batfic: Blink, part 5 *COMPLETED*
OH MY GOD FINALLY. HOOPLA, KIDS, we are done here, at least for now. Nevermind that I know what the sequel will be and I kind of have some codas planned because now I really love Owlman and the Jokester. SIGH. I might post some author's notes/thoughts later.
Title: Blink
Author: zombieboyband
Fandom: Batman, Earth 3
Overall Summary: Bruce blurts out an incredulous laugh when he sees Owlman. Owlman really, really doesn't like people laughing at him; nor does he like someone else wearing his face. Owlman draws an owlarang and prepares to slice. "Who's laughing now?"
Summary for this part: "What did he do to you?" the Joker asked, into the resulting quiet, pushing himself onto his knees, squinting across the shadows, "Don't look like that--I hate it when you look like that and the reason isn't me."
Pairing: Owlman/Batman, mentions of Owlman/Jokester, Jokester/Batman...and NOW, very much so Batman/Joker. Yep.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: For this part...eh, dub con, some knifeplay, therapist!Joker, some violence.
Wordcount: 6, 213
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine...so sad.
By some trick of strange geographies that he didn't understand, or even reflect on until much later, Batman blinked back in front of Wayne Manor. Thankfully, it was dark--and that was where Batman's list of thanks ended. He gasped in a short, sharp breath that didn't give him nearly enough air, and shakily pushed himself to his knees.
No
The door was so far, so impossibly and unfairly far. His body had already been through so much, and he'd lost so much blood...
Batman grit his teeth and dug his fingers into the dirt, pulling himself along.
Deep breaths. One, two. In, out.
Crawl.
Again. One, two, crawl. Breath. Rest.
God, everything hurt.
And what if he wasn't even in the right place?
He'd never been one for idle speculation. If there were questions, he liked to find answers.
One, two, crawl. Rest.
And it would be a shame to die now, wouldn't it? Maybe so. Maybe maybe.
By inches, leaving a dark, wet trail behind him like a dying snail, Batman made it up to the Manor steps.
He gave himself ten minutes to breathe, then pushed up to his hands and knees.
Another eternity--long enough for his mind to fuzz out, thoughts like radio static, the goal filling up his whole world--and he crawled up to the door.
Rest. Breathe.
One final push up, and he rested his palm against the doorbell before collapsing in a heap.
Somewhere on the far, cliff end of consciousness, he heard Alfred's anguished cry after the door opened.
Bruce sighed, and then he was out.
--
There were some spurts of half remembered sensations--lights and needles and IV fluids--but mostly, Bruce didn't register a damn thing until he woke up in his very own bed much later. He snapped awake quickly, which meant he wasn't fogged up with painkillers, which meant--
Ah, yes.
He turned his head, and Alfred was in fact at his bedside, glasses on and a book in his hand. The cover seemed to indicate some sort of gristly mystery.
"Took your time, didn't you?" Alfred asked once he noticed Bruce's wakefulness, putting his book down. His face was carefully controlled, bland, even--except for the eyes behind his glasses, which shined with concern. A cool, dry hand found Bruce's arm and squeezed lightly, and they both ignored the slight tremble there.
"I usually do," Bruce said, lips almost flickering into a smile, "How long was I out?"
"How long were you out, or how long were you gone?" Alfred asked, sliding his glasses off, voice suddenly low and serious.
"What?" Bruce asked, confused--he knew he'd lost track of time at some point, but...
"You were out," Alfred tipped a hand back and forth like a see-saw, "Perhaps half a day, a bit more."
"Not bad, all things considered," Bruce commented, looking down at himself. "Seems about right."
"Perhaps, sir," Alfred said dryly, "but you were gone for three weeks."
--
With Batman gone for three weeks--and then a couple of weeks more, as Bruce recovered--petty crime had increased, but only slightly. The Gotham police really were doing better. It was of some small consolation to Bruce.
The batsuit went unworn--Alfred wasn't even letting Bruce think about going out--but Bruce paced in the Cave anyway, feeling cold and alone in a way he wasn't used to. The Cave had always been cold, and usually he was in it alone, but...
The cops were doing fine.
Did the city need Batman?
Maybe all the city needed was for him to not interfere anymore. Maybe he was bound to go too far. Maybe Owlman was the logical conclusion to the Batman. Maybe Owlman--
Bruce tried not to think about Owlman. It wasn't something he could explain to Alfred, or to anyone. He'd faced his shadow self and lost; who knew what that was like? There was no set way to deal with that sort of grief, and even if Bruce's way of mourning tended towards the nontraditional, he had no idea how come to terms with what he'd lost.
And what had he lost?
A mirror image of his city? His dignity? His sense of righteousness?
Who knew? He didn't.
Bruce Wayne, rumored to have been away on another pleasure cruise, stayed away from Wayne Enterprises for a bit longer.
At the Manor, Bruce hardly slept, and woke abruptly from troubled dreams when he did.
After enough time pacing around the house and cave that even Alfred remarked that he was looking like a pale ghost of himself, Bruce knew there was only one place for him to go.
--
Breaking into Arkham Asylum was a new problem for Batman to solve, but he managed. Switching up the security feeds to loop back old footage was child's play--numbly, he made a note to do something about an upgrade as Bruce Wayne--and finding his destination was painfully...easy. It wasn't that the few dedicated solitary cells were easily accessible, really--it was more that he knew to look for the most remote, most removed, most miserable one...
To the asylum's credit, getting into the cell was a little harder.
"Knew you couldn't stay away forever," came the familiar rasp, although it sounded a little weaker than usual. On his bunk, arms tied up in a straight jacket, the Joker sat and watched Batman with bloodshot but wakeful eyes that drank in every miniscule movement. Although he'd been motionless when Batman checked the cameras, he was starting to slip into the usual twitches, like something slowly switching back on.
"Joker."
"Good to meet you. I'm Batman," the Joker said immediately, "I'm your biggest fan, by the way, just love the whole clown thing you've g--"
"Stop it," Batman said wearily, barely managing the usual growl, "I didn't come here for jokes."
The Joker rolled his eyes and shimmied his shoulders after an elaborate shrug, nearly dancing in the straight jacket.
"You never do, Batsy. It's just part of the service I provide."
When Batman didn't bother with a response, they stayed in silence for a moment, looking at each other, gazing, appraising.
"You need something," the Joker said blandly, eventually, "Or, or, oh, can it be?" He straightened up, grinning at Batman, "After who-knows-how-long of marinating in your own misery, have you come to put me down like the dog I am, hmm? Is it rule one achey-breaky time?" The Joker wriggled with, presumably, glee.
"I came to talk," Batman said, slowly.
"With your fists?" the Joker squinted at him, "Those are your usual conversational organs, right?"
Batman ignored him, letting images and words tumble in his mind. When he finally decided to speak, he still hesitated for a moment longer.
"Have you ever heard of alternate dimensions?"
There was a moment of silence, but when Batman looked over, he saw the Joker practically vibrating with restrained mirth. As soon as he noticed, however, the Joker finally broke into full on laughter, wriggling with delight.
"Haaave I--oh--haaha---hah--Batsy, baby. Look around, would you?" the Joker cranked his neck, swiveling his head around, indicating the walls of his cell, and, presumably, the asylum beyond, "Look at where I've been staying. Think about what you know about my, ah--my em-ploy-eeees, my little dummer boys." He settled back down again, still twitching with amusement, eyes dark and glittering dangerously as his tongue licked at his scars. "So, yeees, I have herduh of alternative dimensions. Universes. I've even had actual conversations about them, too. Are we here to talk weird physics?"
The implication that the conversation was crazy, coming from the Joker, was wearying--Batman tensed. He shouldn't be here, what had he been thinking?
