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Nothing is funny, and Joker is laughing. What else is new?
Bruce shoulders open the door and hauls the clown inside the motel room. Joker is more distracted than unwilling, all his energy in the shaking of his sand-dusted shoulders. His suit is soiled and burnt and torn from the havoc of the past day, just like Bruce's outfit. Jeans, a t-shirt, and a leather jacket are far less durable than the batsuit.
All Bruce needed to do was bring Joker back to Gotham, four days after the clown absconded across the country to Las Vegas. Joker had to be extracted not only because he was a fugitive, but because he'd acquired a thumb drive loaded with files that could incriminate Marcel Washburn, accountant for the Falcone family.
Bruce already knew Joker's unpredictability would make the task less straightforward than it should be, but the local government tossed in a minor obstacle of its own. Vegas recently had a literal blowup with amateur crimefighters, and as a consequence, the city refused to cooperate with any vigilantes, including Batman.
The decision was a short-sighted irritant but simple to resolve. Once Bruce donned a bald cap and applied facial prosthetics, he found that the Vegas police were happy to share intel with Ray Cook, supervillain bounty hunter from the east coast. They had to suspect that Cook would hand Joker over to Batman, but they wanted the political cover. When Bruce pinned down Joker's location, he could abandon the disguise and suit up to catch the clown.
But Joker couldn't stand hiding for long in the Neon Capital of the World. When Cook entered Circus Circus in the dark, early hours of the morning, he'd only spent a minute sweet-talking a cocktail waitress before a crowd at the craps table caught his attention. He glanced at the commotion, then did a double-take at the willowy man rolling the dice. Joker had made up his skin with a livelier shade of pale and covered his hair with a chestnut wig. His clothing, however, didn't shy away from bold colors: a magenta suit with a soft pink, scoop-necked shirt, plus baby blue socks peeking from his brown wingtip heels. Somehow his gleeful laugh at a lucky roll of the dice didn't tip anyone off; the sultry brunette and bright-eyed blond man hanging off his arms only cheered him on.
Bruce could have gone for the batsuit, but he didn't want to risk Joker disappearing again or— more likely— tiring of play and turning to mayhem. Instead, Cook sidled into the crowd, making his way to the side of the blond admirer. He joined the cheering for a bit, then appealed to Joker's ego, inviting him to an elite, illicit card game in another hotel nearby.
Then it was just a matter of luring the clown out a back exit into an alley, where Bruce slung a companionable arm over Joker's shoulders, distracting him for the instant it took to stick him with a special sedative. The clown barely had time for a surprised laugh before he slumped into Bruce's arms. It was quick and easy, rare for Joker encounters.
Of course, once that thought crossed Bruce's mind, the night took a turn.
Evidently, Joker's location had leaked to the Falcones, and they sent goons to Nevada to get rid of their problem. The family's Vegas connections helped them find Joker, or at least that was Bruce's working assumption when the alley door opened again and out came three familiar heavyweights, who found themselves staring at a bald man fireman-carrying a thinly disguised, handcuffed Joker.
Bruce could have evaded them on his own, but lugging Joker around complicated his escape. He didn't have time to get back to where he'd stashed the batsuit, and getting to the northern airfield where he'd planned to call the batplane could mean collateral damage across the city. Instead, after a brief alley brawl, Bruce found a rusted and easily hotwired Buick a block away, threw Joker into the back, and raced south directly out of town. When they got far enough out and Bruce was confident he'd lost the goons, he could call the plane to the desert.
Now, many hours later and very much not on the plane, Joker lifts his cuffed hands to wipe happy tears from his eyes. "Oh, I knew Vegas would be fun, but wow!"
They actually crossed into Arizona at some point, and are currently off the beaten track somewhere between the state border and the Hualapai Reservation, not that Joker really cares. Bruce says nothing and twists the flimsy deadbolt.
"I should have tilted the rear view mirror," Joker goes on, "to really capture the look on your face!"
He's talking about when he woke up a couple miles outside Vegas limits, because of course when a sedative did work on Joker, its effect was short-lived. Bruce hadn't hogtied his bounty properly; Joker popped up in the backseat, abruptly hooked his arms over Bruce's head, and strangled him with the handcuffs binding his wrists. In their struggle, the car veered off the road and smashed into a ground-level wooden billboard.
Joker snickers. "You deserve a break!"
