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“So,” Bruce starts, pushed by an uncharacteristic need to fill the silence that’s fallen over the car. “You-- like clowns… ?”
It takes hard work and dedication not to cringe immediately.
The long road to Arkham consists of nothing but sharp turns and winding promises of shortcuts. Bruce has made the drive only twice before, he hates it already. The asylum, too, leans towards the unlikeable. Gordon, and that’s commissioner Gordon, is the only reason he’s found himself here again, tempted by the modicum of trust thrust forward.
Batman needs a working relationship with the police and Bruce-- would prefer a little more than that, if he’s being honest. Friendship is hard to come by. That’s reason enough.
His current passenger, whose name hasn’t become any more obvious since their scuffle on the GCPD’s rooftop, just stares. A still-ongoing nosebleed leaves stark traces on bone-white skin (is that his skin?) and something like guilt prods at Bruce.
“I do now,” the man says, pleasantly surprised, and grins wide enough to split his busted lip all over again.
There’s a delay here, the faint trickle of blood only seems to register once he licks at it, and Bruce forgets to watch the road for half a second. He hadn’t meant to-- no, he hadn’t thought a few punches would do quite so much damage. The fight had looked a lot more fair when the city had been at stake.
And therein lies the problem. It’s not too hard to reconcile the lanky figure curled up next to him with the moonlit apparition who’d laughed and laughed until he’d burst into tears. The hint of guilt persists.
Bruce hardly knows what to make of those few words he’d been given.
“Are you calling me a--” clown. Oddly flattering, dubiously trustworthy. Bruce cracks a smile despite himself, faintly awkward in the presence of the same man who had been threatening to blow up half the city no more than an hour ago.
He hadn’t done it though.
The necessity of Arkham occurs to Bruce again. He wants to trust the commissioner’s decision.
Whatever’s possessed him to start this fatal conversation takes it a step further. “Uh,” Bruce says, ever eloquent, and scrubs a hand over the cowl. He’s tired already. Tired and not far from feeling absurd. “Do you have a name?”
The clanking of handcuffs stops, so does the wiggling and the fidgeting and everything in-between. Harsh, irregular breathing does, however, remain. Not Bruce’s own.
“Uh-huh.” The man starts to giggle then thinks better of it. “It’s--” Another misaimed chuckle. “I’m-- We’ve met, haven’t we?”
“No?” Bruce doesn’t have to hesitate.
“Oh.” Disappointment washes over them both. Bruce nearly reaches across. “Joker. My name’s Joker.” A watery smile is the most Joker offers at what sounds like a spur of the moment decision.
It’s an alias, clearly, but Bruce appreciates it all the same. “I’m Batman,” he says and finds that it comes naturally.
The silence’s lapses into something mostly comfortable by now, Arkham’s silhouette looming in the distance hardly phases either of them. It should, Bruce thinks, and finds something of the inevitable weighing him down. He stops the car at the side of the road and produces a series of wet wipes from his utility belt.
“Do you want me to... ?” A vague gesture towards Joker’s face hopefully clarifies the inexplicable motions Bruce has already found himself going through. A nod is all he needs.
Joker flinches at that first touch, handcuffed, pressed up against the door and shaking with emotion that’s yet to show on his face. He’s young, around Bruce’s age, and that stings with untraceable urgency. What one must do to get where they’ve found themselves, Bruce doesn’t want to know.
“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I’m just--” Bruce cleans some of the blood around Joker’s nose and does his best to smile as green eyes gone wide meet his. Joker nods again.
It’s also around this time, with few bloodied hints still left, that Bruce realises the white isn’t coming off.
At all.
He stops, pulls back and stares as suspicions previously dismissed as ridiculous are quite effectively confirmed.
It is, indeed, Joker’s skin.
“Are you okay?” Bruce asks, genuine, tempted to turn off the voice modulator for this alone.
“We’ve met,” Joker repeats. It’s chilling, though Bruce can’t quite tell why, and it does little but prompt him to start the car. Joker’s unwell, it’s obvious, Arkham can help. It should help.
They’re there far too soon. The old asylum stretches towards the darkened sky and Bruce stiffens at the thought of its serpentine hallways. Yet Gotham’s got nothing else for the likes of Joker. If there were ever options, they’re long past the crossroads.
Bruce turns to Joker -- takes in the tattered suit, those spidery hands that had once been wrapped around the handle of a knife, the sharp, tired features -- and sighs. “Want me to walk you in?”
“Yeah.” Joker smiles then, faint and faintly hopeful. “I’d like that.”