batfic: croon at the moon
Title: Croon at the Moon
Author: zombieboyband
Prompt: "Werewolf/Shifter Joker - In TDK, there are lots of allusions to the Joker's crazy-dog/lone-wolf nature. Batman discovers that these descriptions are a little more accurate than anyone realizes."
Rating: Uh, language, so...PG-13 for now?
Pairing: Batman/Joker, Bruce/Joker, eventually. Not yet.
Warnings: Tch, nothing too awful ever happens in my exposition. Uh, this might count as hurt/comfort, if you squint.
Word count: 3,715
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine...
I would describe this fic as crack!fic that turns into fluff that turns into OHMYGOD, PEOPLE ARE GETTING THEIR FACES CHEWED OFF, but right now it's still in the crack/fluff phase. Trust me, though. Trust me.
I will also briefly educate you in the basics of wolf ethology and old folkloric superstitions! And play with dominance themes! Just not yet.
It's been more than half a year since the bat signal's been flipped on. There's maybe only one thing that makes it a risk worth taking, to the city as a whole; or at least, to one man in particular.
"Joker's escaped," a voice rasps from behind Gordon. He turns.
"Did you already comb the area around Arkham, too?" The tone is a little awed, a little frustrated, a lot resigned. Saving the masked man once doesn't seem like it makes up for all the times Gordon's felt two steps behind the game.
Batman shakes his head.
"I did. There's nothing. No sign of him--but I haven't been able to get inside yet." Not with everyone swarming the cell like vultures on carrion.
"Not much to see," Gordon admits, "Far as we can tell, boom, lightening strike, two minute power outage, and when the cameras come back on the Joker's gone and there's a goddamn wolf in his cell."
"So no tapes?" Batman asks, but he knows what the answer will be. Gordon shakes his head.
"No record of the door opening, either. But half the system was down, so it's not unexpected. Damn unfortunate, though."
"He was still in solitary," Batman observes, "Has been the whole time. Two minutes isn't a long time get out of the cell and clear the building."
"I'll get you what footage there is, but we're stumped. I didn't think master escape artist was one of his job descriptions, especially not straight jacketed and drugged."
"And why wait eight months if it was?" Batman turns away, scanning the sky, "Patience doesn't seem like him at all."
"Definitely his work, though," Gordon adds, lips twitching under his mustache, "Has his sense of humor all over it."
"How so?"
"Eh," Gordon says, with a vague noise, and his fingers gesture to each corner of his mouth, clearly uncomfortable, "The dog has, uh, the scars carved in. We couldn't tell until we traq'ed it; it's partly hidden by the lips." Left unsaid is how sick Gordon finds this.
"Is it a dog? Or a wolf?"
"Wolf. Wolf hybrid? Wolfdog? I don't know. If it has four legs and a tail, it's a dog." Gordon sighs. "You don't have kids, do you? It's all I can do to not call it a puppy." He pauses, reflects on how you never stop being a parent once you start, "Or a pony. Kids generalize. Anyway, it's the wrong color for a wolf. Not red or grey, just...kind of sandy."
"Where is it now?"
Gordon makes a tsking noise, and shakes his head.
"Probably about to be put down," he admits. "We didn't find anything on it. First thing we did was check if there was a bomb sewn in. The dog came back clean--no identifying chip or anything. Big surprise." He paused, shook his head. "When it came to it was snapping. I don't think animal control's going to let it live, notoriety aside."
-
That is how Batman ends up standing outside Gotham's biggest Animal Services building, about to break in and steal some sort of canine. He isn't entirely sure what sort of tests he can run that Gordon's unit hasn't, but the Joker being on the loose is the worst news he can think of, so any evidence is worth pursuing. Fleetingly, he wonders again if adopting a dog is something Bruce Wayne can do easier than Batman can, because Batman really, really doesn't want to break into animal services to steal a dog. The whole thing is absurd and leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but, no, animal services is unlikely to let just anyone adopt a dog that's associated with Gotham's worst criminal. Bruce Wayne isn't just anyone, of course, but he assumes such a transaction would be trackable, and, in any case, how would Bruce Wayne even know?
And the last thing Bruce Wayne needs is to be photographed with what was apparently the Joker's dog. He can just imagine the headlines. Just maybe, maybe, Bruce Wayne is enough of an airhead in the public eye to get away with it...
No.
So breaking into the building it is.
It's not that it's hard: it's just that it's demeaning, and Batman has to swallow back something that might be pride, because it isn't like bringing justice is supposed to be glamorous, after all. Right now there's no time to feel shame: the whole city feels like a ticking bomb, and the Joker's in parts unknown holding the detonator. That's the important thing, and Batman knows that it's the real reason he feels like a ridiculous failure. This is just insult to already grievous injury.
