Chapter Text
The first cracks in Bruce Wayne’s mind begin to spider outwards with the death of Barbara Gordon (well, that’s not strictly true. We all know that the first weakening of the foundation that is Gotham’s sweetheart’s psyche was the murder of his parents, followed by the murder of Jason Todd, followed by a helluva lotta fear toxin — but now we’re delving into recent history.)
Admittedly, there has been strain on his mental health all night, starting with the aforementioned fear toxin, and the appearance of an enemy he’d tried so desperately not to think of (oh, but it isn’t my first appearance in here, is it, Batsy? You’ve been hearing my voice whispering in your ears for months — it’s just now that you can finally see me.) for so long. It’s been getting worse as the night goes on. What started as the occasional comment has developed into a full running commentary, and Bruce is no longer capable of droning out the din.
At present, he perches on the edge of a rooftop, his eyes on the horizon as he formulates a strategy on what he will do next. The image of the Joker sits beside him, swinging its feet carelessly over the precipice. For one absurd, ill-thought-out moment, Bruce almost warns it to be careful. Like it’s in any real danger.
“Oh, Bats, I never knew you cared. Where was that touching concern when you destroyed my cure right before my eyes? Where was your worrying about my welfare as you watched me die?”
Bruce carefully and intentionally does not turn his head to look at his hallucination (you wound me), but he knows in his heart of hearts that the clown is looking at him and sneering. He can’t resist a little eye roll. Like Joker’s death was actually his fault.
“Oh, but you still blame yourself for it, don’t you, Bats?” It wasn’t his fault that his old enemy had been incapable of believing that there was a way for both of them to survive. Really, it was Joker’s own vindictive pettiness that had killed him. “Well, that and a helluva lot of TITAN, right, Batsy? And you. Don’t forget you.”
The moon is full and the air crisp — a perfect Halloween. A shame that the children of Gotham were going without trick-or-treating today — as a child, Bruce had loved nights like this. “You loved Halloween? Well, I guess you do have a penchant for masks, huh?” A peal of laughter pierces Bruce’s eardrums as the hallucination — he refuses to call it ‘Joker’; the Joker is dead and gone and this isn’t real — tosses its head back and howls.
Sirens. Somewhere, a few brave cops are fighting an army. They likely will not survive. Likely, neither will Gotham.
The clown beside him gets to its feet, plants its hands on its hips, stares out at the burning city below. “Almost like old times, ain’t it, Bats? Like Arkham City, towards the end. Once ol’ Doc Strange started blowing things to pieces.”
Bruce passes a hand over his eyes, the image of a different fire coming unbidden to his mind. The wreckage of a body, smiling even as the flames engulfed him.
“I personally think I looked smoking.” A brilliant grin against the darkness. “As long as you ignored the lesions. Hey, did you let Harley come to my funeral?”
Bruce gets to his feet. It’s going to be a long night, and he has much more work to do.
-
His heart aches deep in his chest as he watches Tim examine Henry - their “Patient Zero”, as it is. Everything about his protege has become more guarded, more cynical, over the years. It’s an inevitability in their line of work. But there is still a hope in him that burns in his every movement, and that hope died tonight with a young woman named Barbara Gordon. Like the light of the stars in the sky, the light that burns so brilliantly in Tim Drake is dead already — he just doesn’t know it yet. It will be Bruce’s job to get the message through.
He just can’t bring himself to do it yet.
“Why, that rationalisation is downright poetic, Brucie! Colour me impressed by your self-deluding silver tongue,” his hallucination chimes in from across the room. He grits his teeth, tries to focus back on Tim, but he wasn’t any good at ignoring the Joker when he was alive — it hasn’t gotten easier now that he’s dead.
“Batman. Batman. Are you listening to me?” Tim is waving his hand in an effort to gain Bruce’s attention, and he snaps back to reality with an abrupt jolt.
“Go on,” he says, resolutely not looking at the cell that the clown is leaning against.
“You haven’t hear a word I’ve said in the last five minutes, have you?” Tim folds his arms, sounding as though he’s not sure whether to be annoyed or amused. (Exactly who is the parental figure here?)
“You haven’t found anything to explain Henry’s immunity,” Bruce says.
