Chapter Text
The morning sun pierced through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Grand Ballroom like a personal attack from the heavens.
The bright, harsh sunlight pierced through Batman’s eyelids. He winced and jolted awake, his eyes snapping open.
His world-class detective brain felt like it had been run over by the Batmobile, reversed over, and then parked on. His tongue felt like sandpaper. It may also have tasted like sandpaper. Fortunately, Bruce Wayne has never tried to eat sandpaper, and cannot say that it may have actually tasted like it.
Slowly, the horrific memory of the previous night flooded back. The fake mustache. The 20 flights of stairs. The fucking ballroom dance with a certain green-haired menace.
He looked down. Joker was still fast asleep, curled up against Batman's side like a needy, purple-velvet caterpillar, softly snoring and drooling slightly onto a stray paper napkin.
Batman panicked, immediately trying to roll away to assert his manly dominance, but the movement caused the seams of his neon-pink Hawaiian shirt to violently rip under the armpits.
It’s fine, he assured himself. This could pass as fashion in this dysfunctional society.
Then, his brain clicked. The laundry cart. The female voice.
“Let a woman commit terrorism once in a while!”
Batman’s eyes went wide beneath his cowl. "Harley Quinn," he whispered in terror. It wasn't a new, wannabe villain. It wasn't some new terrorist threat. It was Harley. The very bisexual femme fatale.
Which probably meant the bomb threat was real, and it was happening tonight.
"Wake up," Batman growled, aggressively shaking the sleeping clown. "Joker, get up. This is a tactical emergency."
Joker let out a sleepy, pathetic whine, burying his face deeper into his velvet sleeves. "Go away, Brucie-poo... Five more minutes... It’s a Saturday..."
"Joker, it’s Harley! She's the bomber!" Batman hissed, dragging the sleepy, weepy clown to his feet by his collar. Joker stumbled, his Harry Potter glasses sitting crookedly on his nose, looking incredibly confused and deeply betrayed by the early wake-up call. "We need to search the hotel. Now."
The audacity of this man to drunkenly initiate some male mating dance with him the night before, and immediately drag him for a mission the next day!
He didn’t even offer him breakfast. Worst date ever.
"Ugh, fine," Joker groaned, rubbing his already smeared eyeliner. "But if I don't get a coffee, I'm joining her team."
Stumbling out of the ballroom, both of them tried to brush off the previous night as they desperately searched for any signs of Harley.
Thankfully, they didn’t have to search long. The duo stepped out of the ballroom, still looking like an absolute disaster only to immediately hear screaming down the hall.
The dynamic duo rushed to the potential crime scene, one to seek justice, and one to get his morning coffee.
Harley Quinn, on the other hand, was literally in the middle of terrorizing a poor room-service bellboy, holding a giant wooden mallet over his head because he forgot her extra whipped cream.
"Drop the mallet, Harley!" Batman boomed, stepping into the hallway.
Harley paused, deciding against turning around.
She launched herself out the nearest window.
“Damn, Batsy, she got away. Might as well get a good old Americano instead, hm?” Joker asked.
"We are not getting coffee," Batman growled, though he was currently looking for signs pointing to the nearest hotel cafe. "We are pursuing the suspect."
"Oh, please, Batsy, look at yourself!" Joker scoffed, waving a pale hand wildly at Batman’s broad chest. "You're bursting out of neon hibiscus blossoms like a very angry, very nocturnal Hulk on a spy mission. You need caffeine. I need caffeine. And frankly, you look like you belong in Arkham, and that’s coming from someone like me."
"Shut up Joker, my outfit is perfect for the occasion" Batman hissed. He grabbed Joker by the velvet sleeve, pulling him down the corridor toward the elevators. "Harley wouldn't just leap out of a window without a proper escape plan. She’s too calculated."