He takes out the security cameras and then leafs through the papers on the main desk until he finds the description he's looking for. Wolf hybrid, brought in 11/15 by Gotham PD, kennel #95. Scheduled to be euthanized tomorrow. Very deliberately not sighing, Batman steps into the kennels.
The resulting cacophony makes him wince: the dogs erupt into frenzied barking, and no amount of ninja-stepping can make them stop. He gives up on sneaking and just strides to #95, who is not, by some miracle, barking. The dog gives him a dazed look and tries to stumble to its feet--
Batman shoots it with a tranquilizer, opens the door, and hauls it out.
Batman--Bruce Wayne--has never been one for pets, and all of his wide ranging far flung studies managed to avoid the veterinary, but he is pretty fucking sure this thing is not a dog, odd coloration aside. It is entirely too big for a dog, he is sure, and the snout is too long and the teeth, when he checks, are far too sharp. He notes the scars with distaste, fingers them lightly, and then begins the arduous process of slinging the--wolf, he is sure, wolf--across his shoulders and carrying it out to the tumbler.
The cries of dogs follow him all the way out.
--
The Batcave has never even remotely been considered as a place to keep a dog or wolf, hamster or goldfish. Batman does not, has not, will never need a mascot.
Alfred has gone through with basic things, and there is a very large wire crate as well as several muzzles, but the first thing Batman does is leave the wolf on a table to do an x-ray. No bomb has been ingested, no foreign bodies appear, but the skeletal structure looks vaguely odd to him. Then again, he knows human bones, not anything else. It's been a long night, so long that it's nearly dawn, so Batman takes off the mask with a sigh, and drops the still unconscious wolf off in the spare room that has been cleaned out because he doesn't want to squeeze the damn thing into a cage awkwardly.
A locked door, and Bruce heads back upstairs to catch a couple of hours of sleep.
--
Alone again. Crippling silence. Stopped for a while, but back again. Fog fog foggy, but that's not new.
New place?
Can't remember.
--
It's a while before Bruce goes back down to his cave to ruminate over the issue of the wolf. He dons bite sleeves on his arms and legs, then reconsiders and dons the whole bite suit, and lets himself in the room that's been sacrificed to the wolf. It's hard to even get the door open--the wolf is pacing all around the room, ears twitching erratically. Once the door is even part way open, it throws itself at the gap, snapping and snarling. Bruce has to kick his way into the room, and the reward for his trouble is the wolf lunging for him repeatedly.
Bruce does not like dogs, or things like dogs. This wolf is not helping his general resentment.
It's harder to knock down than the Rottweilers and Dobermans he's fought before; the wolf, by sheer luck, is constantly targeting the weak spots in his armor.
After one too many close calls, Bruce winces, and decides to shoot it with another tranquilizer. Before he can make his move, the wolf leaps into the air and lunges for his throat--
Bruce whirls out of the way and knocks an arm, hard, into the animal's snout, and he is so enraged by how everything, everything, connected with the Joker makes his life miserable that he snarls back at it. The noise is all Batman and no Bruce, all grief-rage-grief.
"STOP!" he yells at it, for good measure, and the wolf hesitates for just a second, as the ears flatten back against its head. Bruce shoots it.
He comes out of the room and hands the traq gun to Alfred, who has been hovering a safe distance away.
"What are we going to feed it, sir?"
"Human souls," Bruce says glumly, "And I'll feed it; I don't want you anywhere near it. I'm going to go suit up and go out for the night."
Alfred doesn't crack a smile, but it's close.
"Indeed, sir. I'll procure some immediately."
--
The wolf has not, apparently, stopped throwing itself at the door since it woke up while Batman's been out on patrol. Part of Batman--no, part of Bruce--considers skipping the feeding and letting the animal exhaust itself. It's dangerous, and it's associated with the Joker, so he feels disgust on top of his annoyance, but he doesn't feel comfortable letting anything in his care starve, even if it's going to be euthanized soon, once he returns it; perhaps especially then. What he feels towards the wolf doesn't matter--there is only duty: what needs to be done, and what is the right thing to do. He dons the bite sleeves over the batsuit.
This time, when he opens the door, the wolf slinks away, and lets Batman slide into the room.
It is the first time Batman has gotten a good look at it while conscious. The wolf is huddled in the corner, and the most striking thing about it is the size, lanky limbed and awkwardly proportioned thing it may be. The second most striking feature is the eyes, which seem entirely dark.
Third, of course, are the scars, just barely visible, curling out from under the lips.