“...Lucky guess.” Tim is definitely amused. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, and Bruce captures it in his mind to fold up and save forever. This is likely the last time he will ever see Tim smile so openly. Tragedy changes a thing like that. He knows.
“What did your smile look like before your parents were gunned down before your very eyes, Bruce? Hell, what does your smile look like now?” The hallucination grins at him, perhaps as an example - or maybe a weak excuse for an incentive. Either way, he ignores it, and it lets out a small huff.
“Keep working, Robin. We need that cure, or people will die.”
“I know, I know. You don’t have to keep reminding me. I won’t lose focus.” Tim rolls his eyes - a teenager gently mouthing off to his old man. It’s so mundane, so normal, and Bruce has to battle the nausea currently rising in his gut just to look away. “Say, have you heard from Oracle? It’s been a while since she checked in.”
Damn it. He’d hoped beyond all rational hope that maybe Tim wouldn’t ask, that he would have enough misplaced faith in Bruce to keep her safe, and enough faith in her to survive no matter what happened.
Clearly, once again, the universe has no miracles for Bruce Wayne. He steels himself, hating every bit of what he is about to do and preparing to do it regardless. If there is a Hell, he’s spent the last thirty years trying to avoid it, and the lie he is about to tell is going to cement his place there.
“Well, hey! I’ll save you a spot in the pit of fire right next to mine,” the hallucination purrs suddenly right up against his ear. He pulls away as subtly as he can, trying to disguise it as a casual fidget, but it’s enough to send the figment into hysterics. “You always did strike me as a bit of a masochist — after all, why else would you brood on your parents’ deaths for almost three decades? I’m excited to see how you react to the near-constant torture.”
“Oracle’s fine, Robin,” Bruce says, hating every word, hating himself for saying them. His throat tightens, tears prickling somewhere deep behind his eyes. “Trust her to do her job like she’s trusting you to do yours.” A killing blow, as conversation-enders go. Tim blinks — once, twice, then looks away, as if ashamed of his own feelings. As though concern for the life of the girl he loves is something he should be rebuked for, as if Bruce is in the right.
He disgusts himself, but this is just one more thing to haunt him at night. One more sin to add to the list in his head, one more burden to carry and bludgeon himself with.
“Another failure to add to the books, eh? I’d ask how many it is now, but I know you actually know the answer. Do you know how depressing your brain is, Batsy?” He doesn’t even cut a glance in the clown’s direction.
“You’re right,” Tim says, and those two words bruise Bruce’s heart more than he can possibly say. “Sorry, I’ll stop asking.” He cracks a smile. “Well, for an hour or two.”
“Oh goodie! You can lie to his face about his dead girlfriend again, then!”
“Good soldier,” Bruce says, and leaves.
Once they’re alone in the elevator (what the hell does he mean, they’re alone)... Once he is alone in the elevator, the hallucination speaks again: “Gotta say, Brucie, that was cold. Not only lying about poor Babs, rest her soul — do you think her legs will work in Heaven, or will she use her wings instead of the wheels? — but reprimanding the little bird for asking? I’ve got to be honest, Bats, that seemed almost like something I would do.” It leers at him, hands tucked in its pockets as it leans back against the velvet siding of the elevator. “Just think, you might even crack a joke later, and then Gotham really will crumble.”
Beat. Silence yawns between them as Bruce refuses to play.
“And I’ll be right beside you when it does.”
That is not a comfort.
That is not a comfort.
That is not a…
-
The hallucination goes fairly silent again until Bruce completes one of the Riddler’s insane little racetracks. It’s not until the Batmobile is speeding away from the scene that it speaks: “You know, I’m really not thrilled with the way Eddie’s been calling himself your arch-nemesis. It’s funny, isn’t it — you could slobber all over Catwoman on a rooftop and I wouldn’t bat an eye, but one idiot covered in question marks starts trying to steal my title and I turn into a jealous girlfriend.” It laughs darkly in the back of its throat, a chuckle that evolves into a cackle, before cutting off the sound abruptly. “When you finally start seeing things my way vis-a-vis murder, I vote we kill him first.”
