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Every step feels like falling in reverse. Or is it more like flying?
It is.
Bruce already feels the cold wind of reminisces against his face. A fissure in time and reality, a crack inside his mind.
Tick-tock
Memories as clear as the sky of a certain gray afternoon.
Tick-tock
And it’s all about fake flowers and intrusive fingers rising up, up, and up, until it hurts to smile.
Tick-tock
A purposeful magic trick.
Tick-tock
The first encounter of many.
Tick-tock.
A call from destiny; cruel, demanding, and inevitable.
.
“Come, come to me, little brother. Your time is up.”
But the gears are still advising endlessly. And the clock keeps ticking the same hour over, and over again. Number one multiplied by itself stays as one, even if it’s four times on repeat. Basic math, there’s nothing more to understand. He can let go and ignore, but it's the phrase on the other side… is the thing that catches him by surprise.
“Make our daddy proud.”
Joker pulls the trigger, and Bruce is no longer a defenseless child. He can evade the bullet, but his curiosity - his anger - doesn’t want to.
No matter what corner or new cleft he finds, the walk leads him back to this tragicomedy of sorts.
He prefers to flow with it.
.
Then, it’s all about fake affection and intrusive blows. Joker’s fingers yield easily, but he doesn’t regret the memo. He pretends to like him, to yearn for him like the unmedicated man he is. A broken piece that recognizes its missing part; the replacement rope for his broken cello. Yes, Bruce knows better than anyone, and he can appreciate music, but he’s not going to tell that out loud. Not in front of Joker. Not in front the grave of his parents.
“I knew you would come,” Joker sings like a teenager in love, almost sighing in satisfaction, as if he isn’t coughing blood on the dirty alley floor.
“Don’t send me things like that again,” Batman hisses instead of Bruce, menacing and serious.
A vain attempt to keep his faculties, a hopeless whine of self-defense.
Unsurprisingly, even if Joker doesn’t know if it is another invitation to fight, or an incidental call to copulation, he sees right through him. He sees everything; the fissure, the agony, the loneliness. Invisible and familiar nails - careful to avoid scratching him - caress, and holds the back of that astonishing mind. So similar, yet so different to his own. A soft way of comfort. One that is inside their heads, because neither of them are fond of physical contact. Unless-
“Why not?” Joker is smiling through that dangerous insinuation, just like always, searching a way to get what he wants, and without caring the expense. He knows there’s no safe road with Batman. “I think you liked it. Cuz otherwise, you wouldn’t have come here, baby brother. ~”
.
(In the corner of a white cell, a bad comedian thinks about his next act.)
It takes so little to make him lose his patience. And the prize is too big, too fulfilling. Arthur finds outstanding freedom in those black wings of laughable justice. Being admired by people you don't know is one thing, there is a bit of happiness around, but it’s not the same as being appreciated by the reflection of yourself in the mirror, the recognition of the other which, in turn, is an extension; a commitment. He doesn’t need to hate alone anymore. He doesn’t even need to loathe his existence, he has Batman now and forever. Penny Fleck can be proud of him nowadays. He’s finally honoring her happy boy projections.
However, that’s not the point. Not entirely. The most coveted power - that someone like him can crave - is the acceptance of a mind that is molded at the will of events. Events he creates as collateral damage. He limits to fantasies and endless possibilities, since one of his followers proudly told him the fate of the Wayne family.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
He adores the idea of himself, smiling and dancing in his greatest moment of glory, meanwhile, little Bruce is meeting death for the first time ever. Their earliest and only friend in common.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
He imagines Bruce’s eyes, dark in interest and fear. He imagines his tears - without shedding - at some pompous funeral. Departed childhoods conjoining in their first night dance, under the pale moonlight. Just the two of them. But not as mere weak humans. More like an explosion of colors, as in fireworks. Red, white and a bit of blue. Bruce isn’t one of those though - and Arthur laughs at that - he is the sky, the night, the - he, he - the force that consumes and reduces him to nothing.
Isn’t that beautiful?
At the end of the day, he’s just a clown, a joke; the whole comedy.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
He just needs to get bored of Arkham again. It may be very soon, or not. He has many new bruises to distract on.
No problem!
He’s a master of waiting.
.
The first punch is constantly the most painful, the most passionate, and the one at the verge of breaking his teeth. He wonders why the strength in them. Apparently, his body can support the vehemence of an abnormal dance, no matter how many cigarettes he smokes.
Tricolor makeup impregnates on the black fabric, just like the promised daydream of Arthur. More blood comes out in the process, and he’s laughing endlessly, like the ticking of two synchronized clocks.
Bruce wants to hear a crack —wants to see a real sign of pain. He’s moving and falling. He’s searching and failing to snatch what he wants, but he isn’t the one that leads. Joker’s smile is up, up, and up, until the white base is covered in prominent red.
He’s getting impatient and angry, and Arthur senses it, desires it. He wants more, more, more- that’s when he gets the idea.
After all, unlike Bruce, he has legs - not wings - to dance better. He just waits for the right moment, the wrong step that comes sooner than expected. He knows how to survive an impossible slip, Batman doesn’t.
A missed hit releases a relevant opening to his clingy arms, and they’re a fog net; light, but effective to imprison, since Batman is so busy trying to clasp his hands around his neck. Good thing is that he’s obviously exhausted and Arthur doesn’t think twice. He sees the shadow of Bruce’s lips, the only part of his body that isn’t hiding behind the mask, and is almost romantic.
His clownery features are arrogant and triumphant before closing their slight distance.
I got you, baby brother. I got you, now and forever.
As a whole, it’s a purposeful magic tap that ends in a frantic sort of peck. An innovative way to destroy each other with lips and teeth. Their first kiss of many. A reinforcement of their relationship as equals, as opposites, as something more indescribable. Bruce is disgusted with both of them.
"I bet your blood tastes the same as mine. Don’t you think, little brother? Thomas would be so proud, hahaha-"
Shut up, shut up, shut up!
This time, the last punch is harder.
Arthur loses consciousness with a big smile on his face.
.
Bruce takes off the suit aggressively, his right hand keeps rubbing his mouth; the makeup isn't even there anymore.
Eyes can’t dare to look at himself in the mirror, and his crack is refilled of new experiences. Something weird just happened an hour ago. He must forget it but, when he looks at the clock on the wall, he feels trapped in time.
A reminder from destiny; cruel, demanding, and inevitable.
I shouldn’t have gone there.
But he still keeps the memo. He hides it from Alfred and himself, especially himself.
.