"She threw a mallet at a bellboy because of dairy products, Bats. Let's not give her that much compliments just yet," Joker muttered. He tripped over his own oversized clown shoes, stumbling directly into Batman's very muscular chest.
Batman caught him automatically, his grip lingering just a second too long on Joker’s waist. He looked down at the smear of bright red lipstick still clinging to the clown's pale face from the night before.
Maybe he needs caffeine after all. His thoughts are jumbled up. Did the Joker drug him? Why was he staring at his lips?
“Fine. We’ll get coffee. But only if you promise to focus afterwards.” he said, very pointedly avoiding eye contact with the Clown Prince.
Joker was practically beaming with the prospect of breakfast. He tugged on Batman’s very damaged sleeves, leading him to the nearest cafe.
Perched in a small booth that was way too romantic for the both of them, the Joker was scanning the breakfast menu for expensive things he could make Batman pay for.
Batman, however, had his own set of problems. He had always considered himself a man of justice. One who will not be swayed by something as sappy as romance. But looking at the man in front of him, one he has had countless brawls with, he felt his heart flutter.
How weird.
Before his logical brain could stop his highly compromised romantic brain, Batman leaned down and aggressively kissed the clown right in the middle of the cafe. It wasn't romantic, he tried to convince himself, it was designed to shut Joker up. To make him focus.
Joker blinked up at him through his crooked Harry Potter glasses, completely stunned into silence for a rare three seconds. "Well," Joker squeaked, his white cheeks flushing a faint, involuntary pink. "That’s one way to bypass the breakfast menu. But I still want a croissant."
"Focus," Batman ordered, wiping his mouth with the back of his gauntlet, which only served to smear the lipstick across his own jawline. "Harley didn't jump to the street. Look at the structural layout of this hotel. This window leads directly onto the glass roof of the indoor swimming pool. If she landed safely, she’s looping back to the ballroom to secure her stash."
"A classic pincer movement," Joker grinned, his chaos-loving heart fluttering. "Or she just really wanted to go for a morning swim. Either way, if we catch her, I get to use the bad cop routine. You're already wearing the bad shirt."
Joker munched on the croissant he had been craving, sipping his coffee as he stared at a nearby window.
Batman pretended he hadn’t kissed the Joker for absolutely no reason, distracting himself as he poured ungodly amounts of sugar (or was it salt?) into his cup of tea.
***
Both now filled to the brim with overpriced pastries, they rounded the corner back toward the ballroom, Batman’s ripped seams flapping sexily in the drafty corridor. Just as predicted, a flash of red and black was visible near the gilded entrance. Harley was frantically trying to shove a massive, suspicious duffel bag into a janitor's closet.
“Stop in the name of justice, Harley!” Batman commanded. Harley spun around, looked at Batman’s ripped pink shirt, then at Joker’s messy hair and engine-grease glasses. A massive, terrifying grin spread across her face. "Oh my god," she squealed. "It worked!"
Joker paused in mild confusion. “What-? What worked.”
Harley did not respond, she was too busy squealing in delight.
“Harls, what are you talking about!” Joker snapped. Harley offered him a sly smirk before trying to bolt off in the opposite direction.
Before she could escape, Batman and Joker grabbed her by her pigtails, dragged her back into the Grand Ballroom, and slammed the heavy gilded doors shut. They shoved her into a fancy hotel chair for the ultimate interrogation.
"Talk!" Batman demanded, slamming his hands onto the table to assert his dominance, though the movement caused another button on his shirt to pop off and ping against a nearby chandelier. "Where is the doomsday weapon, Quinn?"
“Yeah! And what worked?” Joker screeched.
Harley didn't even flinch. Instead, she leaned forward, her eyes glittering with curiosity. She immediately shut them down with rapid-fire questions about the previous night.
"Oh, please! You think I'm scared of a guy in a floral blouse?" Harley cackled, pointing at them. "I wanna know what happened in the lobby! Did Sharon make you guys make out? Did you use tongue? Is that why Mr. J’s lipstick is all over your chin, Bats? Tell me everything! Was the waltz romantic?!"