Mostly, Batman is glad the wolf is not attacking. Carefully, he eases the bowl of food down to the floor, and steps away, retreating a safe distance. The wolf scrambles for the food, moving with a twitchy sort of urgency that makes the claws skid across the floor. Once it gets to the food it doesn't plunge its face in; it takes a moment to sniff at it. It almost looks like suspicion, but then the wolf shoves his face into the bowl and starts eating frantically, though it eyes Batman with apparent mistrust.
It's hungry, painfully hungry, and Batman feels a small pang of guilt for putting off the feeding so long. It's a dumb, stupid animal that had the dumb, stupid luck to be dragged into a criminal's scheme; it, too, is a victim of the Joker's. It's no more deserving of Batman's casual cruelty than Schiff would have deserved Dent's torture--victims, all of them.
"We've got that in common," Batman says to the room, and the wolf peers up from his food, black eyes blinking at him. Batman makes a carry on gesture, like he would have if he'd interrupted Alfred having dinner, and then feels ridiculous. The wolf goes back to eating, and when it finishes, it sidles closer to Batman, standing in the middle of the room, watching him.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Batman says softly, feeling foolish again.
The wolf sits and opens its mouth, tongue lolling. It almost looks like a smile, but Batman knows that it's nothing, just how wolves cool off. It's eerie, though, with the scars.
They watch each other for a while longer, and the wolf doesn't stop Batman as he leaves.
--
The wolf sleeps deep, and dreams of snow and blood and black and blood blood blood. It dreams of growls and rubber; it dreams of the moon and being locked up forever.
It knows what knives are, and it dreams of those, too. So many things forgotten, but not knives. And not that voice.
Batman watches the wolf kick and growl and turn over as it slumbers, and wonders what it has seen.
--
The days are long even when shortened by winter, and the nights are even longer. Batman's pushing the edges of what he can do, and Bruce Wayne sleeps through more meetings than ever. Winter's cold in Gotham, but Batman's on fire as he pounds through the streets and throws himself through the air, looking desperately for a clue, any clue.
Where did the Joker go?
His nest of mentally ill yes-men swarmed in useless agitated agony, like dying ants, when he was first captured. Once news of his escape hit the media, some goons crept back in, to see if their lord of misrule had returned.
Batman is there: he turned in everyone he'd missed the first time.
A week after the escape the copy cats start, men with knives and explosives that commit vicious petty crimes that the Joker would never bother with. Their make up tends to be entirely too neat; their hair, too clean; their knives, too dull and too few.
Batman is there, and every single copy cat Joker is arrested before the body count creeps up.
When the news of copy cats is all over every newspaper that's soggy with snow in the Narrows, all the ordinary criminals step up their game, emboldened, thinking the Batman will be busy.
Batman is there, wrestling his city into submission.
There's no grand big awful crime, no boatloads or busloads of civilians being threatened by death, no city officials being blown up. There is nothing going on in the city that breathes Joker, nothing that makes Batman's blood boil over with that special kind of rage. His city hasn't been dragged down into the despair he fought so hard to stop; it has not gotten a new class of criminal.
The silence only cuts into Batman deeper. It itches all over his skin, this unbearable tension, this sword of Damocles. Waiting is a whole new kind of torture: what could the Joker be planning? If he's gone into the woodwork like some sort of roach when the light flips on, how horrible is his return going to be? How much more terrible can be become?
The absence hurts him. Batman has a sharp mind and an incredible imagination: this allows for a vivid array of potential failures to play out on the back of his eyelids. He's already failed his city or else the Joker wouldn't be on the loose, and he fails it again every night that he makes no progress, finds no sign.
--
Days nights time. How many? Count by when he comes.
Days nights time not sure. Feels like forever, but so many things do.
There is only the moon, weak and waning, felt somewhere in the blood.
Scent is all wrong without the mask, but that's no surprise to you.
What was it like to be free?
--
"How long do you intend to keep that animal, sir?"
Bruce looks up at Alfred with tired eyes. The mask is off but the black make up is still on, but Alfred knows the hollow look to Bruce's eye sockets isn't just paint.
"I haven't really had time to give it much thought, Alfred."
"May I suggest letting it go outside on occasion, if you're not ready to be rid of it?"
"We don't have an enclosure, and I can't just let an aggressive ani--"
"Ah. I took the liberty of having one built, sir."
Alfred’s being too careful with him, which means he doesn't approve of something, and that makes Bruce drop his head into his hands and take a deep breath.
"What would you have me do? Throw a squeaky toy for it?"
"It might not hurt to let it have some exercise. Might be a bit less aggressive when tired." There's a pause. "It's just unnatural to keep a wild thing locked up for so long."
"If I let it out it's just going to try and rip my throat open," Bruce mutters.
