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This was weird.
It was possibly the weirdest of all the things that had happened. Which was saying a lot, because the last few weeks had been extremely weird. Bruce had seen his entire world fall apart, literally, and he had gone from being a super awesome crime-fighting loner to a super awesome crime-fighting team captain. He was happy and on his way to becoming a more well-adjusted person.
But it was a lot of change in a brief space of time, and it was weird. A good weird, but still weird.
But this out weirded it all
Joker was in his house and had been for days.
Bruce couldn’t recall when or how Joker had turned up. He hadn’t come up to the front door, or the back door, or the Batcave. Bruce honestly couldn’t remember the Clown coming into the house. He was just there. Maybe he clambered in a window? It put Bruce in mind of how Dick had just appeared. He remembered seeing the kid at the party where Joker had surrendered, then days later, Alfred was lecturing him on spending time with this strangely optimistic little kid that he had apparently adopted and had been living at the house for god knows how long.
Was this how one gained a family?
Did they just turn up? Like cats?
Was Babs going to just turn up one day as well?
Bruce shrugged, shaking off his thoughts, and stared into his home cinema. The screen, which normally showed his flavour of the month romantic comedy, was now blaring out high octane cartoons. Joker was sitting cross-legged on the floor, under a blanket and surrounded by snacks, chaos and one knife.
“Uh,” Bruce said. Joker jumped to his feet and spun to look at him. Bruce considered questioning Joker’s presence for a moment, but decided against it.
“Hey Batsy,” Joker sort of shuffled on the spot. Bruce frowned. Was he embarrassed? Why the hell was Joker embarrassed? Why was he here? Why was this so weird? Joker’s focus turned to the popcorn in Bruce’s arms. “Popcorn!” he grinned. Bruce immediately held the popcorn up over his shoulder. Hell no, this was his popcorn, he’d made it.
“You got your own.” Bruce gestured to the snack-geddon surrounding Joker’s feet and made his way into the cinema, stepping around the empty wrappers. How the hell did that man eat this much crap and not end up overweight or suffering diabetes? Dude was a damn rake. It was weird. Everything was weird.
“Yeah, but yours is yours,” Joker said. “Is it bat-shaped?”
“What? No, it’s not bat-shaped.”
“Oh.” Joker looked down, for all the world, the picture of disappointment. But he looked up quickly, his usual smile in place. “You want to watch cartoons with me?” Bruce didn’t answer, but he sat down and stared at the screen. Joker picked up his blanket and plonked himself down in the seat next to Bruce.
They didn’t talk beyond Joker yelling at the screen every few minutes.
Bruce frowned into his popcorn.
This was weird. Obviously, it was weird that one of the most wanted criminals in Gotham was sitting in Bruce’s house, apparently trying to give himself diabetes by raiding Bruce’s snack cupboard. But the weirdest part was that Bruce wasn’t mad, hell he didn’t even mind, really. He was happy to see him.
Who knew Joker could be interesting company?
He was infuriating, entitled, and dangerous. Bruce eyed the kitchen knife casually lying amongst the forgotten snacks on the floor. But Joker was also stimulating company and oddly endearing. He’d been here long enough now that Bruce…
Holy shit!
Joker had been here for days. Bruce felt his chest tighten as he realised he hadn’t put the cowl on this morning. He’d been wearing the thing less and less recently. How many times had he walked around as Bruce Wayne since Joker started squatting in the mansion?
“You ok Batsy?” Joker was looking at him, one ridiculous eyebrow raised. “You’re breathing awful fast; you’ve gone all pale and you're sweating.”
“M’fine.” Bruce managed around the grapefruit-sized lump in his throat.
Joker stared at him for a long moment before shrugging and looking back to the screen.
Bruce blinked sweat out of his eyes and went back to frowning into his popcorn. Which was the reason he noticed a slim, long-fingered hand sneaking into the bowl and stealing a handful of popcorn slowly.
That utter bastard.
Bruce looked up silently at Joker, who was retracting his hand from the bowl. His concentration broke into a victory grin when he thought he’d been unnoticed. Bruce squished the realisation that he could tell the difference between smiles and coughed loudly. Joker jumped and dropped the handful of popcorn over his lap.
“Wasn’t me,” Joker said, already getting up to flee. But Bruce was quicker and on his feet instantly. Letting all his confused emotions out in one immense burst of energy, he rugby tackled the clown. They went down hard, Bruce’s arms around the Joker’s legs. But Joker was a slippery bastard and possibly didn’t have any bones, as he could slip out of Bruce’s hold easily.
“I told you that was mine,” Bruce growled, cutting off the clown’s only means of escape and trying to steer him into a corner.
“But it smelled good.” Joker backed up. “Besides, I was doing you a favour. You’ll get fat.”
“Fat!” Bruce leapt again; Joker danced away, laughing as he did so.
“I didn’t want to say anything, Bruice, but you’re a bit soft around the middle,” Joker said between laughing breaths.
“I’m shredded.” Bruce again went to cut off the clown’s escape, but Joker surprised him by not heading for the door. Instead, he leapt towards the air vent in the wall, getting his fingers into the grate and legs up on either side. The clown pulled. Bruce went for his Bat claw before remembering he was in his dressing-gown. He leapt and grabbed Joker’s ankles, bringing him down on top of Bruce. Joker clambered to his feet and tried to flee across the seats. But Bruce was ready this time and got a grip on Joker’s waist, bringing the clown down and pinning him.
“That was fun.” Joker laughed.
“I’m not fat.”
“You’re not Batsy. Why, I bet I could crack walnuts on your abs.”
“Obviously.” Bruce let the panting clown up. Joker sat up, but instead of moving away, he leaned forward, head resting on Bruce’s shoulder. Bruce sighed; he had no bloody clue what was going on. One-minute Joker was playing, then they were fighting, and now the insane clown was sort of cuddling him, kind of. And Bruce was perfectly happy with it. Absently, he reached up and patted a hand on Joker’s back. Joker sniggered.
“Oh boy! Cartoons!” Dick bounced into the room. He stopped when he took in the chaos. “Uh, did you guys fight?”
“No,” Bruce said at the same time Joker said, “Yes.” With the biggest shit-eating grin Bruce had ever seen him pull. Bruce got to his feet; Joker followed more slowly.
“Uh, I can go.” Dick took a step back, but his eyes flicked to the screen. “Is that Adventure Time?”
“Wanna watch with us?” Bruce offered. Dick seemed hesitant for a moment, but he smiled and nodded. Bruce went back to his seat, watching as Joker bent down to pick up some of his earlier discarded snacks. Dick came and sat on Bruce’s right, looking for all the world like he’d just won the lottery. His smile was so wide and genuine that Bruce handed Dick his popcorn. Dick smiled even wider, his eyes all but lighting up.
“Oh, so he’s allowed some,” Joker muttered.
“Shut up,” Bruce yanked Joker down by his waistcoat, putting the clown to his left. He looked at Dick. “Text Alfred, see if he wants to join us.” He absently reached into the snack pile in Joker’s lap and pulled out a bag of chips. Joker huffed indignantly but said nothing.
Sitting between his greatest enemy and his ward, Bruce felt content. Until Joker put his head on his shoulder. Then it was weird again. But weird in the best kind of way.
“I hate you,” Joker murmured.
“I hate you too,” Bruce said.