Archive of Our Own

“Oi Riddler, I got one for you. What has four walls and ain’t opening up for you anytime soon?”

Riddler spared the guard a glance over the top of The Gazette. It was a month old issue, but he appreciated the distraction from the monotony of incarceration. The theory was that handing out old news would prevent anyone from making plans on the outside with what information they were given, and it mostly seemed to be working. 

“Much as I would like to believe you have a present waiting at home for me that the board has deemed an escape hazard, I’m going to assume you’re talking about this cell.”

“You’re damn right I’m talking about this cell,” the guard looked round, grinning at his colleagues like he’d just told the joke of his career. Maybe it was the best he could manage, it was incredible what simple little minds could conjure up to keep themselves entertained.

Riddler could do better than that, “I trap the pretty birdies even if just for a while. Though I finish six feet under I’ll be leaving with a smile. What am I?”

The guard kept on smiling. Riddler was particularly derisive of the current crop of Arkham security. It appeared they had cleared the city out of trained professionals and had moved on to hiring thugs barely above street trash to keep them all in line. “Oh, I see how it is. We got ourselves a wise guy.”

A wave of laughter swept over the guards up and down the corridor. Riddler bit his tongue to keep himself from reminding them that yes, he was incredibly wise and far more accomplished in his chosen profession than they could ever hope to be. He had long since abandoned any attempts to explain the voracity of his intellect to these lowlifes. Partly due to willful ignorance, partly due to sheer stupidity, they would never understand.

The laughter went on, and on. Long past the point any semblance of humour could be mined from such an innocuous comment. Good. It was high time something interesting happened round here. Riddler's lips curled into a private little smile as he watched the mouths of the guards at his cell twisting into unnaturally wide grins, skin turning white and taught. It had been a while since he’d seen rows of faces morphing into that same identical pattern, and he was surprised to find he had missed it.

From what he could make out, the inmates had been spared this fate. Or at least, he couldn’t hear Basil’s booming chuckle or the high pitched titters that preceded Oswald’s squawking. So this wing was safe.

It took a good five minutes for the laughter to fade completely. The guard who had thought himself so smart had fallen forwards, his face pressed against the reinforced plexiglass at the front of Riddler’s cell. He slid towards the floor in slow motion, face frozen in a grin that would never be wiped off.

It was better this way, night time at Arkham was supposed to be a free for all. A few more incidents like this and the establishment would be unable to find people willing to stand guard after dark no matter what the pay.

Riddler turned his attention back to his paper, aware that others in his wing were already making moves towards freedom. He gave them thirteen minutes and twenty seconds before someone started badgering him for help. If he was feeling nice, he might give it to them, or at least to Professor Crane. They had something of an understanding – Riddler didn’t try to test the Scarecrow’s mind, and in return he never need find out what his deepest fear was.

Before time could be called on his neighbouring inmates, a familiar face appeared at the front of his cell. Pale, with a smile to match the guards, though eerie without its usual coating of lipstick.

“Evening, Joker.” Had Riddler still had his hat, he would have doffed it.

Joker waved absent mindedly in Riddler’s direction, his attention focused on the guards' corpses. He grabbed the guy with his face pressed against the cell wall by the hair, pulled him back into a standing position and traced the laugh lines indelibly etched into his skin, giggling to himself.

“I’m an Arkham guard about to get hit by a face full of Joker toxin,” Joker said, “Ha! Good one Eddie.”

It seemed unfair to congratulate Joker on his ability to solve riddles that he himself inspired, so Riddler didn’t. Instead, he set aside his paper and walked up to the glass to get a better look at the mastermind behind the evening’s chaos.

Joker was dressed in the standard issue Arkham Asylum orange boiler suit, with a strait jacket tied around his waist. Officially strait jackets hadn’t been used here in over a decade, but Riddler could hardly blame the medical staff for wanting to take as few chances with The Joker as possible. Of course, just having the clown under their roof was a massive liability, but the people of Gotham were of the opinion that they were better off with him in here than out on the streets, and were more than willing to look the other way.

Riddler gave Joker a minute to admire his handiwork before he decided it was time he become the centre of attention. “You put the toxin in the coffee machine last night. Used a slow acting recipe that would combine with caffeine and water to activate.”

Without warning, Joker dropped the body he had been examining, and it fell back to the floor hard enough that Riddler heard its skull crack. “Well done Eddie! I didn’t know you were chemically minded.”

“I’m not,” Riddler smiled, “but I’ve been watching you for too long not to have some idea how the system works.”

“The system-“ Joker dissolved into a peal of high pitched wails that Riddler supposed was meant to pass for a hearty laugh, “Oh Eddie, there’s no system. Tell me though, how’d you work it out?”

“A magician never reveals his secrets.”

“Oh please darling, we both know you’re not interested in anything so gauche as magic.”

“It’s a simple matter of controlling the variables. None of the inmates in this wing appear to be affected so you weren’t using gas. Other than air the only things the guards get from inside the building are coffee and their pay checks, and payday’s not till the end of the week.”