"I think perhaps not, sir." Bruce looks up. "It lets you feed it."
"Only if I growl at it."
Alfred shrugs.
"Then get rid of it, Master Bruce. Own it or donate it to the zoo, whatever you wish." Another pause. "It howls when you're gone. It's unnerving, is what it is."
"I'll think about it," Bruce says tiredly, and they both head upstairs so that Alfred can force some tea on Bruce.
--
He comes back.
Aching, happy misery. Hold still. Don't show.
Salivation. Is there food? He ignores you, unless he is feeding you. Just like wherever you were Before, although he wasn't there then.
Was he?
No, you would have known.
There's a leash, but you hate leashes. You know what they are and that doesn't make you feel any better about them. You're polite, only because it's him; try to warn with a snap. He doesn't understand or doesn't take no for an answer, so you bite into his hand, taste the, what is the word, glove.
He roars at you when you do that, so you jump up at his face. If you clamp your mouth over his muzzle, maybe he'll fucking understand--
It's familiar, really, the way he slams you down onto the floor.
Writhe, scramble up. Go for the throat--
--down again.
Don't stop fighting, don't stop, don'tstop
The snarl stops you, just for a second, stirring something cold in your gut. You remember. Or do you?
He slams you down one more time.
The leash is on.
--
Cursing softly, Bruce rips the glove off his hand to check the bite, thinking that it's in a bad place to hide. Luckily, the wolf barely broke the skin. He makes a face at it, glad he only took off the mask. The fight seems to have gone out of the wolf for now, and it's spread over the floor hopelessly, panting.
It's just an animal, and he feels bad for the way it crumpled when he rolled it onto its back, even though his hand stings.
Maybe Bruce is too used to things he helps turning on him, but he just gets up and pulls the wolf after him, and puts on a new set of gloves. The mask is off but most of the suit is still on, minus the cape: he just threw a biker jacket on over it to look a little less conspicuous, even though he's not leaving the Manor grounds. The wolf walks behind him, temporarily weak and beaten, but when they emerge into the open air, the ears pick up and suddenly Bruce isn't lugging it behind him like the world's worst pull toy. It trots at his side, more awake and alert than he's seen it since he stole it. Every inch of it looks coiled and ready to snap, and something about the tension is infectious, so Bruce breaks out into a light jog, the enclosure forgotten or dismissed. The wolf lopes after him, keeping up easily, and Bruce lets himself burst into a full run.
It's incredibly strange, pushing his body without the hypnotic mindlessness of training and without the sharp mind-spike danger awareness that happens when he's out as Batman, without the grim determination forged of grief that drives him in either case. He's running just to run; he's running with something and that makes the night entirely different. Everything has a different texture, and even the harsh winter air against his skin seems suddenly like velvet, and the moon is small but bright and like no moon he's felt before. The choke chain slips from his hands as he surges forward into his best sprint, and there's a fierce joy welling up inside him that he doesn't usually let himself feel, a deep and thrumming satisfaction that his body is his and it does what he wants it to do.
Fast as he is--and Bruce is fast; he has the strong thighs of an excellent sprinter--the wolf, once freed, is faster. It races ahead of him, joy writ in every line of its body, and then whirls abruptly. Bruce is forced to stop, and he skids to a standstill, a little unsteady on his feet. The wolf sees this, maybe, and leaps up, knocking him down. There's a flash of fear, but Bruce's hands find the wolf's throat immediately and they roll together. They break apart and the wolf looks like it's grinning again, and then it crouches down.
Bruce blinks incredulously as it realizes it wants to play.
They pant at each other, and then Bruce lunges at it.
The wolf prances away in a jaunty little circle, then straightens and jumps at Bruce, who evades. The growls coming from the furred throat are deep enough to sound alarming, and sometimes the wolf chomps down on Bruce's arm and shakes, but apparently it's nothing serious. The anticipated mauling entirely fails to happen, and there's even one moment where Bruce actually lets himself laugh.
When he's tired and he decides it's time to go inside, he clicks his tongue and pats his leg. The wolf ignores him and is loping off by itself, until Bruce growls and the Batman voice says stop. The wolf does, and it turns to regard Bruce warily. His lips are pulled back from his teeth, and after a moment the wolf falls into step beside him once more, choke chain forgotten and discarded, abandoned like a steel worm somewhere on the ground.
Back in the Cave, Bruce lets his fingers touch the top of the wolf's head. It leans into the touch, pressing against his legs.
"Good boy," Bruce murmurs.
The wolf snaps at his fingers, and Bruce has to pull his hand away quickly. He scolds it and then leads it into the room before heading upstairs himself.