"Aw, sweetpea," the Joker crooned, making Batman freeze, "Don't be like that." Again, he cracked his neck, moving his head side to side. "I can see you, how you want to hunch your shoulders and sulk off into the night. Relax, relax--I didn't mean to, ah--" licking again "--hurt your feelings."
Batman said nothing. His feeling were hurt, which was absurd. Night after night he tried to construct a narrative where it hadn't happened; tried to figure out a way that Owlman could simply not exist--but he'd been gone, and Alfred had been so worried... maybe something else had happened to him on the streets, something bad, and he'd invented the story of Owlman to cope with the trauma, unable to have himself come to harm from anyone but a warped version of himself. Maybe it was crazy, maybe Owlman was a hallucination--
"I understand," the Joker said, all mock innocence, cutting into Batman's thoughts, "That you don't have anyone else to talk to about it...so, Bats. Let's talk about alternate dimensions."
Below his mask, Batman's lips twitched slightly, frowning. It was true--he didn't have anyone else to talk to about it--but having the Joker know that made it even worse than it already was. If it had happened, who could he expect to believe him? If it hadn't--
Would it be any better to be crazy?
He was surprised to hear his voice, gruff and level as ever.
"Do you think it could be true? Could you think about it like it was?"
"I think about lots of things being true." The Joker licked his lips, the familiar tic surfacing again. "Like: what if I could bring people back from the dead? What would I do with that power? I could do anything. I could be king." His eyes were black and sharp, finding Batman even in the shadows, and he leaned forward, like he was sharing a secret, "You know what I'd do, Bats?" He moaned, soft and sudden and obscene, his whole body shuddering with it, greasy hair shivering, a clown dying an ecstatic death, somehow, even without the make up. "I'd kill you again and again. Every night, Bats, so it'd be the daily crescendo. Little death and big death. Each time a different way, until I memorize what it's like to feel your blood running down my hands..."
"I thought you didn't want to kill me."
"I would," he said, crossing one leg over the other, eyes gleaming, "If I could bring you back." The smile he gave Batman wasn't wide or gleeful; it was barely there but bursting with malice. "Wouldn't that be fun?"
It didn't even seem like the worst thing he'd heard recently, so Batman pushed down the chill pooling at his spine and pressed on, focusing back on the topic at hand. He very deliberately didn't let himself contemplate the Joker's words.
"Alternate dimensions. What if there were some? And you went to one, and met yourself? What would you expect that to be like?"
"Weeell," the Joker said, and it almost, almost sounded like he was taking Batman seriously, "Assuming the Universe didn't explode..." the illusion of seriousness was ruined when he smirked back up at Batman, "We'd have a hell of a time. Compare knives, swap stories--trade bat baiting techniques...ask him if he thought it counted as mastur--"
"No. What if they were the opposite of you?"
Silence fell over the cell.
The Joker licked his lips, but much more slowly.
"No." His voice was flat. "You don't have that. Don't even think about it. I'm the opposite of you."
"No," Batman said, "You're really not."
"Look," the Joker growled, "I don't care what you think, Bat-brain, about what happened to you, wherever it was. But your opposite--the other 180 degrees of your circle--that's me."
"No," Batman spat out, but his bones were aching and his skin was itching, and he didn't even know what he wanted to be true, "You don't--it wasn't--"
He fell silent, because his voice was no longer gruff and even, and he hadn't meant for the Joker to hear that.
"What did he do to you?" the Joker asked, into the resulting quiet, pushing himself onto his knees, squinting across the shadows, "Don't look like that--I hate it when you look like that and the reason isn't me."
"He ran Gotham," Batman heard himself say, and he wasn't sure if he was avoiding the Joker's question, or answering it, "He's the crime boss over there. The city is--the city--"
He breathed deep and sudden, and behind the armor, his chest hurt. His city. It wasn't separate from the violation of his body in the least.
"Oh, is that all," the Joker said, sounding bored--
"That's EVERYTHING!" Batman roared, and his hips pivoted and his hand came up--
He slammed his fist into the wall next to the Joker's head, breathing heavily. Even though he knew it was a bad idea, and he never would have done it otherwise, he closed his eyes. Maybe that would prove too tempting for the Joker, maybe, he thought, as he slid down and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands.
"Shh, shh," the Joker soothed, and the fight Batman wanted completely failed to manifest, "That's bad for your fingers, Batsy-poo."
"There was another one of you, too," Batman whispered.
"Well, there would be," the Joker agreed, "And, lemme guess, him and you-that-isn't-you fight a lot. On opposite sides. Bet I still make life hell for the mob, though, right?"
"He said he doesn't kill," Batman said, quietly, opening his eyes again. The Joker was closer than he'd thought, but watching him carefully, not moving forward.
"They can't all be winners," the Joker acknowledged, apparently not surprised by the possibility. "So here we are, in the best of all possible worlds after all! I'm me and you're you! Fan-tastic. Let's move on now."
"It doesn't bother you?" Batman asked, unsure why he could even be surprised. He'd have thought killing so innate to the Joker's nature that the news would at least annoy him.
"No." The Joker tilted his head to the side. "He's there. I'm here. We do what we do and we both understand what we do. It's always like that. There's me and there's you, and that's when you can talk about opposites. We zig where you zag. The other you just--he's perpendicular to you." The Joker shifted, coming closer again, and even closer--inches away, this time. "If you want me to say more than that, bust me out of here and let me have a talk with him about what he did. To you."
The Joker's breath was hot on Batman's exposed jaw, and he didn't move away.
"And what did he do, hmm?" The question was softly mocking, but something else, too, and the Joker's dark eyes were peering at him with more than the usual predatory curiosity. "What would a bat do to a bat?"
"He wasn't," Batman said softly, "Isn't. He's--his name is Owlman."
The Joker tried to muffle his snort, and failed.
"Owl. Birds. That's even worse than bats." His body coiled closer, until he was hovering an inch away from Batman. "So. What does an owl do to a bat?" he growled, "Last I checked, owls e--"
"Eat bats," Batman said, hearing an echo in his head, his own voice hollow.
The Joker paused, and then pushed his body flush against Batman. He resisted, but weakly; the Joker shoved him down, crawling over his body even though his arms were still in the straight jacket. Scarred lips found his and Batman turned his head away. Teeth nipped at his lower lip and bit down.
Batman did nothing. No resistance, no reaction.
It hadn't done him much good to try to fight last time--he hadn't been able to fight last time. His body was in the cell and newly vulnerable, but his mind was in a damp and filthy alley, the batsuit cut open, his own blood flowing down his skin, helpless--
"Oh, nononono," the Joker muttered, sounding irritated, "No. This isn't how this works, Bats." He used his shoulder to press against Batman, shoving himself back onto his knees, teeth bared in something that was definitely not a smile. "This isn't how it works at all."
"What?"
"You want me to do a replay," the Joker snarled, getting to his feet, starting to pace in the cell. "Nonono. What do you think this is?" Every step he took looked more erratic, every twitch seeming to make his whole body vibrate. Silently, Batman stood up, watching the Joker mutter to himself, angry and indistinct. When he finally whirled around to face Batman, his lips were bloody--he'd bitten into his tongue--and his eyes were livid; his body was coiled and looked poised to strike, and his voice rose to a shout.
"You don't come here and TAKE from me what you want!" His body jack knifed, and he struggled against the straight jacket, like he was too furious for useful movement, or for stillness. "Nononono. I give you what you NEED."
"You don't!" Batman shouted back, his fist clenching uselessly--he was not going to punch; he was not--recoiling from the Joker's words as if from a blow. "All those deaths! Harvey! I needed that?"
"Yeeesss," the Joker hissed, not backing down an inch, "Yes, yes, you did. And those deaths, let me tell you--after I came here, every time I stayed my hand, it was because of you. I slip up sometimes, but every death is for you, otherwise--who gets the joke? It's got to serve a purpose. You think I care about the battle for Gotham's soul? No."