Joker clapped his hands in delight, “nice to see someone’s paying attention.”

“Well I do try,” Riddler's eyes flicked to Joker’s hands, which were twitching towards the pockets of his jumpsuit. He didn’t doubt that those pockets contained all manner of mortally devastating paraphernalia and was keen to keep the madman distracted from them for as long as possible, “I suppose you’ve come to me because you want something.”

“My dear, I never want anything. Unless you happen to have the Batman stripped naked and tied to a post back there.” Joker giggled.

Riddler didn’t believe for a second that that meant he would not be called upon momentarily to assist in Joker’s fun. He nodded towards the pile of dead guards outside his cell, “so this was the end in and of itself? You’re not breaking out?”

Joker shook his head, “if I wanted to break out I’d just go. But I’m such a generous soul, I thought we could all use a laugh. Of course, if you wanted some exercise, I’d be happy to chaperone.” His smile was unwavering, wide enough to show the bloody mess of his gums. Riddler considered himself not just a highly intelligent individual, but an excellent judge of people, yet in all the years they’d known each other he’d never been able to work out when The Joker’s smile meant playtime and when it meant murder. He supposed that for the clown, the two were often one and the same.

It had been six months since Riddler had been allowed outside his cell without his hands in cuffs. Like Joker, if he really wanted to escape he would be out of the asylum within the hour. He had thirteen routes planned for how to do it when his patience with the staff wore thin. But he had never much minded having to entertain himself, and as long as he was out on the streets the Big Bad Bat would be looking for him. For the time being, it made sense to stay and hope that the guards stopped trying to entertain him.

“I don’t much need a chaperone,” Riddler said.

Joker’s laugh cut across him, high and cold, “But it’s been so long! We really much catch up.” He fished something out of his pocket, then reached up to push it through one of the air holes running along the top of Riddler’s cell. As it fell, it was possible to make out the shape of a small, green sphere, but when it hit the floor it collapsed into a puff of dust that billowed across the small space.

It had not been what Riddler was expecting, and as such he was embarrassingly slow to react. The first whiff of the dust was hanging on the back of his tongue before his brain processed that this was a heavy form of Joker gas, and he had mere minutes to escape his cell if he didn’t want to wind up as lifeless as the guards. Growling out his frustration, he dove under the bed where he had managed to chip through the concrete to access the wires running through the bottom of his cell. In theory he knew how to open the door from here and had done as much in other cells, but he had never had cause to attempt it from this one.

His first attempt rather unhelpfully cut the lights, and Riddler was left coughing in the dark. His second attempt did something to send the air conditioning into overdrive, circulating the gas even faster. It was on the third try, as the urge to laugh was becoming overpowering, that Riddler connected the right wires and heard the door slide open behind him. He scrambled for the opening, pushing The Joker aside in his efforts to get out of the way of the gas and into clean air.

Riddler got ten metres before he had to lean against the wall and laugh it out. The muscles at the corners of his mouth felt tight, making it impossible not to smile. He was pretty sure he hadn’t inhaled enough Joker toxin to cause any lasting damage, but it was going to be a few minutes before it was all out of his system.

His laughter was soon joined by that of The Joker, stumbling over to him between fits of the giggles and clapping Riddler soundly on the back. “Good job Eddie. I can’t pretend I’m not a little disappointed in you for falling for the same trick twice but you’re so much more fun like this.”

Under the influence of his toxin, The Joker was very funny. Riddler always forgot right up until he was left in stitches. This was in fact the third time he had had to break out of his cell before the Joker Gas got to him and it was never a trick. Perhaps if he were dealing with someone who had rational motives behind their actions, he might have been able to persuade them to stop smoking him out of bed, but this was a mad man with little motivation beyond what seemed fun at the time.

It was rather impressive when he thought about it, how very difficult it would be to manipulate The Joker into doing anything. He genuinely seemed unconcerned with anything in this life beyond the Bat, and even then the exact nature of his interest fluctuated. Sometimes he wanted to flay him and set the corpse on fire, other times there was an unmistakably sexual note to his obsession.

“Now Eddie,” Joker’s laughter cut out abruptly and he straightened to his full height, “what say you and I go on a little tour of the homestead?”

“Do I have a choice?” It was an effort to speak around his frantic gasps for breath. Riddler couldn’t say he was a fan. He prided himself on his ability to remain calm as the world fell apart around his ears, and stuttering over his words to keep from laughing did little to maintain that reputation.

“Nope!” Joker grabbed Riddler by the shoulders, straightened him up and slipped an arm through his. He set off towards the door to the wing and Riddler had no choice but to be dragged along behind him or try to keep up.

The lights were still on in most of the cells. The direction Joker took them passed Oswald and Bane, each wrestling with the controls for their cell doors. Otherwise the building was as dark as ever; Riddler had always assumed that if you were to turn the lights on in Arkham, you would find the walls coated with far more than black mould. He giggled to himself, imagining the cleaning bill.

