Work Text:
Akechi finally runs into the thief known as Joker after chasing him down a whole city block. It’s tough, because he’s on foot and Joker has a grappling hook (where the fuck did he get a grappling hook?), and he’s shoving through the crowds, pushing people aside and apologizing as they stumble. Even then, when he reaches the end of the road, where he’s expecting to have to scramble to find out where the thief went in the branching metropolis that is Tokyo, he finds the asshole leaning against a wall, staring at his gloves like he’s checking his fingernails.
“Looking for me, detective?” he says, smirking, and Akechi fights the urge to roll his eyes.
“You know I am. I’ve been assigned to your case for the past month. ”
“And yet it took me slowing down for you to catch me.” Oh, that idiot, smiling away behind his mask. “Now tell me, detective, are you here to turn me in?”
“I should be,” returns Akechi, and Joker pulls his grappling hook back out. “That depends, though. What did you do this time?”
Joker flicks a coin up from his palm to his fingertips (what the fuck. when had he gotten that.) to hold it between two fingers. “Oh, not much. Not much at all.”
With him, that meant anything from breaking into another ATM to robbing a bank. It was likely on the ATM side of things, though, because Akechi was pretty sure there would have been more of an uproar if the notorious Joker had managed to break into an actual bank vault this time.
He presses a hand to his face, rubbing the bridge of his nose right between his eyes. “I really should turn you in right here and now.”
Joker pushes himself off the wall to meet Akechi’s eyes. “Should you, now? C’mon.”
“It’s literally my job, Joker.”
There’s a fire escape protruding from the wall above them, and it’s at this that Joker fires his grappling hook. It makes easy contact with the railing, looping itself around the bars, giving him an easy escape. While he doesn’t have a perfect look at Joker’s face, Akechi watches the movement of his eyes and gets the sense that he’s raising an eyebrow. Your move.
“I do have you right here, for once.”
With one hand, Joker moves a dial on his device, not breaking eye contact, and slowly, very slowly, starts raising up towards the fire escape.
“I could still grab you, idiot. Has anyone told you you’re an idiot recently? They should do it more.”
He actually smiles at that one, the idiot. “You could say that, yeah, I’ve been told that a bit.” With the same single finger he had used earlier, he slides the dial just slightly further, raising his speed by a tiny amount, still firmly within Akechi’s reach. He looks like a fool, just dangling there, one arm in the air while his stupid grappling hook moves him upwards inch by inch.
“Is that going to hurt eventually?” says Akechi, casually lifting a hand to point at the grappling hook, realizing at this point he has to start looking up to hold the eye contact. “You holding up your whole weight with one arm and all.”
“Yeah, probably,” says Joker. “It’s definitely distracting you this way, though.”
How many times can Akechi call him an idiot before it’s too many? “You’re like a foot off the ground. I could grab your hand let alone your ankle.”
“But you’re not,” replies Joker with a smirk.
“Mostly because I wanted to talk to you first,” says Akechi, “but you won’t even stay still long enough to have a proper conversation.”
“I will stay still long enough to ask how you’re going to tell your superiors you lost me, though.” Joker raises the speed on his grappling hook one more time.
Akechi raises an eyebrow. “As far as they’re aware, this never happened. You turned the corner on a busy street and you were gone.”
“Good.” Without another word, Joker breaks eye contact. Pulling the real trigger on his grappling hook, he shoots up to the balcony in an instant, moving from three feet above the ground to a backflip before casually landing on his feet, leaning over the railing and crossing his arms. “Hey, I’ll see you around later, detective. Another time, maybe.”
And with that Joker is gone, leaning back from the edge and vanishing in place. By the time Akechi moves to look, not a single figure is standing up there.
Hm. He was right. Maybe another time.
~~~
Unlocking the door to his apartment, Akechi lets out a deep breath, seeing Akira sitting on the couch incredibly distracted watching some random show he’s definitely never seen a single episode of before.
His boyfriend looks up at the click of the latch, smiling when he sees. “Hey. How was your day?”
“I think you know perfectly how my day was.” Akechi’s legs are long enough to cross the short distance from the door to the couch in just a handful of strides, and it’s no effort at all to lean down and give him a kiss on the cheek as he pretends to complain about Akechi blocking his view, smiling the whole time.
“Business as usual, then?”
“You could say that.” Akechi slides over to the other room, dropping his briefcase on the table with his other work paperwork before sitting down next to Akira on the couch. “Nearly caught a thief. Some random guy, very annoying, quite an idiot.”
Akira chuckles. “Oh? Annoying and an idiot? Quite a combination coming from you.”
“Did I forget handsome? Would you be happier then?”
“Definitely.” Akira picks up the cup of coffee he’d sat down on the table next to the couch, taking a long, slow sip to hide his laughter.
“You’re going to have to show me that grappling hook later, by the way. I want to know how it works. I assume Sakura helped you with it?”
“She did, yeah,” Akira replies, setting his cup back down. “It was mostly her this time, but it was my idea. Thought it would be funny.”
“More like exasperating,” mutters Akechi, and this time Akira does laugh, loud and clear over the sound of the TV.
Against his own best wishes, Akechi smiles.