Author: zombieboyband
Prompt: "Werewolf/Shifter Joker - In TDK, there are lots of allusions to the Joker's crazy-dog/lone-wolf nature. Batman discovers that these descriptions are a little more accurate than anyone realizes."
Rating: Uh, language, so...PG-13 for now?
Pairing: Batman/Joker, Bruce/Joker, eventually. Not yet.
Warnings: Tch, nothing too awful ever happens in my exposition. Uh, this might count as hurt/comfort, if you squint.
Word count: 3,715
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine...
I would describe this fic as crack!fic that turns into fluff that turns into OHMYGOD, PEOPLE ARE GETTING THEIR FACES CHEWED OFF, but right now it's still in the crack/fluff phase. Trust me, though. Trust me.
I will also briefly educate you in the basics of wolf ethology and old folkloric superstitions! And play with dominance themes! Just not yet.
It's been more than half a year since the bat signal's been flipped on. There's maybe only one thing that makes it a risk worth taking, to the city as a whole; or at least, to one man in particular.
"Joker's escaped," a voice rasps from behind Gordon. He turns.
"Did you already comb the area around Arkham, too?" The tone is a little awed, a little frustrated, a lot resigned. Saving the masked man once doesn't seem like it makes up for all the times Gordon's felt two steps behind the game.
Batman shakes his head.
"I did. There's nothing. No sign of him--but I haven't been able to get inside yet." Not with everyone swarming the cell like vultures on carrion.
"Not much to see," Gordon admits, "Far as we can tell, boom, lightening strike, two minute power outage, and when the cameras come back on the Joker's gone and there's a goddamn wolf in his cell."
"So no tapes?" Batman asks, but he knows what the answer will be. Gordon shakes his head.
"No record of the door opening, either. But half the system was down, so it's not unexpected. Damn unfortunate, though."
"He was still in solitary," Batman observes, "Has been the whole time. Two minutes isn't a long time get out of the cell and clear the building."
"I'll get you what footage there is, but we're stumped. I didn't think master escape artist was one of his job descriptions, especially not straight jacketed and drugged."
"And why wait eight months if it was?" Batman turns away, scanning the sky, "Patience doesn't seem like him at all."
"Definitely his work, though," Gordon adds, lips twitching under his mustache, "Has his sense of humor all over it."
"How so?"
"Eh," Gordon says, with a vague noise, and his fingers gesture to each corner of his mouth, clearly uncomfortable, "The dog has, uh, the scars carved in. We couldn't tell until we traq'ed it; it's partly hidden by the lips." Left unsaid is how sick Gordon finds this.
"Is it a dog? Or a wolf?"
"Wolf. Wolf hybrid? Wolfdog? I don't know. If it has four legs and a tail, it's a dog." Gordon sighs. "You don't have kids, do you? It's all I can do to not call it a puppy." He pauses, reflects on how you never stop being a parent once you start, "Or a pony. Kids generalize. Anyway, it's the wrong color for a wolf. Not red or grey, just...kind of sandy."
"Where is it now?"
Gordon makes a tsking noise, and shakes his head.
"Probably about to be put down," he admits. "We didn't find anything on it. First thing we did was check if there was a bomb sewn in. The dog came back clean--no identifying chip or anything. Big surprise." He paused, shook his head. "When it came to it was snapping. I don't think animal control's going to let it live, notoriety aside."
-
That is how Batman ends up standing outside Gotham's biggest Animal Services building, about to break in and steal some sort of canine. He isn't entirely sure what sort of tests he can run that Gordon's unit hasn't, but the Joker being on the loose is the worst news he can think of, so any evidence is worth pursuing. Fleetingly, he wonders again if adopting a dog is something Bruce Wayne can do easier than Batman can, because Batman really, really doesn't want to break into animal services to steal a dog. The whole thing is absurd and leaves a bitter taste in his mouth, but, no, animal services is unlikely to let just anyone adopt a dog that's associated with Gotham's worst criminal. Bruce Wayne isn't just anyone, of course, but he assumes such a transaction would be trackable, and, in any case, how would Bruce Wayne even know?
And the last thing Bruce Wayne needs is to be photographed with what was apparently the Joker's dog. He can just imagine the headlines. Just maybe, maybe, Bruce Wayne is enough of an airhead in the public eye to get away with it...
No.
So breaking into the building it is.
It's not that it's hard: it's just that it's demeaning, and Batman has to swallow back something that might be pride, because it isn't like bringing justice is supposed to be glamorous, after all. Right now there's no time to feel shame: the whole city feels like a ticking bomb, and the Joker's in parts unknown holding the detonator. That's the important thing, and Batman knows that it's the real reason he feels like a ridiculous failure. This is just insult to already grievous injury.