He's repeating the faded beer ad's slogan, bent over the windshield when Bruce regained consciousness. Next to him, Joker was laying over the center console and giggling, still cuffed.
"Is that what you were whisking me off for?" Joker asks, batting his eyes.
Bruce doesn't see how he could think that, considering he'd dragged the clown out of the wreck by the scruff and slung him over one shoulder before trekking into the desert. The sun peeked over the horizon, but Bruce had little worry about visibility. If the goons hadn't yet caught up to them on the dirt road, there was little reason to think they would then. He had time to get to a more isolated patch of sand and call the plane.
"Too bad we were interrupted," Joker sighs, before brightly adding, "but who expected those mob minions had a helicopter?"
The sound crept up about five minutes into walking, and it took several seconds for Bruce to realize the buzzing sound wasn't cicadas. He looked up to find a goddamn helicopter zipping through the wide open sky, heading straight for them.
"Honestly, I found it rude you didn't carry me to safety."
Bruce dropped Joker then. The clown was a fast runner, and obviously not interested in falling to the mob, so Bruce knew he could trust his enemy to bolt towards an outcropping many, many yards away, the only cover in sight on the dry stretch of sand. Though when the shooting started, from a man with a machine gun at the helicopter's open side door, and Bruce started to zig and zag, Joker evaded the bullets by skipping and twirling and tumbling on the ground.
When they made it to the jutting rocks, Bruce realized it wasn't just an outcropping.
"And then you didn't even hold my hand when we jumped!"
They were on a rocky ridge high above a roiling river, and when the shooting started again, Joker leapt into the water with a "wahoo!" Bruce had no choice but to follow.
He fought to keep his head above the surface, but the icy water's swerves and dips kept pulling him under. Every time he popped up, he fought to spot a magenta figure in the foam, to hear if the helicopter following the river was still firing. Just when he was sure he would black out, something snared his torso. Joker, sputtering and clinging to a rock at the rapids' edge, had caught Bruce with his legs. Together, they made their way closer to a rocky upward slope, until there were stones beneath their feet and they could stumble and slip their way up to dry terrain. Bruce's boots were secure, but Joker had lost a shoe along with his disguise. Only patches of makeup remained, and with the wig gone, his green hair was plastered to the side of his head.
He looked at Bruce with a dripping grin and said, "So you can't batty-paddle?" Bruce's prosthetics had washed free, and the edge of the bald cap had peeled up.
Surely Joker realized he was dealing with the Bat before that. Of more concern was his non-surprise to see Bruce Wayne, who he surely recognized after two kidnappings, three crashed galas, and one viral video about which members of the Gotham elite would look better after a chimp attack. ("Wayne's got the kind of pretty ruggedness you want to chew off yourself— but spare the jaw. I'm a jaw fella.")
"But I'm the one always giving," Joker sighs, "like that lesson I gave the Falcone boys."
It's a lesson anyone in Gotham learns over and over again: don't underestimate the clown, and expect the ludicrous.
When Bruce and Joker made it to the top of the slope and took cover against a towering rock formation, the helicopter swung back towards them. They moved around the base of the rock to the other side, but the helicopter started to circle, forcing an endless chase as the two men couldn't stop running around the rock.
At some point they would have to, but before Bruce could formulate a plan, Joker went with something reckless.
When the helicopter again passed over the river and hovered over the desert, Joker pulled off his remaining wingtip and raced forward. The firing started up again, and he zig-zagged as Bruce had, getting remarkably close, and flung the shoe. The heel beaned the shooter in the head, knocking him into the goon behind him, and bounced into the cockpit, striking the pilot. The helicopter whirled and veered closer to the ground, and Joker leaped high enough to grab the landing skid with his bound hands before the pilot pulled up again. Bruce gave chase, but he wasn't quick enough and could only watch Joker clamber inside. The grappling figures were visible through the windows, and in moments, a cackle ringing through the air, the helicopter was spinning and crashing into the ground.
Bruce made it to the wreck as Joker stumbled out of it, his hands splayed open like he was expecting a hug. Bruce ran past him, and Joker waited disgruntledly until Bruce confirmed that the three men were still alive, albeit severely injured.
"You didn't need to give the Falcones more reason to come after you," Bruce says, peeking out the window.
Joker scoffs. "As if it makes a difference at this point. Set your hopes on no further interruptions while we wait for help."