Joker’s face flushed bright red under his white paint. He was officially annoyed. This was ruining his reputation as the Clown Prince of Crime. He stepped forward, leaning into Harley's face, trying to look terrifying despite his crooked glasses.
"Shut up, Harley!" Joker snarled. "This is an interrogation! You will fear us! Tell us where the bomb is, or... or I will call Poison Ivy right now and tell her you killed a few oak trees for fun on your last rampage! I'll tell her you used real wood for that mallet!"
Harley’s jaw dropped. The color drained from her face. Fear struck her heart. "You... you wouldn't," she whispered in horror. "Pammy loves the environment more than she loves me! She'd break up with me!"
"Try me!" Joker threatened, holding up a hotel telephone.
Where the hell did he get that from?
"Fine! Fine! I'll admit it!" Harley screamed, throwing her hands in the air. "There is no doomsday weapon! I staged the whole stupid thing!"
Batman froze.
Joker blinked.
"What?" they said in unison.
"I had to do something!" Harley cried out, looking at them like they were the biggest idiots on earth. "Mr. J was moping around the hideout for two weeks, eating ice cream in his pajamas because he had no idea what crime to commit to get your attention! And you, Batman, were probably having a total mid-life crisis in your lil bathole because there was no crime to fight!"
She stood up on the chair, pointing dramatically at the two of them.
"All I did was give you a reason to hang out! I just wanted to let you two complete blocks of wood know that you are, in fact, completely in love! You're welcome, by the way! Now, did you guys finally admit it or what?!"
Batman and Joker stood completely paralyzed in the gloomy, empty ballroom, totally defeated by a romantic intervention from Harley Quinn.
“You… were the cure to our emotional constipation?” Joker asked, pointing a finger at Harley’s face.
Joker slowly turned his head, his crooked Harry Potter glasses sliding down his nose as he stared up at the towering, neon-pink-clad vigilante. "Batsy..." Joker whispered, a sudden, blinding epiphany striking his brain. "Oh my god. She’s right. The titles. Think about the titles!"
"Don't engage with her bullshit, Joker," Batman warned, though he was already spinning into mild confusion, paired with higher than average levels of gay panic.
"No, listen to me, you giant, brooding block of pink!" Joker cheered, grabbing Batman by the lapels of his ruined floral blouse. "I am the Clown Prince of Crime! And what are you? You are the Dark Knight!"
Batman froze. A cold sweat broke out beneath his cowl.
"A knight protects the prince!" Joker cackled, his eyes lighting up with absolute unhinged joy. "That's why you never kill me! It's chivalry! You're my knight! You're just keeping me safe from the peasants and disciplining me when I get too rowdy!"
"I am a symbol of vengeance," Batman said, though his voice lacked its usual gravelly conviction. "I do not serve royalty."
"You wear a cape, Brucie! You live in a castle! You have a loyal squire named Robin!" Joker pointed an accusing, white-painted finger at him. "You are completely dedicated to my royal safety! Now kiss me, you big, stupid stallion, or I'll tell Harley to actually bomb this stupid hotel!"
Batman looked at Harley, who was eagerly eating popcorn she had found in a hotel sofa cushion. Then he looked at Joker, whose smeared red smile was the most terrifying, beautiful thing in Gotham.
Defeated by medieval logic and a psychological intervention, Batman grabbed his Clown Prince by the waist, pulled him close, and kissed him thoroughly right in front of the gilded doors.
"Fine," Batman growled against Joker's lips, ignoring the frantic buzzing of his Bat-communicator as Alfred tried to call him for the tenth time regarding his abnormal heart rate. "But you owe me a coffee date. You pay this time."
Hand-in-hand, the Prince and his Knight walked out of the Grand Ballroom, leaving a victorious Harley Quinn to bask in her victory.