-
It’s been a long and trying night, and Bruce is so very, very tired. Every time he closes his eyes, he can just see Barbara’s pretty eyes widening with fear as she sees him, then her desperate scramble for the gun. Her frightened whimpers as she presses the barrel to her own temple…
“Honestly, Batsy, what’s the point of me being here if you’re already so good at self-flagellation? You’re really doing all my work for me; I’m starting to feel a little redundant.” The hallucination flashes a vicious smile, cold and mirthless, in Bruce’s direction, leaning towards him. Just enough to make him feel advanced upon.
Another step to allow Bruce the height advantage, looking at him all soft and doe-eyed. If he didn’t know better… “Are you saying I almost got you?” The hallucination claps his hands giddily, a peal of laughter tearing from his throat. “Let me be your blushing virgin, Batsy, I promise I’ll be very complimentary.”
Bruce shoots him a look, and he shrugs. “Rain check? Alright, I’ll be a virgin whenever you need.”
A small noise of disgust escapes Bruce before he can stop it in its tracks, and the hallucination is thrilled. “Finally! You react! God, but you are a broody teenager, aren’t you? Could give old Jason a run for his money.”
Damn it. It’s always these — the momentary flashes of weakness — that will return to haunt him later; the vulnerable setbacks that bite him in the ass.
“Hey, if you want me to do any ass-biting, just say the word, Bats.” Bruce grits his teeth, determined not to give the hallucination the satisfaction of hearing him react a second time. Still, that doesn’t stop the clown from exalting in his own victory, temporary and petty as it may be. “I’m on a roll, baby, and I’m gonna ride it all night long,” he caws, and Bruce sighs internally.
More work to do.
-
Another rooftop.
Opera music dances on the breeze, a high and nasal tenor from an unseen speaker. So painfully lovely, and completely ruined by what Bruce knows he will find the minute he drops to the pavement below. With his grip on sanity as tenuous as tonight has made it, he is afraid to come to face with yet another horrific crime scene.
“That’s not all you’re afraid of, is it, Bats?”
The quip calls to mind a taunt from years past, an announcement over a PA system in an asylum gone wild by a leery and triumphant Joker. If I turn around and he’s in a thong…
Bruce turns. Not only is the clown not in a thong, he is nowhere to be seen. Good, Bruce thinks, and tries to ignore the nagging sense of emptiness that blooms in his belly.
-
“Tsk tsk tsk, you went and got yourself gassed again? It’s almost like you want me to win!” Joker is wearing a pair of bifocals, leering at him from over a clipboard.
Bruce blinks. They’re in a psychiatrist's office, he thinks. Degrees line the walls (though they all appear to be from clown college), and he’s leaning back in an armchair. Leather straps encircle his wrists, keeping them pinned flat against the armrests.
“I know, I know, I apologise for the kink factor,” Joker says, not sounding very sorry at all. “In my defense, I only had your imagination to work with, and the first things that came to mind were some spicy images involving you, me, and Catwoman in varying positions. Only some of which were sexual, but I’ll let you guess which ones!”
Bruce tugs at the straps, twisting his wrists first one way and then the other in an attempt to escape.
“Don’t bother. We’ve got a while until your appointment ends, and I thought this would be more fun than you punching 80 clones of me 80 times. That was the other option, Bats; someone has a criminally small imagination. I know your biggest fear isn’t punching me; I’ve been punched too many times.”
So this isn’t real. Just another Fear Toxin-induced hallucination. Bruce sags, allowing himself a moment of respite before tensing his muscles again. Fake or real, this is still a waster of time — and leaving him vulnerable to attack.
“I’ll warn you if you’re about to get shanked; we’re too close to the grand finale for you to blow your load now. Don’t forget, you’re my ride. If you die, well, that’s curtains for us.” Joker cocks his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t be giving you ideas, hmm? If I hammer the point home too hard, you might decide to pull a Babsy on me!” He howls, tossing his head back, all but slapping his knee at his own sick joke.
Bruce grits his teeth, determined not to give the clown the satisfaction of an angry reaction. Still, he’s sure that Joker notices the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw. He’s always been good at noticing things like that.
“Was that a compliment? Well I’ll be damned,” Joker purrs gently, clipboard dropping to his lap. “Look at that, Batsy; you’ve got me blushing.”
There’s a stretch of silence in which Joker is clearly waiting for something, though Bruce isn’t sure what. A revolted reaction? Another compliment? An escape attempt?