"You do--you want to prove people are just--behind the curve, to use your word."
The Joker stopped, rolled his eyes heavenward, and gave an exasperated sigh, taking the tone of someone patiently trying to explain something painfully obvious to a particularly obtuse child.
"The only reason I didn't blow the ferries up to begin with is that you need to ascribe good motives to scared people, or else you can't go on." He stalked over to Batman, drew himself up to his full height--he was an inch taller, but barefoot while Batman was in boots, so their noses just met when he hissed into Batman's face. "Now, if you're done wasting my time, kindly get the hell out of my boudoir, sir."
"Joker--"
"Come back when you're ready," he said, turning away, going over to a dark corner of his cell. "Ritually prepare yourself or whatever, if you can't live like this. Take a rinse in the bat-tub. I'll give you what deserve."
"I won't come here again," Batman said, lips twitching into a frown again, "It was a mistake to come."
"River in Egypt, moonbeam," the Joker growled irritably, turning towards the wall, and squeezing his eyes shut for good measure, like that would make Batman disappear. "Just go, Bats."
Silently, Batman turned.
"Oh, and, cupcake?" the Joker called after him, voice floating in the air, "You know how I do things you can't? When I get out of here? I'm gonna find a way to go bird hunting. Trust me."
Batman almost paused to say, you wouldn't, but instead he just left the way he'd come.
The Joker would.
--
Alfred was hovering around the Cave, waiting for Bruce to get home. He didn't know where Bruce had left to, but he didn't need to: the suit was gone, and that was bad news. The worries were left unsaid, but the main one was palpable in the room, anyway: what if he didn't come home again?
"You didn't have to stay up," Bruce muttered, stripping off the mask once he was in earshot.
"I disagree, Master Bruce." Alfred paused, taking in the pained look on Bruce's face, the lines that seemed to be etching themselves in. "If I may say, sir--"
"Not a word, Alfred," Bruce said, putting his hand over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Not tonight. In the morning. Please."
"...very well, sir."
--
Another day passed in a fog, and another, and another. Bruce, never as vain as his persona claimed to be, had avoided mirrors instead of being indifferent to them since his return. The face he saw looked the same, but he knew now that it wasn't just his face. It belonged to someone who was just as used to those thin lips as he was, who had conditioned that mouth to go easily into a sneer...
It was better to not look.
Bruce wandered, aimless and miserable, through empty halls. His childhood home had been faithfully recreated with the loving and obsessive attention to detail of a devoted son, and the pain it caused him every day was nothing compared to the anguish a familiar vase or carpet pattern would bring him now.
Did Owlman grow up in such a space?
It was hard--impossible--to imagine Owlman as anything but fully grown, appearing out of some shadow god's drops of blood to terrorize the city. His city...
Bruce of all people knew that everyone started somewhere. What he wanted desperately was to pinpoint the place that their paths diverged, to prove to himself that they were different--but he had no information to go on, so his secret fear sickened and festered.
Thoughts of pearls and guns danced through his head, until he was seeing dirty alleys instead of plush corridors.
Guns. Guns were powerful.
If you're me, we learned that early
Bruce closed his eyes and tried to block out the voice.
Were his parents always gone, anywhere and everywhere?
I'll give you what you deserve, said another voice in his head, and in the echo of that viciousness Bruce yearned for the gentle touch he'd known before being sent back to his where-and-when.
And he'd never have that again.
What was it that he deserved?
Bruce Wayne's lawyer received a phone call about putting his estate in order.
As evening neared on the third day, he went and got a haircut, and then bade Alfred an early goodnight.
Once night fell, he took a long shower, and a longer bath. He raised tired eyes to a mirror for the first time in weeks, and carefully, carefully shaved. His hand was slow but steady, meticulous in its work. He toweled off even more slowly, and there was a curiously ceremonial dread to the play he donned the batsuit, so different from the usual rush.
It was ritual purification, but Bruce wasn't anticipating receiving any divine favors.
But, perhaps, he was as ready for death as he could ever be.
The cape went on last, and then Batman disappeared into the night.
--
Batman meandered through the city, taking his time. He went to crime alley; closed his eyes, bowed his head; and stayed here for a while.
There were other landmarks to Batman's existence, and he visited what was on the way, and a few that weren't.
Breaking into the asylum again was something he did by route, without having to think about it. There was a careful blankness in his head, and he moved carefully to not disrupt it.
"Hey there, sweetnnneesssss," the Joker said, in a drawn out hiss, once Batman was in the cell. He looked particularly grim faced and he was standing up from a crouch by his bunk. The straightjacket lay crumpled on the floor like a slaughtered thing, and a makeshift shank gleamed in his hand.
"Aren't you ever surprised by anything I do?" Batman asked wearily, even though--he felt around himself cautiously--he wasn't too surprised to see the Joker waiting for him.
"No," the Joker replied flatly, "Today or yesterday or a week from now--I knew you'd come."
Batman dropped down into a fight stance, prepared to offer some token resistance before he died with the makeshift knife is his gut, or against his throat.
"Are we going to finish this now?"
The Joker looked amused without actually bothering to move his mouth--the mockery was all in his eyes.
"Oh, Bats, Bats, Bats," he sighed, as he started to circle, "Really?"
They both moved slowly in their circle, gauging the distance, watching each other. Neither seemed willing to make the first move, until the Joker sighed and lunged--
Too late, Batman realized that it was a feint--
--he'd already thrown himself forward into a tackle--
the Joker dropped his blade, threw it aside, and let Batman bring him to the ground.
"You're so hard-headed, Bat-brain," the Joker hissed from under Batman, before he shoved up with his hips and them scrambled to the side, giving himself some space. "It's not good versus evil."
As soon as the Joker was freed, he turned back around and threw himself back at Batman. They went sprawling.
"It's not even order against chaos."
The Joker landed on top this time, and soon his forearm was fitted under Batman's throat, the blade of it digging into his neck as the Joker panted down at him.
"It's you and me, and I do for you what you can't do to yourself. And that," he hissed, "means mercy."
The scarred lips met Batman's for the first time, but it felt like the second--
The sensation was somehow familiar and utterly novel, because even if the scars were the same, the Joker didn't kiss like the Jokester. There was desperation all over this kiss, and Batman broke away from it after a moment, gasping.
"That's--that's not what I came here for."
Shuddering, he shoved the Joker off him and himself back, before getting to his feet and retreating.
"You came here for a mercy killing," the Joker corrected, and there was a caustic fury flashing in his eyes, "Because you can't live like this."
Batman said nothing.
"At least, you want a good fight with some old fashioned maiming. But it's. Not. About. That." His voice had dropped to a growl, and he'd stalked over towards Batman, getting right under his nose. "You kill yourself here and there, slower or faster. Owlsie doing a number on you there isn't much different from the way you let your guilt eat you up from inside here. You don't like that, though."
The ever present guilt was throbbing thickly in his veins, somehow sluggish even when his blood itself animated his racing pulse. But he deserved what Owlman had done, he hadn't stopped him, he'd responded, he'd...
"Stop it!" the Joker hissed, "Stop being there with him. Be here."
There was another shove, but this time it didn't take much to send Batman tumbling onto the bunk. The Joker crawled over him immediately, quick as a spider.
"With me."
Lips claimed his unresisting mouth again, but this time the touch was soft, and that sent a shock through Batman. He remembered a minty taste and a gentle touch--but no, that touch was here, now, and that made it even more wrong and confusing than before.
"No," he whispered, when there was a pause, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.
The Joker licked his lips, in a slower gesture than usual--Batman knew, suddenly, that he was savoring the taste.
"Our place in the grand cosmic chaos aside, Batty, what else are you gonna do? Talk to a shrink about it?" the Joker gave him a pitying look. "No, no. I mean, it is an asylum, and they do have shiny somber color brochures for you if you want..."