“Riddler! There’s a hundred thousand dollars in it for you if you can get me out of here in the next ten minutes!” Oswald screeched from inside his cell. He was so fat that his jumpsuit looked like it might break open at any moment, pounding ineffectually on the plexiglass that he must have known would take more than his total bodyweight to shatter.

Under normal circumstances, Riddler would probably have allowed himself a proper smile. With the toxin still in his body, he felt at liberty to tip back his head and shriek with laughter. He laughed so loud he didn’t realise that Joker was laughing with him until he started to calm down.

“Thirteen minutes and twenty seconds,” Joker tittered, tugging Riddler away from Oswald’s cell before he could be persuaded to assist him.

That brought Riddler up short, “how did you-“

“Oh Eddie please! Please don’t be so boring as to start wondering how I know what I know. Just know that I know you, honey. And know that you know that I know that I know you.”

They both laughed at that, but this time Riddler had himself back under control momentarily. The toxin was wearing off. 

As they walked down the wing, more and more inmates clamoured for assistance. Riddler could understand why they would try him, he had been known to let people out when feeling particularly benevolent in the past, but he had no idea what help anyone expected to receive from Joker. The very act of expectation was a sure-fire guarantee that they would get nothing from him.

They came to the end of the wing and Joker lurched towards the keypad set into the wall, supposedly to punch in a code which Riddler had very little faith in he actually knew. Sure enough, Joker considered the little numbered keys for all of ten seconds before enacting what appeared to be a key smash and standing back, waiting for the door to open.

Of course the door opened. Reality warped itself to get out of Joker’s way the same as everything else. Riddler understood the reaction in principal, but he always seemed to get lucky when it came to Joker. Or he had to assume it was luck, either that or he had unknowingly been inducted into the select group of people Joker managed to have a genuine fondness for and there was no way he was that fortuitous.

Batman, Doctor Quinzell, on his best days Harvey Dent and that gorilla he had used to terrorise the city for a couple of years while the bat was out of town. The list of people Joker could be said to actually like was a short one, and he seemed to hate them most of the time anyway.

“Where are we going?” Riddler asked after Joker had led him down the corridor leading away from the wing to an elevator.

Joker shrugged, “anywhere I guess. What takes your fancy?”

“I’m a man of simple tastes,” 

“Ha!” Joker barked, and Riddler was almost overcome by a sympathetic wave of giggles, “well then my dear, we can take a tour of the house, go bother Ivy’s babies in the greenhouses, or maybe go for a dip in the ocean.”

“You're sure this isn't a break out?”

Joker had to think about that one, brows furrowed as he eyed up the buttons on the elevator that would take them above ground. “I can’t say I intended it to be, I just wanted some fresh air. I mean we can break out if you like, but if we’re going to do it we’ll need to move pretty quickly. Not that I don’t enjoy it when Batsy comes all the way out here to see me but I’d rather be back in the city before he realises we’re gone. I’m not looking to get my nose broken tonight.”

Riddler had seen Joker with a broken nose, it healed up perfectly in two days. He’d hacked into the asylum medical records on now fewer than fourteen occasions for the sake of finding out what makes the man meta, but nothing ever came up. Nothing in the Joker’s physiology as examined by Arkham, the GCPD, Gotham General or the Batman showed any evidence that his mutation was more than skin deep. No healing factor, no resistance to poisons or drugs. But the evidence of the eye was undeniable.

Breaking out sounded like a lot of hassle, especially when he had no plans for what he would do with all that time and space. Riddler shrugged, “I don’t need to break out. If it’s fresh air you’re wanting, maybe we should just go out to the cliffs.”

“So romantic Eddie,” Joker turned to face Riddler, waggling his eyebrows. Without looking he smashed every button on the elevator after all.

It would be pointless to argue with him, which didn’t stop Riddler getting all the way to opening his mouth before he decided against saying a thing. The elevator jerked into life, a brief ascent to the second basement level which was completely unlit and so dark as to be a little unsettling.

Joker pulled his arm away, only to slide it down till his palm is pressed against Riddler’s, threading their fingers together. “There!” he beamed, “more manoeuvrability.”

There was just enough toxin left in Riddler’s system to provoke a laugh.

The first basement was a supply closet, brimming with medical equipment the likes of which Riddler had never seen in use at the asylum. The elevator didn’t still long enough for him to conduct a proper inspection, but he was pretty sure that there was an MRI stashed at the back behind some boxed up microscopes. Equipment like that would be a massive help in aiding the folk downstairs, perhaps if Riddler ever broke out and decided to do something nice for the inmates, he’d let the Gazette know it was down here.

Arrival on the ground floor of the asylum meant stepping into an almost offensively brightly lit room, floor lined with linoleum and walls painted in pastel blue and eggshell, no doubt intended to mimic a hospital. Riddler had to swallow a bark of laughter that would have bubbled up his throat regardless of the presence of toxin. The irony of Arkham Asylum playing like it was a proper medical facility was too good.