The clown makes a buzzer noise like a contestant just answered wrong on a gameshow, leaning forward to study Bruce. He is not smiling, he is not laughing — he is not talking. It’s unsettling. The silence yawns out once more, and Bruce finds himself shifting almost anxiously. What does Joker want from him?
“There.” Joker’s voice is sudden, and Bruce almost flinches. “And there again.” A smile spreads across his face, slow and warm, drizzled across his mouth like honey. “You called me by my name.” And there’s such delight in his voice, with a suspiciously low amount of malice. It’s as though he’s truly just… excited by this new development. “You started out the night calling me an it, and now I have a name. Thank you, Bats, thank you.” Is it Bruce’s imagination, or are the clown’s eyes slightly wet? Is he crying, or are his eyes just shining?
And god damn it, he’s right. Somewhere along the way, the lines between fantasy and reality became blurred enough that a mere toxin-induced hallucination became Bruce’s own personal Joker, and he’s not sure how to make his brain switch back.
“I’ve always been your own personal Joker, Batsy,” Joker coos, and he’s suddenly close, hands coming up to cup the vigilante’s face. Bruce flinches away from the touch, and the clown sighs. Pulls back. “Guess I misread the moment, huh?”
Bruce almost opens his mouth to respond, and then the clown’s eyes dart over his shoulder.
“Look alive, Bats — or soon, you won’t be.”
The chair, the diplomas, the Joker — all of them disappear before Bruce has fully processed the sentence, but his body needs no such processing. He is already spinning to counter a fist, and he ignores the fact that dimly, he can hear the sound of laughter.
-
“Well, that was brutal.”
Litotes has never been Joker’s strong suit, but for once, he’s managed to make an understatement. Bruce stares in horror at the carnage he’s wreaked upon this group of henchmen, at the blood splattering their faces, his knuckles, the floor. If he didn’t know better, he’d think… He’d think these men were dead.
“They ain’t far off,” Joker chimes in. He’s squatting above an unconscious man, prodding at him with gloved fingers despite the fact that reality does not react to his touch. “I think you broke this one’s neck. Just think, now we’d both drink for something in Never Have I Ever.” Affecting a high, girlish voice, innocent: “Never have I ever crippled someone!”, and then a quick pantomime of taking a shot.
I didn’t mean to.
“Well, you did. And you are thisclose to talking to me properly.”
Bruce clams up almost immediately, and Joker rolls his eyes. “Try not to look so excited, huh?” he grumbles, giving the body at his feet a particularly vicious prod. Despite the fact that it does not move at this provocation, it seems to make him feel better. He even manages to regain his smile, which is immediately flashed in Bruce’s direction. “I’m sorry, Bats, does it make you uncomfortable when I draw attention to the progress you’ve made? I don’t mean to embarrass you.”
Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose through the cowl, a scowl brewing on his lips. Something pulses in his jaw, a sharp and gnawing ache to focus on rather than Joker. It’s always a game of avoidance with them: avoiding death, capture, the truth.
“If you say ‘avoiding our feelings’, I’ll hurl,” Joker chimes in helpfully, and Bruce barely supresses an eye roll of his own. This clown’s going to be the fucking death of him after all — but not through any grand scheme or massive triumph. No, the Joker is going to irritate the Batman to death.
At least it’ll take them both out of the picture.
“We are just like Romeo and Juliet,” Joker says dryly. “More murder, less suicide, and old enough to know better, but otherwise, it’s uncanny.”
Briefly, Bruce considers suicide as an alternative to this fresh hell.
“Baaaaaats. No,” Joker whines. His green eyes swim, drink the vigilante in with a broad and violent smile just lurking beneath the surface. “If you die now, Gotham goes with you. If you die now, you go to Hell, if there is one. Directly to Hell, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. You’ve got one shot at redemption, Wayne, and it’s telling Robin 3.0 that his delightfully disabled darling one is now dearly departed.”
There is no redemption left for him, Bruce reflects. But still — Joker is right about one thing, as much as it pains him to admit it. Gotham needs the Batman. For one more night, it needs the Dark Knight, and the sun has not yet risen.
“If you still want to eat a bullet at the end of your shift, we can talk about it. Maybe you just need a change in management, eh?”
That bullet is sounding pretty fucking appetising.