"What?" Batman hissed.
"You know, rape survivor brochures," the Joker sighed, ignoring the way Batman stiffened at rape, and suddenly there was a new makeshift blade, shorter this time, dancing in his fingers, "Though they're mostly geared towards women, of course, done up in serious shades of pink..." The Joker paused. "I didn't really want to, uh, do it this way--not our first time--but you're so demanding and I'm just that accommodating..."
The blade was carefully fit between Batman's lips. He froze, remembering an owlarang in the same place.
"Don't move or I'll carve you up and you'll have to redesign the mask, blah blah blah," the Joker said, "And everyone will know who you are in whatever your other life is, ex cetera, ex cetera. Something. Or I'll know, anyway."
Batman shifted and narrowed his eyes, but stayed mostly still on the bunk.
"And I'll blow up a hospice," the Joker added, "And hospice and an orphanage." His free hand crept up Batman's chest. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
Nimble fingers bothered to find the clasps on his armor, though the Joker did have to carefully search for them, hand gliding up and down Batman's shoulders. It took a moment longer, but the main chest plate came off. The whole time his hands wandered, the Joker kept his eyes on Batman's, watching for every little shift of expression. They were few and far between, but he drank each one in. The Joker's hand continued, until all the plates over Batman's chest and arms where gone.
"How long do we have, hmm?" the Joker asked, almost absently, as he started on the plates by Batman's thighs, "Can I trust you to have looped old footage into the security camera for the night?" He made a musing, musical noise, hand coming to rest on Batman's hip--the crotch plate was still in place. "What am I saying? Of course I can."
The last of the latches came undone, and the Joker shifted his weight back onto Batman, straddling his hips.
"Smart, sweet Batsy. Always prepared. You know, uh, I'd kiss you again, but then I'd have to do something about the knife, and..." the Joker shrugged, "That's not really an option." He undulated against Batman, grinding his hips slowly. "You know what I've always wondered? If the black-underthing has a...Oh, yes."
The Joker's fingers finally found bare skin. Batman almost would have sworn a shiver went through his enemy, but it was gone too quickly to be sure. The fingertips tracing swirls into his skin were gentle, which made Batman squirm uncomfortably--as if on cue, nails dug into the skin over his hipbone, hard enough to coax out blood from the small crescent moons that blossomed. The Joker removed his hand, bringing it back into the open, licking up and down his fingers, tongue swiping under his nail to get a hint of blood.
"The thing about opposites," the Joker whispered, fingers trailing down once more, light again, "Is that when they meet--"
Abruptly, he shoved a single finger into Batman--
"You have a full spectrum. In other words: completion, Batsy."
Despite the sudden entrance, the finger stilled for the moment, as if letting him get used to the sensation--Batman shoved the idea away from his mind, quickly. Thought became more difficult once movement started again anyway, slow and sinuous.
"And what have I been saying this whole time, right?"
The tone was oddly conversational, and the spaces between words were filled with little shushing noises, tiny comforting cues that were a little too sharp to be normal. All the while the Joker worked him slowly, eventually adding a second saliva coated finger, scissoring them inside him. Batman breathed slow and even through his nose, careful to not disrupt the shank in his mouth.
His cock, shamefully stirred to life at some point, lay hard and ignored between them, like a secret. The Joker didn't even look at it.
"Trying to get into a thing like that with yourself," the Joker went on, "Well, that's just crazy. That's an echo chamber. No substance, sweetpea, no nourishment. You think it's an ouroboros, but it's not. Eating your own tail might work for a snake, but not for a bat. Or whatever your nocturnal flying vermin of choice may be."
Dark eyes flashed dangerous in the dark, and the Joker leaned down, close to his face. His breath wasn't at all like the Jokester's, nothing light and airy and mint, and he freed his fingers to squeeze at Batman's hip.
"That's what you have me for."
In an instant, the knife was gone, replaced by the Joker's hot and heavy mouth. The taste--not bad, exactly, but curiously carnal somehow, wet and fleshy and real, anchoring--would have been enough to overwhelm Batman, but he was too busy gasping and arching up at the Joker suddenly being inside him. Teeth clamped down on his tongue, messily drawing blood, sucking at it greedily. Batman's cock was trapped between their bodies, but the warmth and friction it received were incidental--no special attention was paid.
For a long while, the only sounds in the cell were the small moans that escaped their lip locked desperation, as they both sucked at each other and bit and rocked together. Batman's hands had found the Joker's thighs, and their grip was tight until Batman realized what he was doing--pulling the Joker down closer to him; rocking his hips up to meet him--and stiffened, dropping his hands suddenly. They lay on the bunk uselessly, and the Joker pretended not to notice where they'd been. His only concession to the motion was to take a second to pin Batman's wrists over his head instead.
He slowed their pace a little, but it took some time to manage--he shifted to manage the new placement of Batman's hands, and the new angle made them both moan softly and shudder.
"So, uh, enough philosophy," he said, a little breathless, "It's time to hit the reset button. Let's talk--" he giggled "--as hard as that is--ahaha, hah, hard--about what a bad, bad man I am. Mmm?"
His lips tenderly brushed against the edge of the cowl, and he scattered light kisses over every bit of Batman's exposed face.
"Think of all the people I've killed..." His breath was warm over Batman's mouth, "Not to run this town, not for money, just...because..."
He started rocking his hips back more, getting some distance, thrusting into Batman harder,
"All the damage I've done to this city..." He caught Batman's lips up in his again, but this time he bit. "All the damage I've done to you..."
A soft growl came from Batman's throat, and it was answered by an angry grunt from the Joker as he buried himself inside him.
"That's good. Right there. I must just love to make you mad, huh?" The lips were pulled back, crinkling the scars and baring his teeth as he thrust faster and harder.
"But it's okay if I hurt you, right? That's what you expect." A touch of scorn entered his tone, though it almost sounded affectionate, "That's how the plan goes."
Even though the skin wasn't bare, the Joker lowered his face to the crook of Batman's neck and bit down, making the Bat writhe under him, almost jerking away. The Joker kept his face tucked into Batman's neck, his temples slick with sweat, dark blond tendrils of hair clinging to his skin, gasping when he stopped biting, biting again intermittedly, his hips finding the fast and wild not-rhythm that meant that he was nearing--
They both cried out, one after the other, sounds mingling after the Joker bit down as hard as he could and came.
Breathing heavy, they lay together, sweating against each other's skin, until the Joker reached out blindly, fumbling, smacking down around the bed until he found his knife.
He cleared his throat, and then carefully pulled out, patting Batman's abs reassuringly as he did so.
"Now, uh, let's see, here..." the Joker's shank tapped against his teeth, as he peered down at Batman thoughtfully. "Threats at hospices an orphanages aside, what'll really remind y--aaaah." he grinned. "Wanna know how I got these scars?" he asked, surging forward again to fit the knife against Batman's mouth--
The shove was quick; the punch, quicker. The resulting laughter was familiar to both of them.
It was bloody the clown, paint by numbers--in a few minutes the Joker was bleeding from several places, and he'd never looked happier. He coughed in the corner once he was beat up enough for Baman to briefly turn his back, and he watched the vigilante suit up.
"Y'know, you could slow the reverse strip tease down some, draw it out a little for m--"
Batman hauled him up by his flimsy shirt.
"Why?" he rasped, and the voice was back.
"Well, so I could savor every clink of armor, y'kn--"
"No. Why?"
The Joker blinked up at him.
"Because no one knows you like I do, moonbeam. Not even you." He hummed, something happy and vicious, swinging up an arm--
--Batman knocked his wrist away just in time, and a sharpened piece of plastic went flying.
"And to remind you that you've got your hands full right here at home."
Batman let him go suddenly, letting him fall back on the floor.
To the sound of soft giggles, he collected all the makeshift shanks, and then left the cell.