He takes out the security cameras and then leafs through the papers on the main desk until he finds the description he's looking for. Wolf hybrid, brought in 11/15 by Gotham PD, kennel #95. Scheduled to be euthanized tomorrow. Very deliberately not sighing, Batman steps into the kennels.
The resulting cacophony makes him wince: the dogs erupt into frenzied barking, and no amount of ninja-stepping can make them stop. He gives up on sneaking and just strides to #95, who is not, by some miracle, barking. The dog gives him a dazed look and tries to stumble to its feet--
Batman shoots it with a tranquilizer, opens the door, and hauls it out.
Batman--Bruce Wayne--has never been one for pets, and all of his wide ranging far flung studies managed to avoid the veterinary, but he is pretty fucking sure this thing is not a dog, odd coloration aside. It is entirely too big for a dog, he is sure, and the snout is too long and the teeth, when he checks, are far too sharp. He notes the scars with distaste, fingers them lightly, and then begins the arduous process of slinging the--wolf, he is sure, wolf--across his shoulders and carrying it out to the tumbler.
The cries of dogs follow him all the way out.
--
The Batcave has never even remotely been considered as a place to keep a dog or wolf, hamster or goldfish. Batman does not, has not, will never need a mascot.
Alfred has gone through with basic things, and there is a very large wire crate as well as several muzzles, but the first thing Batman does is leave the wolf on a table to do an x-ray. No bomb has been ingested, no foreign bodies appear, but the skeletal structure looks vaguely odd to him. Then again, he knows human bones, not anything else. It's been a long night, so long that it's nearly dawn, so Batman takes off the mask with a sigh, and drops the still unconscious wolf off in the spare room that has been cleaned out because he doesn't want to squeeze the damn thing into a cage awkwardly.
A locked door, and Bruce heads back upstairs to catch a couple of hours of sleep.
--
Alone again. Crippling silence. Stopped for a while, but back again. Fog fog foggy, but that's not new.
New place?
Can't remember.
--
It's a while before Bruce goes back down to his cave to ruminate over the issue of the wolf. He dons bite sleeves on his arms and legs, then reconsiders and dons the whole bite suit, and lets himself in the room that's been sacrificed to the wolf. It's hard to even get the door open--the wolf is pacing all around the room, ears twitching erratically. Once the door is even part way open, it throws itself at the gap, snapping and snarling. Bruce has to kick his way into the room, and the reward for his trouble is the wolf lunging for him repeatedly.
Bruce does not like dogs, or things like dogs. This wolf is not helping his general resentment.
It's harder to knock down than the Rottweilers and Dobermans he's fought before; the wolf, by sheer luck, is constantly targeting the weak spots in his armor.
After one too many close calls, Bruce winces, and decides to shoot it with another tranquilizer. Before he can make his move, the wolf leaps into the air and lunges for his throat--
Bruce whirls out of the way and knocks an arm, hard, into the animal's snout, and he is so enraged by how everything, everything, connected with the Joker makes his life miserable that he snarls back at it. The noise is all Batman and no Bruce, all grief-rage-grief.
"STOP!" he yells at it, for good measure, and the wolf hesitates for just a second, as the ears flatten back against its head. Bruce shoots it.
He comes out of the room and hands the traq gun to Alfred, who has been hovering a safe distance away.
"What are we going to feed it, sir?"
"Human souls," Bruce says glumly, "And I'll feed it; I don't want you anywhere near it. I'm going to go suit up and go out for the night."
Alfred doesn't crack a smile, but it's close.
"Indeed, sir. I'll procure some immediately."
--
The wolf has not, apparently, stopped throwing itself at the door since it woke up while Batman's been out on patrol. Part of Batman--no, part of Bruce--considers skipping the feeding and letting the animal exhaust itself. It's dangerous, and it's associated with the Joker, so he feels disgust on top of his annoyance, but he doesn't feel comfortable letting anything in his care starve, even if it's going to be euthanized soon, once he returns it; perhaps especially then. What he feels towards the wolf doesn't matter--there is only duty: what needs to be done, and what is the right thing to do. He dons the bite sleeves over the batsuit.
This time, when he opens the door, the wolf slinks away, and lets Batman slide into the room.
It is the first time Batman has gotten a good look at it while conscious. The wolf is huddled in the corner, and the most striking thing about it is the size, lanky limbed and awkwardly proportioned thing it may be. The second most striking feature is the eyes, which seem entirely dark.
Third, of course, are the scars, just barely visible, curling out from under the lips.