“C’mon,” Joker muttered, striding forward and pulling Riddler along by the hand. He walked like he knew the route, though it was debateable as to whether he knew anything beyond how to get what he most wanted in any given moment. The bright lighting and peppy paintjob continued down corridors and stairways devoid of life. Up and down, sometimes doubling back on themselves. Glancing into the rooms that opened onto their paths, Riddler saw yet more bodies of asylum employees collapsed on the ground, faces stretched into smiles.

These weren’t the gormless guards that picked up work because that was all there was going, these were trained medical personnel. Riddler happened to know that Arkham was something of a Mecca for psychologists, people coming from all over the world to take a crack at the toughest minds the field had to offer. No one took the time to ask why so many of those minds had been shaped in Gotham, and the city used the interest in the asylum as a marketing opportunity rather than a point of shame.

They passed the body of a woman lying right in the middle of an atrium that lead on to the emergency unit. She was lying on her back, smiling wildly at the ceiling, the full face of makeup she had been wearing when she died distorted by the abnormal contraction of her facial muscles. Riddler stopped dead, causing Joker to almost lose his balance as he was tugged back by his arm.

“What are you doing?” Joker snarled. Still smiling, always smiling, always unreadable.

Riddler pointed to the woman’s corpse, “lips painted red, won’t need ‘em when I’m dead.”

“Lipstick!” Joker dove to the floor, refusing to extract his hand from Riddler’s and pulling him down too. She had spent enough time on her face that morning that it seemed unlikely that she wasn’t carrying some sort of top up on her person. Joker found what he was looking for in her top pocket.

The stick of red rising from the little black tube reminded Riddler of a dog’s penis, the way mutts were prone to dream of fucking and how it echoed in their sleeping bodies. The image made his stomach churn, watching Joker gleefully swipe it along his lips, bringing his face back into focus.

Joker smacked his lips triumphantly, “how do I look?”

“You’ve got a smudge,” Riddler said, reaching out to scrape the excess red from the corner of Joker’s mouth.

It was exactly the sort of thing that he should have known better than to do. Joker grabbed Riddler's hand before he could pull it away and sat staring at the speck of red on the pad of his thumb. For a horrible moment, Riddler thought he might be about to suck it off.

The moment broke, The Joker started laughing and let Riddler’s hand go. “I’m getting out of practice, cooped up in here all day.”

The Joker still had one of Riddler’s hands clasped tight in his. His tongue slipped out to wet his bottom lip and came away shining and red. He looked more like himself like this, the jagged edges of his smile all the brighter for the coat of paint, and when he pulled them back to their feet he appeared to stand taller. Neither of them could be described as short, but Joker could feel a whole lot smaller than he really was given his preposterously thin frame and the fact that he tended to walk with a slouch. Once his back was straightened he was well over six foot, probably even taller than the Batman.

They continued through the maze of Arkham that Joker either knew very well or was having too much fun guessing at to care. He wrote lipstick messages on the wall, long strings of letters rarely reading more than hahahahahahahahahahahaha… He sketched teeth between the brackets of each H so that they would go grinning down at anyone who might come passing.

He seemed to have quite the talent for it, and it was rather fascinating to watch him work. Riddler had always assumed that the matching graffiti scrawled across the Gotham was the work of one of Joker’s admirers but seeing this he couldn’t be sure. Maybe there were no Joker clones or cults, maybe it was just the one guy, paying people off to stand around and get their heads blown off for him. He was so engrossed in the spectacle, he didn’t realise when they came to entrance of the building.

Never in all his years of being brought here had Riddler been brought in through the back, through the real hospital. For him, Arkham had always been a deep dark pit that never tried to pretend it was anything else, tracking him through the front door of the historic mansion and leading him down into the basement. It confirmed the two things he has always known to be true of the asylum: that the hospital wing was primarily the vestige of the press, and that they’d always known he wasn’t really crazy.

Joker held out the lipstick, pressed it into Riddler’s palm, “wanna leave your mark before we head out into the wide world?”

Riddler found that he did, which was most unusual. Vandalism had never been all that appealing to him. It was tricky, as his right hand was occupied by The Joker’s and he had no illusions about getting it back any time soon, but he knew exactly what he wanted to draw. He wasn’t much of an artist, but that was neither here nor there. It was the work of a moment to scratch out a beak, a pair of flippers, a little round body to hold it all together.

He swore he’d never heard Joker laugh so loud in all his life, “oh Eddie you are a mean little man! I love it.”

“Who’s more out of water than out of his cell?” Riddler smiled, standing back to admire his handiwork.

“That silly old Penguin.”

“Precisely.”

“You know, sometimes I think that you and I would really have some fun if we ever had to go toe to toe,” Joker nudged Riddler in a manner that could just as easily be intended to disembowel with his elbows as simulate camaraderie.

There was nothing smart that could be said to that, so Riddler said not a word. When he stepped into the field to play The Great Game, he did so with the intent to test the minds of the people he played against. There was nothing left in Joker’s head to be tested. Whether he was a genius or an imbecile (and depending on the day he could be either) his only goal was to break the game down until there was nothing left but the players.