An hour later, Bruce Wayne slipped in between his high-thread count sheets, and slept for what felt like the first time in weeks.
Title: Blink
Author: zombieboyband
Fandom: Batman, Earth 3
Overall Summary: Bruce blurts out an incredulous laugh when he sees Owlman. Owlman really, really doesn't like people laughing at him; nor does he like someone else wearing his face. Owlman draws an owlarang and prepares to slice. "Who's laughing now?"
Summary for this part: "What did he do to you?" the Joker asked, into the resulting quiet, pushing himself onto his knees, squinting across the shadows, "Don't look like that--I hate it when you look like that and the reason isn't me."
Pairing: Owlman/Batman, mentions of Owlman/Jokester, Jokester/Batman...and NOW, very much so Batman/Joker. Yep.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: For this part...eh, dub con, some knifeplay, therapist!Joker, some violence.
Wordcount: 6, 213
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine...so sad.
By some trick of strange geographies that he didn't understand, or even reflect on until much later, Batman blinked back in front of Wayne Manor. Thankfully, it was dark--and that was where Batman's list of thanks ended. He gasped in a short, sharp breath that didn't give him nearly enough air, and shakily pushed himself to his knees.
No
The door was so far, so impossibly and unfairly far. His body had already been through so much, and he'd lost so much blood...
Batman grit his teeth and dug his fingers into the dirt, pulling himself along.
Deep breaths. One, two. In, out.
Crawl.
Again. One, two, crawl. Breath. Rest.
God, everything hurt.
And what if he wasn't even in the right place?
He'd never been one for idle speculation. If there were questions, he liked to find answers.
One, two, crawl. Rest.
And it would be a shame to die now, wouldn't it? Maybe so. Maybe maybe.
By inches, leaving a dark, wet trail behind him like a dying snail, Batman made it up to the Manor steps.
He gave himself ten minutes to breathe, then pushed up to his hands and knees.
Another eternity--long enough for his mind to fuzz out, thoughts like radio static, the goal filling up his whole world--and he crawled up to the door.
Rest. Breathe.
One final push up, and he rested his palm against the doorbell before collapsing in a heap.
Somewhere on the far, cliff end of consciousness, he heard Alfred's anguished cry after the door opened.
Bruce sighed, and then he was out.
--
There were some spurts of half remembered sensations--lights and needles and IV fluids--but mostly, Bruce didn't register a damn thing until he woke up in his very own bed much later. He snapped awake quickly, which meant he wasn't fogged up with painkillers, which meant--
Ah, yes.
He turned his head, and Alfred was in fact at his bedside, glasses on and a book in his hand. The cover seemed to indicate some sort of gristly mystery.
"Took your time, didn't you?" Alfred asked once he noticed Bruce's wakefulness, putting his book down. His face was carefully controlled, bland, even--except for the eyes behind his glasses, which shined with concern. A cool, dry hand found Bruce's arm and squeezed lightly, and they both ignored the slight tremble there.
"I usually do," Bruce said, lips almost flickering into a smile, "How long was I out?"
"How long were you out, or how long were you gone?" Alfred asked, sliding his glasses off, voice suddenly low and serious.
"What?" Bruce asked, confused--he knew he'd lost track of time at some point, but...
"You were out," Alfred tipped a hand back and forth like a see-saw, "Perhaps half a day, a bit more."
"Not bad, all things considered," Bruce commented, looking down at himself. "Seems about right."
"Perhaps, sir," Alfred said dryly, "but you were gone for three weeks."
--
With Batman gone for three weeks--and then a couple of weeks more, as Bruce recovered--petty crime had increased, but only slightly. The Gotham police really were doing better. It was of some small consolation to Bruce.
The batsuit went unworn--Alfred wasn't even letting Bruce think about going out--but Bruce paced in the Cave anyway, feeling cold and alone in a way he wasn't used to. The Cave had always been cold, and usually he was in it alone, but...
The cops were doing fine.
Did the city need Batman?
Maybe all the city needed was for him to not interfere anymore. Maybe he was bound to go too far. Maybe Owlman was the logical conclusion to the Batman. Maybe Owlman--
Bruce tried not to think about Owlman. It wasn't something he could explain to Alfred, or to anyone. He'd faced his shadow self and lost; who knew what that was like? There was no set way to deal with that sort of grief, and even if Bruce's way of mourning tended towards the nontraditional, he had no idea how come to terms with what he'd lost.
And what had he lost?
A mirror image of his city? His dignity? His sense of righteousness?
Who knew? He didn't.
Bruce Wayne, rumored to have been away on another pleasure cruise, stayed away from Wayne Enterprises for a bit longer.
At the Manor, Bruce hardly slept, and woke abruptly from troubled dreams when he did.
After enough time pacing around the house and cave that even Alfred remarked that he was looking like a pale ghost of himself, Bruce knew there was only one place for him to go.
--
Breaking into Arkham Asylum was a new problem for Batman to solve, but he managed. Switching up the security feeds to loop back old footage was child's play--numbly, he made a note to do something about an upgrade as Bruce Wayne--and finding his destination was painfully...easy. It wasn't that the few dedicated solitary cells were easily accessible, really--it was more that he knew to look for the most remote, most removed, most miserable one...
To the asylum's credit, getting into the cell was a little harder.
"Knew you couldn't stay away forever," came the familiar rasp, although it sounded a little weaker than usual. On his bunk, arms tied up in a straight jacket, the Joker sat and watched Batman with bloodshot but wakeful eyes that drank in every miniscule movement. Although he'd been motionless when Batman checked the cameras, he was starting to slip into the usual twitches, like something slowly switching back on.
"Joker."
"Good to meet you. I'm Batman," the Joker said immediately, "I'm your biggest fan, by the way, just love the whole clown thing you've g--"
"Stop it," Batman said wearily, barely managing the usual growl, "I didn't come here for jokes."
The Joker rolled his eyes and shimmied his shoulders after an elaborate shrug, nearly dancing in the straight jacket.
"You never do, Batsy. It's just part of the service I provide."
When Batman didn't bother with a response, they stayed in silence for a moment, looking at each other, gazing, appraising.
"You need something," the Joker said blandly, eventually, "Or, or, oh, can it be?" He straightened up, grinning at Batman, "After who-knows-how-long of marinating in your own misery, have you come to put me down like the dog I am, hmm? Is it rule one achey-breaky time?" The Joker wriggled with, presumably, glee.
"I came to talk," Batman said, slowly.
"With your fists?" the Joker squinted at him, "Those are your usual conversational organs, right?"
Batman ignored him, letting images and words tumble in his mind. When he finally decided to speak, he still hesitated for a moment longer.
"Have you ever heard of alternate dimensions?"
There was a moment of silence, but when Batman looked over, he saw the Joker practically vibrating with restrained mirth. As soon as he noticed, however, the Joker finally broke into full on laughter, wriggling with delight.
"Haaave I--oh--haaha---hah--Batsy, baby. Look around, would you?" the Joker cranked his neck, swiveling his head around, indicating the walls of his cell, and, presumably, the asylum beyond, "Look at where I've been staying. Think about what you know about my, ah--my em-ploy-eeees, my little dummer boys." He settled back down again, still twitching with amusement, eyes dark and glittering dangerously as his tongue licked at his scars. "So, yeees, I have herduh of alternative dimensions. Universes. I've even had actual conversations about them, too. Are we here to talk weird physics?"
The implication that the conversation was crazy, coming from the Joker, was wearying--Batman tensed. He shouldn't be here, what had he been thinking?
"Aw, sweetpea," the Joker crooned, making Batman freeze, "Don't be like that." Again, he cracked his neck, moving his head side to side. "I can see you, how you want to hunch your shoulders and sulk off into the night. Relax, relax--I didn't mean to, ah--" licking again "--hurt your feelings."
