirt. Bruce’s eyes trace the long, lean curve of his spine before he steps back, hands fisted, and retreats to the other side of the room.
This, he tells himself, is why he keeps their friendship secret for so long.
They are sitting in Bruce’s room one blustery October evening.
“Flush,” Jack says, laying down his cards.
“Cheater,” Bruce says without anger.
“Not if you don’t catch me,” Jack rejoins. Jack cheats outrageously, and encourages Bruce to do the same. It’s all part of the game, according to him.
“All games of chance are loaded against you,” he had told Bruce one long-ago evening at the lakehouse, insects buzzing in the heat and the shuffle of the cards between his fingers almost hypnotic. “Winners make their own luck.” He picks four cards out of the deck, seemingly at random, and sets them down in front of Bruce.
Bruce turns them over at Jack’s urging, revealing four identical red jokers. Bruce chucked them at Jack’s laughing face. “Always the joker,” he scoffs.
Bruce lays down his own hand, “Royal flush.”
“Oh-ho, and I didn’t even notice you holding onto that suicide king. Very nice.”
Bruce gathers up the cards, makes to shuffle them again when he hears a familiar voice calling down the hallway, “Bruce?”
He freezes for a second. He’d forgotten that Rachel was coming for a study session.
“I hope you’ve got your brain fired up,” she continues. “Because this chemistry stuff is really kicking my-oh.” She stops when she rounds the corner. “Sorry, I didn’t know you invited someone else.”
“It’s okay,” Bruce says hastily, the cards spilling from his hands as he stands. “I mean, he’s not here to study. Rachel this is Jack. Jack, Rachel.”
Jack waves a laconic hand at her, his eyes sharp on Rachel’s face.
“Oh, well nice to meet you,” she says, drifting closer. Bruce can tell the moment when she notices the scars. Her eyes widened and then narrow, her mouth tightening in sympathy. “Do you go to Brentwood?”
“Ah-no.” Jack’s voice sounds strange, too casual, but with an undercurrent of menace. “School’s for fools.”
“You don’t go to school?” Rachel sets her books on their table and sits down between them.
Bruce cuts Jack a look. Take it easy. She’s my friend.
“Don’t your parents care that you aren’t getting an education?”
She means well, Bruce knows that. Rachel isn’t mean-spirited. Her question is an honest attempt to understand. But it sets Jack’s teeth on edge, all the same. Bruce can see him bristle, even though his posture becomes even more casual, his tone more diffident.
“Dead, both of ‘em. Oh it was tragedy, let me tell you. Huge fire, could be seen for miles around. Arson, they said. I was the only one that escaped.”
Rachel’s brows knit together at Jack’s tone and the way he seems to relish telling the story.
“Sometimes though,” Jack says, leaning close to her, peering up into her face and flashing his scars to full advantage. “Some-times, I still hear them screaming. The smell of burning flesh…have you ever smelled it?” Rachel’s face is horror-stricken. “It’s like nothing you’ve ever smelled before, let me tell you. And the smoke-“
“That’s enough,” Bruce says. He seizes Jack by the wrist and lifts him from the chair. “Come on.”
He hustles Jack towards the door. Jack throws a bright “Too-da-loo!” at Rachel before Bruce shoves him out onto the balcony and shuts the door.
“Did you see her face?” Jack sputters around a laugh.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Bruce tells him.
“Uh-oh, looks like someone’s mad,” he chirps, still giggling. He reaches out to pat Bruce’s cheek and Bruce has had enough. He catches Jack’s wrist, squeezing hard. Jack ignores the obvious warning, or maybe he doesn’t care. His laugh is high and shrill and it sends Bruce right over the edge. Bruce’s fist snaps out, catches Jack on the chin and Jack rocks back. There’s no place for him to go with Bruce still holding his wrist, so he bounces back instead, surging towards Bruce with all the energy of a coiled spring, landing a blow to Bruce’s ear that makes his eyes water.
It’s all a blur after that. The fight is frenzied and uncoordinated, the balcony too small for them to do more than clumsily jab and scratch at each other. The angles are all wrong, and Bruce won’t relinquish his hold on Jack’s other wrist, even as Jack twists and bucks against his hold like a pissy cat. Bruce kicks Jack in the shin, and Jack responds with a weak punch to his stomach. He’s pretty sure that Jack tries to bite him at one point.
It is completely ridiculous.
It feels wonderful.
Bruce’s mind is utterly blank, but everything is bright and sharp. His skin burns where Jack has scratched and punched and gouged-a dozen bright sparks that remind him that he is alive. They are grinning at each other like idiots, trying to tear each other apart and it feels wonderful.
Bruce has no idea how long it goes on before Rachel’s voice intrudes and they spring apart like guilty lovers, breathing hard. Bruce feels a trickle of blood on his cheek. There is the sound of the trellis scratching against the wall as Jack clambers down and away.