The door out into the carpark normally used by the press corps was open. Not so much as a busted access pad in sight. That should tell anyone everything they needed to know about Arkham. If you’re stepping into a secure medical facility and the access route for the average Joe is permanently unlocked, you’re not getting access to everything. Joker threw the door open with enough force that the glass in the top panel shattered on impact with the wall.

And then they were out. It was mid-May, the suffocating heat of the summer still a way off but not so cold after dark that an Arkham jumpsuit wouldn’t save you from the worst of it. The air smelt of pollution rising from the industrial complexes to the north of Gotham, the salty tang of the ocean lost below the smog. Riddler breathed it all in, the scent provoking nostalgia for all the times he had gotten out of this dump before.

“I have a jacket, if you get cold.” Joker pointed to the strait jacket around his waist. For a moment he fixed Riddler with his best impression of seriousness before breaking off into a peal of giggles that sounded thin and insubstantial in the open air.

Despite his many successful escape attempts over the years, Riddler had never made a proper getaway by sea. He knew it was one of the more popular routes out of Arkham, and also one of the highest risk methods. As such, he didn’t know which way they were supposed to go from here to get to the cliffs. The handful of times he had been out in the grounds, they had been a distant line drawn in the sky, where the brown of the perpetually dying grass faded to the black of Gotham’s waters. That much he could remember, but he was going to have to trust that Joker knew where they were going from here.

Trust Joker. Ha. Good one, he should become a comedian. Riddler tried to ignore the slip of sweat on his hand where his and Joker’s palms were pressed together, impossible to tell who was the culprit but having to assume they were each at least partially responsible. He was led across the concrete of the car park and onto a stretch of grass that curled round to the left of the building. The road off the island, that would swing back round to the bridge towards Gotham, was lost in a thick nest of trees up ahead of them that appeared to shift in an invisible breeze.

“We don’t want to go in there,” Joker’s eyes narrowed and he kept them firmly focused on the forest as they skirted the tree line.

Riddler had a good idea as to why, “Harry Potter.”

“Are you referring to the Forbidden Forest, the existence of magic, or the notion that a mother’s love can protect her child even when she is not physically present? Our dear Ms Ivy being the mother in this scenario.”

“Mostly option C but it works on so many levels it would be a shame to discount any of your ideas.”

They rounded a corner and the stretch of grass billowed out into a full blown lawn leading up to the old house. Joker insisted that they walk backwards for a full hundred metres, watching the forest for signs of life, his fingers uncomfortably tight around Riddler’s.

“If it was planning on causing trouble we’d be dead by now,” Riddler pointed out.

Joker remained unconvinced, “You don’t know Ivy like I do. Ever since…”

Had it been anyone else, Riddler would have made an unkind comment about stolen girlfriends. He was aware that something had snapped Professor Quinzell out of her infatuation with Joker and that she was now shacked up with Poison Ivy somewhere outside the city limits. He also knew that the two women were more than prepared to execute Joker on site.

Maybe it was wise to keep their eyes on the forest.

“I’d be in Ravenclaw,” Riddler said, trying to keep his tone light and pretend he couldn’t see the vines slithering around the bottom of the trees.

“Same.” Joker replied.

“But of course.”

By the time they turned their backs on the forest and started heading up the lawn to the house, Riddler had seen enough sentient plant life to last him a life time. “I have to assume that the activity we saw back there is dependent on your presence or there’s no way anyone could use that road.”

“Correct as ever, Eddie,” Joker said with a great nodding of his head, “Not Ivy’s finest bit of thinking, as far as I can remember I’ve only ever made my escape via that route twice. It’s got a rather good Haunted House vibe going though.”

“I’ll take the Arkhams over the forest,” Riddler replied. The house loomed before them, looking more than ever like a great beast squatting in amongst the newer buildings that made up the wider hospital complex. Save for Amadeus Arkham’s office and the maximum security wing deep below the basement, it was void of practical function, and the only light shining off the windows was that of the mainland stretching out to touch the island.

It still creeped Riddler out, but the house was more or less his home. The chills that ran up his spine when he let his attention focus too sharply on it's angular turrets were familiar to him in ways he hoped the bastard floral offspring of a meta human never would be.

Without warning, Joker stopped them dead in the middle of the lawn. He turned to face Riddler, eyes gleaming with something between mischief and malice. “Hey Riddles, a crime was committed in the forest. Left the police stumped. Who did it?”

Riddler rolled his eyes, “yew know who.”

It seemed impossible that the laugh Joker graced him with could not be heard all the way over in Gotham. Certainly anyone who had managed to spring themselves from their cell within the manor must have heard. It was a grating cackle akin to a shriek, one that Riddler had only ever heard from the backwaters of the Narrows. He used to think of it as a hyena’s hunting cry, even though he knew it wasn’t made by any animal.

“Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,” The Joker had to speak so fast to get the words out around his laughter, pulling Riddler in so close that their noses almost touched, “we should kill someone Eddie.”

Alarmed, Riddler tried to jerk away from him, but Joker had always been much stronger than a bag of bones should be, “no.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t fancy being shoved in solitary on minimal rations for the rest of my stay here.”