Batman said nothing. His feeling were hurt, which was absurd. Night after night he tried to construct a narrative where it hadn't happened; tried to figure out a way that Owlman could simply not exist--but he'd been gone, and Alfred had been so worried... maybe something else had happened to him on the streets, something bad, and he'd invented the story of Owlman to cope with the trauma, unable to have himself come to harm from anyone but a warped version of himself. Maybe it was crazy, maybe Owlman was a hallucination--
"I understand," the Joker said, all mock innocence, cutting into Batman's thoughts, "That you don't have anyone else to talk to about it...so, Bats. Let's talk about alternate dimensions."
Below his mask, Batman's lips twitched slightly, frowning. It was true--he didn't have anyone else to talk to about it--but having the Joker know that made it even worse than it already was. If it had happened, who could he expect to believe him? If it hadn't--
Would it be any better to be crazy?
He was surprised to hear his voice, gruff and level as ever.
"Do you think it could be true? Could you think about it like it was?"
"I think about lots of things being true." The Joker licked his lips, the familiar tic surfacing again. "Like: what if I could bring people back from the dead? What would I do with that power? I could do anything. I could be king." His eyes were black and sharp, finding Batman even in the shadows, and he leaned forward, like he was sharing a secret, "You know what I'd do, Bats?" He moaned, soft and sudden and obscene, his whole body shuddering with it, greasy hair shivering, a clown dying an ecstatic death, somehow, even without the make up. "I'd kill you again and again. Every night, Bats, so it'd be the daily crescendo. Little death and big death. Each time a different way, until I memorize what it's like to feel your blood running down my hands..."
"I thought you didn't want to kill me."
"I would," he said, crossing one leg over the other, eyes gleaming, "If I could bring you back." The smile he gave Batman wasn't wide or gleeful; it was barely there but bursting with malice. "Wouldn't that be fun?"
It didn't even seem like the worst thing he'd heard recently, so Batman pushed down the chill pooling at his spine and pressed on, focusing back on the topic at hand. He very deliberately didn't let himself contemplate the Joker's words.
"Alternate dimensions. What if there were some? And you went to one, and met yourself? What would you expect that to be like?"
"Weeell," the Joker said, and it almost, almost sounded like he was taking Batman seriously, "Assuming the Universe didn't explode..." the illusion of seriousness was ruined when he smirked back up at Batman, "We'd have a hell of a time. Compare knives, swap stories--trade bat baiting techniques...ask him if he thought it counted as mastur--"
"No. What if they were the opposite of you?"
Silence fell over the cell.
The Joker licked his lips, but much more slowly.
"No." His voice was flat. "You don't have that. Don't even think about it. I'm the opposite of you."
"No," Batman said, "You're really not."
"Look," the Joker growled, "I don't care what you think, Bat-brain, about what happened to you, wherever it was. But your opposite--the other 180 degrees of your circle--that's me."
"No," Batman spat out, but his bones were aching and his skin was itching, and he didn't even know what he wanted to be true, "You don't--it wasn't--"
He fell silent, because his voice was no longer gruff and even, and he hadn't meant for the Joker to hear that.
"What did he do to you?" the Joker asked, into the resulting quiet, pushing himself onto his knees, squinting across the shadows, "Don't look like that--I hate it when you look like that and the reason isn't me."
"He ran Gotham," Batman heard himself say, and he wasn't sure if he was avoiding the Joker's question, or answering it, "He's the crime boss over there. The city is--the city--"
He breathed deep and sudden, and behind the armor, his chest hurt. His city. It wasn't separate from the violation of his body in the least.
"Oh, is that all," the Joker said, sounding bored--
"That's EVERYTHING!" Batman roared, and his hips pivoted and his hand came up--
He slammed his fist into the wall next to the Joker's head, breathing heavily. Even though he knew it was a bad idea, and he never would have done it otherwise, he closed his eyes. Maybe that would prove too tempting for the Joker, maybe, he thought, as he slid down and sat on the edge of the bed, holding his head in his hands.
"Shh, shh," the Joker soothed, and the fight Batman wanted completely failed to manifest, "That's bad for your fingers, Batsy-poo."
"There was another one of you, too," Batman whispered.
"Well, there would be," the Joker agreed, "And, lemme guess, him and you-that-isn't-you fight a lot. On opposite sides. Bet I still make life hell for the mob, though, right?"
"He said he doesn't kill," Batman said, quietly, opening his eyes again. The Joker was closer than he'd thought, but watching him carefully, not moving forward.
"They can't all be winners," the Joker acknowledged, apparently not surprised by the possibility. "So here we are, in the best of all possible worlds after all! I'm me and you're you! Fan-tastic. Let's move on now."
"It doesn't bother you?" Batman asked, unsure why he could even be surprised. He'd have thought killing so innate to the Joker's nature that the news would at least annoy him.
"No." The Joker tilted his head to the side. "He's there. I'm here. We do what we do and we both understand what we do. It's always like that. There's me and there's you, and that's when you can talk about opposites. We zig where you zag. The other you just--he's perpendicular to you." The Joker shifted, coming closer again, and even closer--inches away, this time. "If you want me to say more than that, bust me out of here and let me have a talk with him about what he did. To you."
The Joker's breath was hot on Batman's exposed jaw, and he didn't move away.
"And what did he do, hmm?" The question was softly mocking, but something else, too, and the Joker's dark eyes were peering at him with more than the usual predatory curiosity. "What would a bat do to a bat?"
"He wasn't," Batman said softly, "Isn't. He's--his name is Owlman."
The Joker tried to muffle his snort, and failed.
"Owl. Birds. That's even worse than bats." His body coiled closer, until he was hovering an inch away from Batman. "So. What does an owl do to a bat?" he growled, "Last I checked, owls e--"
"Eat bats," Batman said, hearing an echo in his head, his own voice hollow.
The Joker paused, and then pushed his body flush against Batman. He resisted, but weakly; the Joker shoved him down, crawling over his body even though his arms were still in the straight jacket. Scarred lips found his and Batman turned his head away. Teeth nipped at his lower lip and bit down.
Batman did nothing. No resistance, no reaction.
It hadn't done him much good to try to fight last time--he hadn't been able to fight last time. His body was in the cell and newly vulnerable, but his mind was in a damp and filthy alley, the batsuit cut open, his own blood flowing down his skin, helpless--
"Oh, nononono," the Joker muttered, sounding irritated, "No. This isn't how this works, Bats." He used his shoulder to press against Batman, shoving himself back onto his knees, teeth bared in something that was definitely not a smile. "This isn't how it works at all."
"What?"
"You want me to do a replay," the Joker snarled, getting to his feet, starting to pace in the cell. "Nonono. What do you think this is?" Every step he took looked more erratic, every twitch seeming to make his whole body vibrate. Silently, Batman stood up, watching the Joker mutter to himself, angry and indistinct. When he finally whirled around to face Batman, his lips were bloody--he'd bitten into his tongue--and his eyes were livid; his body was coiled and looked poised to strike, and his voice rose to a shout.
"You don't come here and TAKE from me what you want!" His body jack knifed, and he struggled against the straight jacket, like he was too furious for useful movement, or for stillness. "Nononono. I give you what you NEED."
"You don't!" Batman shouted back, his fist clenching uselessly--he was not going to punch; he was not--recoiling from the Joker's words as if from a blow. "All those deaths! Harvey! I needed that?"
"Yeeesss," the Joker hissed, not backing down an inch, "Yes, yes, you did. And those deaths, let me tell you--after I came here, every time I stayed my hand, it was because of you. I slip up sometimes, but every death is for you, otherwise--who gets the joke? It's got to serve a purpose. You think I care about the battle for Gotham's soul? No."
"You do--you want to prove people are just--behind the curve, to use your word."