“Oh my god, were you guys fighting out here?” Rachel asks incredulously.
“It’s not a big deal,” Bruce says, brushing past her and back into the room.
“Uh-huh.” Rachel follows him to the table. Bruce sits down heavily, the hum of adrenaline still thumping through his blood. He is still smiling, he realizes. Rachel digs in her backpack and hands him a Kleenex. “You’ve got blood on your lip,” she says.
“Yeah?” he says. He takes the proffered tissue and wipes it away.
***
”Did you bring any cards?”
Bruce’s mouth is set in a grim line.
“I didn’t come here to play with you, Joker.”
“Of course you did,” Joker rejoins with a laugh.
Bruce scoots his chair closer. “I want to know how you knew about the letter.”
“Ah, your honeybun told you, did he?”
Joker twists his wrists in the shackles, making the chain rattle.
“How did you know he destroyed it?”
Joker leans back as far as he can, peering into Bruce’s face.
“’Yet each man kills the things he loves..’” he quotes from memory. “’The coward does it with a kiss.’” He smacks his lips contemplatively. “Do you think he ever would have told you?”
“He was trying to help.”
“And that makes it all a-okay, does it? That he was helping?”
Bruce breathes a slow breath in, trying to hold his temper. Because no, it doesn’t make it okay. Alfred had lied to him and the betrayal stings worse than any loss Bruce has ever known. To lose her last words to him, even if those words were a rejection-- Bruce cannot even fathom a way to forgive him, or to retrieve their friendship. It burns him that Joker is the cause of yet one more broken relationship in his life.
“I told you before,” Joker tells him gently. “You aren’t one of them, however much you try to be. I know you, Bruce. I know that you will fight yourself bloody to fit into the cage you think you’re fit for. You will clip your wings. You will cripple yourself.” He holds Bruce’s eyes. “You will break your heart.”
“By what? Caring? Having people in my life that I can trust?”
“For not trusting the right people.”
“And who should I trust?” Bruce demands. “You?”
Joker erupts into laughter. “Is that what you think I’m after? Nonono, Brucie. I want you to trust you.”
***
He doesn’t see again Jack for six weeks.
It is the day before Thanksgiving break and there is already a few inches of snow on the ground. The student body is buzzing excitedly, anxious for the bell to announce the beginning of the holiday. Bruce just finds it depressing. With his parents gone and no extended family to speak of, the holidays are always difficult. Alfred tries, Bruce knows he does. He always prepares a big meal--turkey and stuffing and all the trimmings--but there is only he and Alfred, and sometimes Rachel and her mother, to eat it all. It’s not the same as the picture in Bruce’s head of a big family talking and laughing around the table. What should be a celebration always manages to come off dreary and sad.
This year, Bruce had finally worked up the courage to ask Alfred to stop observing the holiday. Alfred hadn’t liked it, but he’d acquiesced, announcing that Bruce was old enough to decide for himself which holidays to observe. Bruce was ridiculously grateful for the respite from the enforced gaiety of the holiday season.
The school bell rings and the students break for the door. Bruce lags behind, fiddling around in his locker until the halls clear out, and then heads for the exit.
Jack is slouched in the vee of the entrance and the science wing. “Thought I might have missed you,” he says.
Bruce shakes his head, clutching the straps of his backpack awkwardly. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure that he’d see Jack again. Not after their fight. “Here I am,” Bruce says, trying for casual and utterly failing.
Jack looks amused. “Come on.” He starts across the frozen lawn, slipping and sliding on snow that’s been packed down by hundreds of feet. Bruce falls into step beside him as they head towards the mostly-empty parking lot.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce says after a few moments of silence. “That I hit you.”
Jack abruptly stops walking. Bruce stops too, looking around for the reason until Jack swings to face him. His looks absolutely murderous, his mouth set in an angry, flat line, his green eyes livid. He’s always been taller than Bruce, but at this moment he seems to tower over him.
“No you’re not,” Jack says flatly.
It’s true; Bruce is not sorry. But he knows he should be. People-normal people-don’t hit their friends. And they certainly don’t feel good about it afterward. The truth is that Bruce loved every last second of their fight, could think of nothing for days afterward but the feel of Jack’s hands on him. But he knew that that was wrong.
Bruce looks down, not wanting Jack to see it. Jack doesn’t make too much of those effort through. He takes Bruce’s face between his hands and forces his head back up. His hands are warm on Bruce’s cheeks, his thumbs pressing into the soft underside of Bruce’s jaw as he gazes into Bruce’s eyes.
“Don’t ever apologize to me again,” Jack says.
His fingers tighten for just a second, and then he lets go, turning back to stride across the parking lot, leaving Bruce to trail along in his wake.
Part Three