“Oh you’re no fun.”

“We’re supposed to be heading for the cliffs.”

This time when Joker laughed, Riddler was close enough to be doused in spittle, “or we could head straight off. Wee! Try not to hit your pretty little head Eddie dear, red’s not your colour.”

Riddler reached up with his free hand to wipe The Joker’s saliva from his cheek. The hand that was being held captive was being gripped so tightly that he was starting to worry he might not get it back without breaking bones. “What has no wings and cannot fly?” He spoke from between gritted teeth.

“Just about everything darling, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“Chalk dust sunk to the bottom of the sea. No one cares, the angels hang back. If the shell’s complete when the snail breaks free, who comes to call?”

“The Bat.” Joker’s voice dropped to something barely above a whisper, eyes widening in joy or fear or reverence or whatever it was he felt when he thought of black wings superimposed on the night sky. His body was wound tight as a spring, energy practically crackling off his skin which up close was so pale that it seemed to glow. Then he exhaled and the slack came rushing back to him, stepping out of Riddler’s personal space and loosening the grip on his hand.

There was no point asking what had gotten into him. It seemed unlikely Joker would even remember, not for as long as it took for him to collect himself and start back towards the house, this time skipping. Riddler changed his mind, he’d take the Arkhams and the forest at the same time if needs be, so long as he never need deal with Joker.

They approached the hedge that marked the border between what was once an ornamental garden and the rest of the lawn. Joker was still skipping, and Riddler had to join him if he wanted to have any hope of keeping up.

Riddler was tall but his torso was disproportionately long, while Joker was all leg. There was no doubt who would win if it came to a footrace and Riddler was certainly not going to keep up with his companion walking.

It had to have been a decade or more since anyone had bothered to prune the shrubs that made up the ornamental garden. Riddler found the mismatch of dog roses and dandelions rather fetching, but they spoke of dilapidation and neglect in ways the perpetually under watered grass never would. Ivy hadn't been allowed to breathe life into these briars, but the house lay sleeping beyond them just the same.

As ever, Joker seemed able to read minds. “You think we should take a look inside? Kiss the princess? Take back the kingdom?”

They could, if they wanted to. But Joker would lose interest in a free Arkham eventually, if not as soon as they had captured the flag for themselves. And Riddler didn’t want any followers that weren’t able to prove themselves to him. No, if anyone was going to bring the old house back to life it was going to be Bane, or maybe the crocodile. Either that or Bruce Wayne would come sauntering up the drive one day and buy the place back in its entirety, smiling for the cameras and claiming he knew how best to revitalise Gotham’s mental illness programs.

What an idiot. Still, he wouldn’t be the first to try throwing money at this problem till it went away.

“I think we should head to the cliffs,” Riddler muttered, and this time when they moved it was him tugging on Joker’s hand, trying to keep them from standing still too long.

He strained his ears for the sound of mayhem spawning inside the building. He didn’t think he could hear anything. They hugged the hedge all the way round to the front door, where common consensus deemed they take a moment to stare up at the entrance way. The gargoyles carved into the old stone pillars, supposedly there to mimic the Guardians on Wayne Tower, the great brass knocker stained black by a hundred years of use. It had always looked like a mismatched jumble of things that should be anywhere else to Riddler.

Having gotten got this far, he sort of wanted to head back inside to see if he could find where they were keeping his clothes. He didn’t mind being Edward Nygma, though he rarely thought of himself as such. But out here, with the pollution of the city clawing at his lungs and the horrors of the asylum grinning back at him and The Joker’s hand in his he felt underdressed. The jumpsuit was not grand enough, his hair was just long enough to fall into his eyes when not held down by a mask. That was a big part of why they weren’t breaking out tonight, they weren’t complete.

“You can borrow my lipstick if you like,” Joker said, holding out the little black tube.

Riddler shook his head, “that’s not me.”

Joker hummed happily to himself, “I do so like it when people know their place.”

They moved slowly back from the door, the sense of urgency lost now that they were away from the forest and had resisted the temptation to start bigger fires than could be put out in a single night. From the front of the house, the cliffs were nothing but a short walk away over a stretch of ground that might once have hosted flower beds and water features but had been so torn up by the wheels of the emergency services that it was little more than a patch of dirt.

“I give life. It is taken away.” Riddler said.

“True dat,” Joker kicked a stone and they both watched it scurry ahead of them. They were dawdling, unsure what would happen when they reached the cliffs. Perhaps they’d make a new plan, think of another area of Arkham to set their sights on.

Joker swung his arms as he walked, jerking Riddler forward every time he did so. After the first stone, he turned it into a game, seeking out new things to kick away from them. Stones were just the start of it, there were fragments of broken glass, upturned roots, even the odd item of generic litter that one of the guards must have left. Each time he kicked one on, Joker’s head would whip round hunting for the next treasure. He giggled with glee every time he found something new, and he giggled when he kicked. It was almost as infectious as his toxin, and before long Riddler was sporting a tentative smile of his own.