The Joker stopped, rolled his eyes heavenward, and gave an exasperated sigh, taking the tone of someone patiently trying to explain something painfully obvious to a particularly obtuse child.
"The only reason I didn't blow the ferries up to begin with is that you need to ascribe good motives to scared people, or else you can't go on." He stalked over to Batman, drew himself up to his full height--he was an inch taller, but barefoot while Batman was in boots, so their noses just met when he hissed into Batman's face. "Now, if you're done wasting my time, kindly get the hell out of my boudoir, sir."
"Joker--"
"Come back when you're ready," he said, turning away, going over to a dark corner of his cell. "Ritually prepare yourself or whatever, if you can't live like this. Take a rinse in the bat-tub. I'll give you what deserve."
"I won't come here again," Batman said, lips twitching into a frown again, "It was a mistake to come."
"River in Egypt, moonbeam," the Joker growled irritably, turning towards the wall, and squeezing his eyes shut for good measure, like that would make Batman disappear. "Just go, Bats."
Silently, Batman turned.
"Oh, and, cupcake?" the Joker called after him, voice floating in the air, "You know how I do things you can't? When I get out of here? I'm gonna find a way to go bird hunting. Trust me."
Batman almost paused to say, you wouldn't, but instead he just left the way he'd come.
The Joker would.
--
Alfred was hovering around the Cave, waiting for Bruce to get home. He didn't know where Bruce had left to, but he didn't need to: the suit was gone, and that was bad news. The worries were left unsaid, but the main one was palpable in the room, anyway: what if he didn't come home again?
"You didn't have to stay up," Bruce muttered, stripping off the mask once he was in earshot.
"I disagree, Master Bruce." Alfred paused, taking in the pained look on Bruce's face, the lines that seemed to be etching themselves in. "If I may say, sir--"
"Not a word, Alfred," Bruce said, putting his hand over his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, "Not tonight. In the morning. Please."
"...very well, sir."
--
Another day passed in a fog, and another, and another. Bruce, never as vain as his persona claimed to be, had avoided mirrors instead of being indifferent to them since his return. The face he saw looked the same, but he knew now that it wasn't just his face. It belonged to someone who was just as used to those thin lips as he was, who had conditioned that mouth to go easily into a sneer...
It was better to not look.
Bruce wandered, aimless and miserable, through empty halls. His childhood home had been faithfully recreated with the loving and obsessive attention to detail of a devoted son, and the pain it caused him every day was nothing compared to the anguish a familiar vase or carpet pattern would bring him now.
Did Owlman grow up in such a space?
It was hard--impossible--to imagine Owlman as anything but fully grown, appearing out of some shadow god's drops of blood to terrorize the city. His city...
Bruce of all people knew that everyone started somewhere. What he wanted desperately was to pinpoint the place that their paths diverged, to prove to himself that they were different--but he had no information to go on, so his secret fear sickened and festered.
Thoughts of pearls and guns danced through his head, until he was seeing dirty alleys instead of plush corridors.
Guns. Guns were powerful.
If you're me, we learned that early
Bruce closed his eyes and tried to block out the voice.
Were his parents always gone, anywhere and everywhere?
I'll give you what you deserve, said another voice in his head, and in the echo of that viciousness Bruce yearned for the gentle touch he'd known before being sent back to his where-and-when.
And he'd never have that again.
What was it that he deserved?
Bruce Wayne's lawyer received a phone call about putting his estate in order.
As evening neared on the third day, he went and got a haircut, and then bade Alfred an early goodnight.
Once night fell, he took a long shower, and a longer bath. He raised tired eyes to a mirror for the first time in weeks, and carefully, carefully shaved. His hand was slow but steady, meticulous in its work. He toweled off even more slowly, and there was a curiously ceremonial dread to the play he donned the batsuit, so different from the usual rush.
It was ritual purification, but Bruce wasn't anticipating receiving any divine favors.
But, perhaps, he was as ready for death as he could ever be.
The cape went on last, and then Batman disappeared into the night.
--
Batman meandered through the city, taking his time. He went to crime alley; closed his eyes, bowed his head; and stayed here for a while.
There were other landmarks to Batman's existence, and he visited what was on the way, and a few that weren't.
Breaking into the asylum again was something he did by route, without having to think about it. There was a careful blankness in his head, and he moved carefully to not disrupt it.
"Hey there, sweetnnneesssss," the Joker said, in a drawn out hiss, once Batman was in the cell. He looked particularly grim faced and he was standing up from a crouch by his bunk. The straightjacket lay crumpled on the floor like a slaughtered thing, and a makeshift shank gleamed in his hand.
"Aren't you ever surprised by anything I do?" Batman asked wearily, even though--he felt around himself cautiously--he wasn't too surprised to see the Joker waiting for him.
"No," the Joker replied flatly, "Today or yesterday or a week from now--I knew you'd come."
Batman dropped down into a fight stance, prepared to offer some token resistance before he died with the makeshift knife is his gut, or against his throat.
"Are we going to finish this now?"
The Joker looked amused without actually bothering to move his mouth--the mockery was all in his eyes.
"Oh, Bats, Bats, Bats," he sighed, as he started to circle, "Really?"
They both moved slowly in their circle, gauging the distance, watching each other. Neither seemed willing to make the first move, until the Joker sighed and lunged--
Too late, Batman realized that it was a feint--
--he'd already thrown himself forward into a tackle--
the Joker dropped his blade, threw it aside, and let Batman bring him to the ground.
"You're so hard-headed, Bat-brain," the Joker hissed from under Batman, before he shoved up with his hips and them scrambled to the side, giving himself some space. "It's not good versus evil."
As soon as the Joker was freed, he turned back around and threw himself back at Batman. They went sprawling.
"It's not even order against chaos."
The Joker landed on top this time, and soon his forearm was fitted under Batman's throat, the blade of it digging into his neck as the Joker panted down at him.
"It's you and me, and I do for you what you can't do to yourself. And that," he hissed, "means mercy."
The scarred lips met Batman's for the first time, but it felt like the second--
The sensation was somehow familiar and utterly novel, because even if the scars were the same, the Joker didn't kiss like the Jokester. There was desperation all over this kiss, and Batman broke away from it after a moment, gasping.
"That's--that's not what I came here for."
Shuddering, he shoved the Joker off him and himself back, before getting to his feet and retreating.
"You came here for a mercy killing," the Joker corrected, and there was a caustic fury flashing in his eyes, "Because you can't live like this."
Batman said nothing.
"At least, you want a good fight with some old fashioned maiming. But it's. Not. About. That." His voice had dropped to a growl, and he'd stalked over towards Batman, getting right under his nose. "You kill yourself here and there, slower or faster. Owlsie doing a number on you there isn't much different from the way you let your guilt eat you up from inside here. You don't like that, though."
The ever present guilt was throbbing thickly in his veins, somehow sluggish even when his blood itself animated his racing pulse. But he deserved what Owlman had done, he hadn't stopped him, he'd responded, he'd...
"Stop it!" the Joker hissed, "Stop being there with him. Be here."
There was another shove, but this time it didn't take much to send Batman tumbling onto the bunk. The Joker crawled over him immediately, quick as a spider.
"With me."
Lips claimed his unresisting mouth again, but this time the touch was soft, and that sent a shock through Batman. He remembered a minty taste and a gentle touch--but no, that touch was here, now, and that made it even more wrong and confusing than before.
"No," he whispered, when there was a pause, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.
The Joker licked his lips, in a slower gesture than usual--Batman knew, suddenly, that he was savoring the taste.
"Our place in the grand cosmic chaos aside, Batty, what else are you gonna do? Talk to a shrink about it?" the Joker gave him a pitying look. "No, no. I mean, it is an asylum, and they do have shiny somber color brochures for you if you want..."
"What?" Batman hissed.