Mostly, Batman is glad the wolf is not attacking. Carefully, he eases the bowl of food down to the floor, and steps away, retreating a safe distance. The wolf scrambles for the food, moving with a twitchy sort of urgency that makes the claws skid across the floor. Once it gets to the food it doesn't plunge its face in; it takes a moment to sniff at it. It almost looks like suspicion, but then the wolf shoves his face into the bowl and starts eating frantically, though it eyes Batman with apparent mistrust.
It's hungry, painfully hungry, and Batman feels a small pang of guilt for putting off the feeding so long. It's a dumb, stupid animal that had the dumb, stupid luck to be dragged into a criminal's scheme; it, too, is a victim of the Joker's. It's no more deserving of Batman's casual cruelty than Schiff would have deserved Dent's torture--victims, all of them.
"We've got that in common," Batman says to the room, and the wolf peers up from his food, black eyes blinking at him. Batman makes a carry on gesture, like he would have if he'd interrupted Alfred having dinner, and then feels ridiculous. The wolf goes back to eating, and when it finishes, it sidles closer to Batman, standing in the middle of the room, watching him.
"I'm not going to hurt you," Batman says softly, feeling foolish again.
The wolf sits and opens its mouth, tongue lolling. It almost looks like a smile, but Batman knows that it's nothing, just how wolves cool off. It's eerie, though, with the scars.
They watch each other for a while longer, and the wolf doesn't stop Batman as he leaves.
--
The wolf sleeps deep, and dreams of snow and blood and black and blood blood blood. It dreams of growls and rubber; it dreams of the moon and being locked up forever.
It knows what knives are, and it dreams of those, too. So many things forgotten, but not knives. And not that voice.
Batman watches the wolf kick and growl and turn over as it slumbers, and wonders what it has seen.
--
The days are long even when shortened by winter, and the nights are even longer. Batman's pushing the edges of what he can do, and Bruce Wayne sleeps through more meetings than ever. Winter's cold in Gotham, but Batman's on fire as he pounds through the streets and throws himself through the air, looking desperately for a clue, any clue.
Where did the Joker go?
His nest of mentally ill yes-men swarmed in useless agitated agony, like dying ants, when he was first captured. Once news of his escape hit the media, some goons crept back in, to see if their lord of misrule had returned.
Batman is there: he turned in everyone he'd missed the first time.
A week after the escape the copy cats start, men with knives and explosives that commit vicious petty crimes that the Joker would never bother with. Their make up tends to be entirely too neat; their hair, too clean; their knives, too dull and too few.
Batman is there, and every single copy cat Joker is arrested before the body count creeps up.
When the news of copy cats is all over every newspaper that's soggy with snow in the Narrows, all the ordinary criminals step up their game, emboldened, thinking the Batman will be busy.
Batman is there, wrestling his city into submission.
There's no grand big awful crime, no boatloads or busloads of civilians being threatened by death, no city officials being blown up. There is nothing going on in the city that breathes Joker, nothing that makes Batman's blood boil over with that special kind of rage. His city hasn't been dragged down into the despair he fought so hard to stop; it has not gotten a new class of criminal.
The silence only cuts into Batman deeper. It itches all over his skin, this unbearable tension, this sword of Damocles. Waiting is a whole new kind of torture: what could the Joker be planning? If he's gone into the woodwork like some sort of roach when the light flips on, how horrible is his return going to be? How much more terrible can be become?
The absence hurts him. Batman has a sharp mind and an incredible imagination: this allows for a vivid array of potential failures to play out on the back of his eyelids. He's already failed his city or else the Joker wouldn't be on the loose, and he fails it again every night that he makes no progress, finds no sign.
--
Days nights time. How many? Count by when he comes.
Days nights time not sure. Feels like forever, but so many things do.
There is only the moon, weak and waning, felt somewhere in the blood.
Scent is all wrong without the mask, but that's no surprise to you.
What was it like to be free?
--
"How long do you intend to keep that animal, sir?"
Bruce looks up at Alfred with tired eyes. The mask is off but the black make up is still on, but Alfred knows the hollow look to Bruce's eye sockets isn't just paint.
"I haven't really had time to give it much thought, Alfred."
"May I suggest letting it go outside on occasion, if you're not ready to be rid of it?"
"We don't have an enclosure, and I can't just let an aggressive ani--"
"Ah. I took the liberty of having one built, sir."
Alfred’s being too careful with him, which means he doesn't approve of something, and that makes Bruce drop his head into his hands and take a deep breath.
"What would you have me do? Throw a squeaky toy for it?"
"It might not hurt to let it have some exercise. Might be a bit less aggressive when tired." There's a pause. "It's just unnatural to keep a wild thing locked up for so long."