With a sweeping bow, Joker drew Riddler’s attention to a particularly large stone, sitting black and sluggish against the tortured earth, “my dearest Eddie, would you care to do the honours?”

Bemused, Riddler motioned for Joker to stand back. In the absence of his staff, he tried to envisage his leg as a gold club. The swing was all wrong, and he could feel the stone start to spin off kilter as soon as his foot made contact, but there was a certain satisfaction to be gained in watching it go. Joker’s hand tightened in his as they stood rooted to the spot, eyes fixed on the trajectory of the little rock.

It writhed inelegantly across the ground, undeterred by dips or stray blades of grass. Then the stone dropped off the edge of the map, and with a jolt Riddler realised that they were at the cliffs.

How he could have missed such a thing, he had no idea, but that first sight of Gotham took his breath away. It was always brighter than he remembered it being, the skyscrapers so tall they looked like they might touch heaven. Slipping in between the buildings were dirigibles, and bat family technology that seemed as much a part of the city as the swirling lights of downtown. He’d seen Manhattan from across the Hudson and could admit that there was a charm to it, but Gotham is, was and always will be an incomparable maelstrom of light and sound. Everything you could ever want, washed up into one great human landfill and rebuilt in the image of gods. The sight made Riddler ache, for all the mysteries that would lie unsolved beneath the city’s concrete bones, for all the new ones he could have introduced if only he were across the water tonight.

More than free movement, or the craving for clothing that actually felt like his, it reminded Riddler of why life off this island would always be preferable to life on it, and for a moment he couldn’t understand why he’d thought he didn’t want to break out tonight.

“We could still go…” Joker’s voice was laced with longing, his green eyes appeared to shudder through the motions of a rainbow in the light of his city.

Riddler desperately wanted to say yes, to throw caution to the wind and take the plunge into the icy waters of Gotham harbour. But there were plans that needed to be made, optimum timing to be chosen. He was a desperately patient man, and he could wait till he was good and ready to step back into the spotlight.

Patience had never been one of Joker’s strong suits, except when it had been. Riddler would have to wait and see how far his id could stretch.

Whatever choice Joker made, he seemed to be treating it with a certain gravitas. His eyes were foggy and out of focus, but his furrowed brow spoke of a decision being given weight. Riddler reveled in the silence that fell between them, drinking in the sounds of police sirens and blaring music coming across the bay. He rubbed absent minded circles into the back of Joker’s hand with his thumb, trying to count the reasons the clown had to stay.

All of them and none of them. Something that sounded like a reason to leave could easily be just the opposite in Joker’s hands, and any excuse to stay was a rational stream of logic worth fending off. There was nothing Riddler could say that would persuade him either way.

“Not tonight,” Joker breathed, even as he walked them right to the edge of the cliff, “soon though, so soon.”

Riddler spared a glance downwards, to where the waves lapped at the edge of the island. From here, the smell of salt was almost more potent than that of pollution, but it was a close thing. If a freighter were to make its way into Gotham Harbour the fight would be lost in an instant.

“So, Eddie!” Joker boomed, so jarringly loud that the night appeared to shatter before him. He jerked forward, dragging Riddler with him and for a horrifying moment it felt like they were about to fall. Riddler threw back his arms, trying to redistribute his balance but gravity was already working against him, trying to pull him away from the island and into the ocean below. A scream started brewing on the back of his tongue, ready to let the wind carry it up into the atmosphere when he fell.

The momentum must have acted on Joker in much the same way, but the laws of physics mean very little to clowns. He pulled Riddler back before he could fall, both feet planted firmly on the ground.

“Thanks,” Riddler said, trying to keep his voice even despite the scream still trying to claw its way out of his throat. Then he rounded on The Joker, “And if you ever try that shit again-“

“I think it’s time we had a little heart to heart.” Joker spoke before the threat could reach its conclusion.

Riddler blinked, so unsettled by his almost-fall that he was unable to process the change of subject. Joker crumpled to the ground with a great thud, dragging Riddler down with him by the hand.

The temptation to hit him was great, so great in fact that had they not been sat on a ledge overlooking a two hundred foot drop into a highly polluted body of water infested with unseen sharp rocks, he might have done it. It wouldn’t have been his finest hour, goodness knows Riddler was never known for his physical prowess, but it would have felt good.

Joker let his legs dangle off the cliff, Riddler carefully crossed his, trying to keep back from the edge without letting go of Joker’s hand.

“What do you want to talk about?” Riddler asked, voice carefully even.

Joker shook his head, giggling, “no, silly! I want to have a heart to heart.”

Before Riddler could make an educated guess as to what he was referring to, Joker dove at him. He pulled down the zip at the front of Riddler’s jump suit and slid his free hand against his chest.

His fingers were unpleasantly cold and bony, like some horrible great spider that Victor had gotten to. They tightened over Riddler’s solar plexus, Joker’s eyes going wide as he found what he was looking for.

“Boom boom, boom boom, boom boom,” Joker laughed to himself. Riddler tried to shrug him off by the clown’s fingers maintained their purchase. “Hey Eddie, why is a lettuce the most loving vegetable?”

