Chapter Text
Glasses
#222
“Listen, I know you’re against the whole ‘letting others help you’ thing, but there’s something I gotta tell you.”
Before Bruce stood the Joker, the initiator of this dangerous line of conversation. He appeared pretty docile, as he had been for the few days he’d been rooming at Wayne Manor. Currently, he was tapping the tips of his fingers together as he tumbled through the myriad of ways he could go about saying what he wanted to say without offending. When he came up short, he simply opted for the blunt truth: “I think your old age is catching up with you, buttercup.”
As expected, Bruce was not amused, neither by the endearing nickname nor by the implication that he was getting old. “Okay,” he began with a scoff, holding one hand out as if to solidify his upcoming argument, “first of all, forty is not old. Second of all, fuck you.”
Joker closed his eyes and sighed, patience warring with irritation. “All I’m saying is that I think you may need glasses.”
“I do not need glasses,” Bruce said immediately. He punctuated this by crossing his arms belligerently across his silk pajama top.
Joker glanced off to the side, then back at him. “Bruce, babe…” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Who were you just talking to?”
“Robin, my awesome and incredible son that I adopted sort of by accident.”
A tight-lipped smile found its way onto the clown’s face. “And has he responded since you started talking to him twenty minutes ago?”
“What can I say? He’s a quiet kid.”
This actually managed to befuddle Joker for a long minute, during which he tried hard to maintain his composure. “Okay, well, I happen to know, after months of co-parenting him, that he is the complete opposite of ‘a quiet kid.’ I don’t think you—”
“What does any of this have to do with glasses, anyway?” Bruce interrupted, losing patience while Joker’s own warred with his temper inside of him.
“Honey,” he said slowly, falsely sweet. “Baby. Brucie-kins.”
“What?” the man in question asked in a clipped tone.
“You just had a full conversation with a trash can.”
There was a brief interlude of silence, during which Bruce looked across from his seat at “Robin” and studied it with a focused squint. Eventually, he muttered a quiet and reluctant, “Oh.”
Despite himself, Joker smiled fondly at the idiocy. “So, black frames, I take it?”
“Okay.”
Joker leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to Bruce’s temple. “It’s not that bad. You can totally foil my evil exploits with bifocals. I believe in you.”
Bruce frowned. “I guess,” he mumbled, leaning his head against Joker’s shoulder. “We’ll see.”
“Haha, no you won’t. You can’t see anythi—”
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Bruce said gruffly, “and let you consider who is generously sharing their bed with you tonight.”
Joker rolled his eyes. “Fine, sheesh. But we’re seeing the doctor tomorrow, all right?”
“I guess.”
Bruce stood and began heading for his bedroom. Vigilant in this matter, Joker jogged after him. “You pinky promise?”
“Sure, whatever,” was the response. Then, shortly after, Bruce waved lazily at a passing potted plant and said, “Goodnight, Alfred.”
Behind him, Joker smiled.