"You know, rape survivor brochures," the Joker sighed, ignoring the way Batman stiffened at rape, and suddenly there was a new makeshift blade, shorter this time, dancing in his fingers, "Though they're mostly geared towards women, of course, done up in serious shades of pink..." The Joker paused. "I didn't really want to, uh, do it this way--not our first time--but you're so demanding and I'm just that accommodating..."
The blade was carefully fit between Batman's lips. He froze, remembering an owlarang in the same place.
"Don't move or I'll carve you up and you'll have to redesign the mask, blah blah blah," the Joker said, "And everyone will know who you are in whatever your other life is, ex cetera, ex cetera. Something. Or I'll know, anyway."
Batman shifted and narrowed his eyes, but stayed mostly still on the bunk.
"And I'll blow up a hospice," the Joker added, "And hospice and an orphanage." His free hand crept up Batman's chest. "You wouldn't want that, would you?"
Nimble fingers bothered to find the clasps on his armor, though the Joker did have to carefully search for them, hand gliding up and down Batman's shoulders. It took a moment longer, but the main chest plate came off. The whole time his hands wandered, the Joker kept his eyes on Batman's, watching for every little shift of expression. They were few and far between, but he drank each one in. The Joker's hand continued, until all the plates over Batman's chest and arms where gone.
"How long do we have, hmm?" the Joker asked, almost absently, as he started on the plates by Batman's thighs, "Can I trust you to have looped old footage into the security camera for the night?" He made a musing, musical noise, hand coming to rest on Batman's hip--the crotch plate was still in place. "What am I saying? Of course I can."
The last of the latches came undone, and the Joker shifted his weight back onto Batman, straddling his hips.
"Smart, sweet Batsy. Always prepared. You know, uh, I'd kiss you again, but then I'd have to do something about the knife, and..." the Joker shrugged, "That's not really an option." He undulated against Batman, grinding his hips slowly. "You know what I've always wondered? If the black-underthing has a...Oh, yes."
The Joker's fingers finally found bare skin. Batman almost would have sworn a shiver went through his enemy, but it was gone too quickly to be sure. The fingertips tracing swirls into his skin were gentle, which made Batman squirm uncomfortably--as if on cue, nails dug into the skin over his hipbone, hard enough to coax out blood from the small crescent moons that blossomed. The Joker removed his hand, bringing it back into the open, licking up and down his fingers, tongue swiping under his nail to get a hint of blood.
"The thing about opposites," the Joker whispered, fingers trailing down once more, light again, "Is that when they meet--"
Abruptly, he shoved a single finger into Batman--
"You have a full spectrum. In other words: completion, Batsy."
Despite the sudden entrance, the finger stilled for the moment, as if letting him get used to the sensation--Batman shoved the idea away from his mind, quickly. Thought became more difficult once movement started again anyway, slow and sinuous.
"And what have I been saying this whole time, right?"
The tone was oddly conversational, and the spaces between words were filled with little shushing noises, tiny comforting cues that were a little too sharp to be normal. All the while the Joker worked him slowly, eventually adding a second saliva coated finger, scissoring them inside him. Batman breathed slow and even through his nose, careful to not disrupt the shank in his mouth.
His cock, shamefully stirred to life at some point, lay hard and ignored between them, like a secret. The Joker didn't even look at it.
"Trying to get into a thing like that with yourself," the Joker went on, "Well, that's just crazy. That's an echo chamber. No substance, sweetpea, no nourishment. You think it's an ouroboros, but it's not. Eating your own tail might work for a snake, but not for a bat. Or whatever your nocturnal flying vermin of choice may be."
Dark eyes flashed dangerous in the dark, and the Joker leaned down, close to his face. His breath wasn't at all like the Jokester's, nothing light and airy and mint, and he freed his fingers to squeeze at Batman's hip.
"That's what you have me for."
In an instant, the knife was gone, replaced by the Joker's hot and heavy mouth. The taste--not bad, exactly, but curiously carnal somehow, wet and fleshy and real, anchoring--would have been enough to overwhelm Batman, but he was too busy gasping and arching up at the Joker suddenly being inside him. Teeth clamped down on his tongue, messily drawing blood, sucking at it greedily. Batman's cock was trapped between their bodies, but the warmth and friction it received were incidental--no special attention was paid.
For a long while, the only sounds in the cell were the small moans that escaped their lip locked desperation, as they both sucked at each other and bit and rocked together. Batman's hands had found the Joker's thighs, and their grip was tight until Batman realized what he was doing--pulling the Joker down closer to him; rocking his hips up to meet him--and stiffened, dropping his hands suddenly. They lay on the bunk uselessly, and the Joker pretended not to notice where they'd been. His only concession to the motion was to take a second to pin Batman's wrists over his head instead.
He slowed their pace a little, but it took some time to manage--he shifted to manage the new placement of Batman's hands, and the new angle made them both moan softly and shudder.
"So, uh, enough philosophy," he said, a little breathless, "It's time to hit the reset button. Let's talk--" he giggled "--as hard as that is--ahaha, hah, hard--about what a bad, bad man I am. Mmm?"
His lips tenderly brushed against the edge of the cowl, and he scattered light kisses over every bit of Batman's exposed face.
"Think of all the people I've killed..." His breath was warm over Batman's mouth, "Not to run this town, not for money, just...because..."
He started rocking his hips back more, getting some distance, thrusting into Batman harder,
"All the damage I've done to this city..." He caught Batman's lips up in his again, but this time he bit. "All the damage I've done to you..."
A soft growl came from Batman's throat, and it was answered by an angry grunt from the Joker as he buried himself inside him.
"That's good. Right there. I must just love to make you mad, huh?" The lips were pulled back, crinkling the scars and baring his teeth as he thrust faster and harder.
"But it's okay if I hurt you, right? That's what you expect." A touch of scorn entered his tone, though it almost sounded affectionate, "That's how the plan goes."
Even though the skin wasn't bare, the Joker lowered his face to the crook of Batman's neck and bit down, making the Bat writhe under him, almost jerking away. The Joker kept his face tucked into Batman's neck, his temples slick with sweat, dark blond tendrils of hair clinging to his skin, gasping when he stopped biting, biting again intermittedly, his hips finding the fast and wild not-rhythm that meant that he was nearing--
They both cried out, one after the other, sounds mingling after the Joker bit down as hard as he could and came.
Breathing heavy, they lay together, sweating against each other's skin, until the Joker reached out blindly, fumbling, smacking down around the bed until he found his knife.
He cleared his throat, and then carefully pulled out, patting Batman's abs reassuringly as he did so.
"Now, uh, let's see, here..." the Joker's shank tapped against his teeth, as he peered down at Batman thoughtfully. "Threats at hospices an orphanages aside, what'll really remind y--aaaah." he grinned. "Wanna know how I got these scars?" he asked, surging forward again to fit the knife against Batman's mouth--
The shove was quick; the punch, quicker. The resulting laughter was familiar to both of them.
It was bloody the clown, paint by numbers--in a few minutes the Joker was bleeding from several places, and he'd never looked happier. He coughed in the corner once he was beat up enough for Baman to briefly turn his back, and he watched the vigilante suit up.
"Y'know, you could slow the reverse strip tease down some, draw it out a little for m--"
Batman hauled him up by his flimsy shirt.
"Why?" he rasped, and the voice was back.
"Well, so I could savor every clink of armor, y'kn--"
"No. Why?"
The Joker blinked up at him.
"Because no one knows you like I do, moonbeam. Not even you." He hummed, something happy and vicious, swinging up an arm--
--Batman knocked his wrist away just in time, and a sharpened piece of plastic went flying.
"And to remind you that you've got your hands full right here at home."
Batman let him go suddenly, letting him fall back on the floor.
To the sound of soft giggles, he collected all the makeshift shanks, and then left the cell.
An hour later, Bruce Wayne slipped in between his high-thread count sheets, and slept for what felt like the first time in weeks.