"If I let it out it's just going to try and rip my throat open," Bruce mutters.
"I think perhaps not, sir." Bruce looks up. "It lets you feed it."
"Only if I growl at it."
Alfred shrugs.
"Then get rid of it, Master Bruce. Own it or donate it to the zoo, whatever you wish." Another pause. "It howls when you're gone. It's unnerving, is what it is."
"I'll think about it," Bruce says tiredly, and they both head upstairs so that Alfred can force some tea on Bruce.
--
He comes back.
Aching, happy misery. Hold still. Don't show.
Salivation. Is there food? He ignores you, unless he is feeding you. Just like wherever you were Before, although he wasn't there then.
Was he?
No, you would have known.
There's a leash, but you hate leashes. You know what they are and that doesn't make you feel any better about them. You're polite, only because it's him; try to warn with a snap. He doesn't understand or doesn't take no for an answer, so you bite into his hand, taste the, what is the word, glove.
He roars at you when you do that, so you jump up at his face. If you clamp your mouth over his muzzle, maybe he'll fucking understand--
It's familiar, really, the way he slams you down onto the floor.
Writhe, scramble up. Go for the throat--
--down again.
Don't stop fighting, don't stop, don'tstop
The snarl stops you, just for a second, stirring something cold in your gut. You remember. Or do you?
He slams you down one more time.
The leash is on.
--
Cursing softly, Bruce rips the glove off his hand to check the bite, thinking that it's in a bad place to hide. Luckily, the wolf barely broke the skin. He makes a face at it, glad he only took off the mask. The fight seems to have gone out of the wolf for now, and it's spread over the floor hopelessly, panting.
It's just an animal, and he feels bad for the way it crumpled when he rolled it onto its back, even though his hand stings.
Maybe Bruce is too used to things he helps turning on him, but he just gets up and pulls the wolf after him, and puts on a new set of gloves. The mask is off but most of the suit is still on, minus the cape: he just threw a biker jacket on over it to look a little less conspicuous, even though he's not leaving the Manor grounds. The wolf walks behind him, temporarily weak and beaten, but when they emerge into the open air, the ears pick up and suddenly Bruce isn't lugging it behind him like the world's worst pull toy. It trots at his side, more awake and alert than he's seen it since he stole it. Every inch of it looks coiled and ready to snap, and something about the tension is infectious, so Bruce breaks out into a light jog, the enclosure forgotten or dismissed. The wolf lopes after him, keeping up easily, and Bruce lets himself burst into a full run.
It's incredibly strange, pushing his body without the hypnotic mindlessness of training and without the sharp mind-spike danger awareness that happens when he's out as Batman, without the grim determination forged of grief that drives him in either case. He's running just to run; he's running with something and that makes the night entirely different. Everything has a different texture, and even the harsh winter air against his skin seems suddenly like velvet, and the moon is small but bright and like no moon he's felt before. The choke chain slips from his hands as he surges forward into his best sprint, and there's a fierce joy welling up inside him that he doesn't usually let himself feel, a deep and thrumming satisfaction that his body is his and it does what he wants it to do.
Fast as he is--and Bruce is fast; he has the strong thighs of an excellent sprinter--the wolf, once freed, is faster. It races ahead of him, joy writ in every line of its body, and then whirls abruptly. Bruce is forced to stop, and he skids to a standstill, a little unsteady on his feet. The wolf sees this, maybe, and leaps up, knocking him down. There's a flash of fear, but Bruce's hands find the wolf's throat immediately and they roll together. They break apart and the wolf looks like it's grinning again, and then it crouches down.
Bruce blinks incredulously as it realizes it wants to play.
They pant at each other, and then Bruce lunges at it.
The wolf prances away in a jaunty little circle, then straightens and jumps at Bruce, who evades. The growls coming from the furred throat are deep enough to sound alarming, and sometimes the wolf chomps down on Bruce's arm and shakes, but apparently it's nothing serious. The anticipated mauling entirely fails to happen, and there's even one moment where Bruce actually lets himself laugh.
When he's tired and he decides it's time to go inside, he clicks his tongue and pats his leg. The wolf ignores him and is loping off by itself, until Bruce growls and the Batman voice says stop. The wolf does, and it turns to regard Bruce warily. His lips are pulled back from his teeth, and after a moment the wolf falls into step beside him once more, choke chain forgotten and discarded, abandoned like a steel worm somewhere on the ground.
Back in the Cave, Bruce lets his fingers touch the top of the wolf's head. It leans into the touch, pressing against his legs.
"Good boy," Bruce murmurs.
The wolf snaps at his fingers, and Bruce has to pull his hand away quickly. He scolds it and then leads it into the room before heading upstairs himself.