“Because it’s all heart,” Riddler replied, hoping he would soon be left to himself.

“See that’s what I like about you darling, you get me.”

“You don’t like me,” Riddler snapped. He reached up to grip Joker around the wrist, pushing that horrible cold hand away. He could feel his pulse racing a mile a minute, anger and shock and disgust mixing strangely.

Joker feigned an expression of deepest hurt that was effectively undercut by his continued laughter, “oh but I do, Eddie. You mustn’t think that just because I sometimes hate you, I don’t mostly like you. Look at tonight, why, I’ve liked you all evening, as far as I can remember. I know I’ve got a brain like a sift but honestly lamb chop I think it’s been hours and hours since I last hated you.”

“How reassuring,” Riddler said flatly. He was entirely unsurprised when the sarcasm was lost on Joker.

As Riddler went to pull the zip back up on his jumpsuit, Joker moved to pull his down. The first flash of white skin against the orange fabric was alarming, but luckily Joker didn’t feel like stripping nude tonight.

“Now it’s your turn,” Joker reached for Riddler’s free hand and brought it up to press against the exposed skin of his chest.

He was warmer than Riddler might have guessed. On second thoughts, he had to concede that any preconceptions he had about Joker’s body heat were most likely founded on an assumption that his skin was drained of blood rather than colour and he had terrible circulation in his hands. Like this, it was possible to feel the lines of his ribs, the expansion of his lungs as he breathed, the scattering of hair across his chest.

His heartbeat. Riddler had known he must have one and yet it gave him pause for thought to actually feel it below his fingers. It was a little faster than average, but not uncommonly so. For all he knew whatever excitement kept Joker laughing provided him with enough adrenaline to maintain a fight or flight status.

Riddler took a deep breath to steady himself. Joker was human, Joker had always been human. But something happened to him and now it no longer mattered what he was beyond The Joker.

“That tickles.” Joker giggled. Riddler withdrew his hand, shocked that the night air was still cooler than the memory of skin.

The sound of something breaking echoed across the grounds from the house. The night was no longer exclusively their dominion. Riddler winced, rather hoping that nothing too essential to the Arkham aesthetic had been destroyed. He was a creature of habit if nothing else.

Predictably, Joker found the notion of damaged asylum property hilarious, “Ha! You think they got that old cabinet from the lab? The one with all the specimens preserved for safekeeping? Oo lemme tell ya, Eddie, if they hurt that cat with the three heads I’m gonna have so much fun making them pay for it.”

“So long as they don’t mess with the heating system for the third basement I think I can live with some broken furniture.” Riddler replied, though his heart wasn’t in it. He had to admit, the three headed cat was quite the little head turner, and the asylum was better for it.

Joker pulled them both back to their feet, and finally let Riddler’s hand go. Together, they took one final look out at Gotham in all its splendour, and then it was time to go.

“I should probably set up some kind of puzzle. It doesn’t do to let my reputation slip,” it would be easy enough for Riddler to establish himself somewhere in the Arkham complex. If he put a little effort into it he could set up a maze just tricky enough that he could nap undisturbed until the cops showed up.

“You do that,” Joker grinned, “I’ll work it out as I go along.”

Before Riddler could process an objection, Joker leaned in and kissed him right on the mouth. He stood, frozen to the spot, lips closed tight against the threat of further invasion, and waited the handful of seconds necessary for the storm to pass. Joker was greasy with lipstick, and he smelled unaccountably like popcorn.

When he pulled back, Joker’s eyes fixed on Riddler briefly before he was away, running back across the dirt lawn towards the house. He paused to pick up stones and broken glass, laughing maniacally to himself and it was all Riddler could do to watch him go.

He had to go too. Riddler reached up with his newly free right hand to wipe the lipstick from his mouth. He supposed he should have seen the kiss coming, it was hardly outside Joker’s usual bag of tricks. He kept his eyes fixed on the madman as he scrambled back over the barren soil of Arkham, till he came to a halt on the ridge of a dugout carved by the wheels of a tank.

“Oi, Eddie!” He called back, voice unnaturally clear for the distance between them, “I have a heart you won’t see beat, I have a home but I never sleep. I can take a man’s house and build another’s and I love to play games with my many brothers. I am a king among fools. Who am I?”

“The Joker.” Riddler called back. His voice felt small in comparison, easily lost to the night.

Joker must have heard him though, because he let out a laugh so loud and shrill that the night seemed to come to a standstill around it. Riddler blinked, and the mad man was gone, out of sight and into the fray, exactly where he belonged.

Once again, he was alone. Riddler preferred to tackle nights like these solo. There were plans to be made and traps to be laid, riddles to be constructed and offered out to those poor unsuspecting fools who thought he was easy prey just because he wasn’t going to break their skull as soon as look at him. It was a common misunderstanding, and one that many had paid for with their lives.

Riddler reached up to smooth down his hair, keeping it away from his face. He had such ideas for the asylum tonight, they were going to be talking about this one for years.