Because when Bruce reached into his pocket to finally call the batplane, he found that the remote, along with his communicator, had been lost in the river. He and Joker made it to a road and walked for what must have been an hour before a pickup truck came along. The driver didn't appear at all alarmed when he saw Joker, and he let them ride in the truck bed to a small roadside oasis with a gas station and a motel. Bruce had to assume that no one believed they would see the Clown Prince of Crime this far from Gotham, since the motel clerk didn't bat an eye either.
Still, Bruce pulls the curtains, blocking out the late afternoon sun.
"Ooh," Joker coos, finally taking a look around, "Only one bed, eh?"
Bruce drags him across the room. "Only singles were vacant."
"Well, I'll take the window side. I like to wake with the sun."
"You won't be using the bed."
Bruce pauses at the bathroom threshold to assess the fixtures. Joker frowns and chews the inside of his cheek thoughtfully.
"I'm into it," he decides, and bursts out laughing again.
"Glad you're having a good time," Bruce says dryly, pulling Joker to the tub. The motel's haphazard upkeep has resulted in a bare shower curtain rod mounted at a slight angle, but whoever put it up used sturdy screws. Holding Joker's wrists, Bruce steps onto the tub's edge.
Joker doesn't fight as his arms are lifted over his head. "Ha, oh please, I'm not the only one." Thankfully when his left hand is briefly freed so Bruce can swing the cuffs over the rod, he favors talking over trying to spring away. "When you hear it's me who's up to trouble, I know it sends your heart all pitter-patter."
Bruce stifles a sigh as he re-cuffs Joker's wrist, making sure the strands on both cuffs are secure. He says nothing as he steps down.
Joker is happy to fill the silence. "I can't help how well I know you, given how often we hang out," he snickers, going slack to hang off the rod.
It holds up fine under the weight of his wiry frame, plastered with still-damp clothes. The neck of his shirt hangs particularly low, showing sparse streaks of makeup and more than a few glossy scars on his chest. Joker can deal with the discomfort. It isn't like Bruce has dry clothes for either of them.
Bruce shucks off his jacket. "I wouldn't subject anyone else to your madness."
"Our madness."
"If you're starting on that, I'm taking a nap."
"No, you're not, even if you had more syringes, which you don't or you would've stuck me already."
It's an unfortunate fact. Bruce can power through another twenty-four hours easy, but that doesn't mean the clown isn't draining. "How is it that for once you took danger seriously enough to run all the way to Vegas?"
"Maybe I wasn't in the mood to settle for Atlantic City."
"If you'd come to me, you know I would have helped you."
"Of course, you would have loved that, the ol' damsel in distress. Not that I can't pull off the look." Joker sighs. "What can I say? I was feeling adventurous, and I knew you'd deliver."
Bruce will not accept any responsibility for the shitshow this turned into.
"I love your heroics, but I'll indulge them on my own terms— and you prefer the hard way anyway."
"You don't know what I prefer," Bruce retorts even though he knows better than to keep this conversation going.
Joker's guffaw throws his head back. "It's not complicated, but I'll humor you! Let's get to the bonding part of this road movie."
"We are not bonding. I'm making a call to get us home, and you're going to tell me where the thumb drive is."
"Ah, setting expectations. Important in any relationship."
Bruce escapes to the bedroom and sits on the creaky mattress to use the landline. As always, Alfred is relieved to hear from him. He'll bounce a signal through a string of satellites to bring the batplane to the desert near the motel, but it will take about an hour. The plane's standby pattern of circling Vegas was picked up by test pilots from a nearby air base, so it diverted further west. It's just as well; if more of Falcone's men manage to get on Bruce and Joker's trail, it'll be better to leave closer to sunset. Alfred offers to send backup, but Bruce declines; help won't arrive before the plane does.
He doesn't tell Alfred that Batman's identity is compromised. For one thing, getting back to Gotham in one piece is more urgent. For another, if Joker hasn't done anything with that information for however long he's known, the actual threat feels low enough that Bruce can address it later.
When he hangs up and turns to the bathroom, his heart rate spikes. He can't see Joker's shadow on the floor through the half-open door.
He calms as soon as he reaches the doorway. Joker has hooked his ankles around the curtain rod too, so he can hang underneath by all four limbs. His socks are tattered and filthy from their long walk through the desert.
"I'd like to be reincarnated as a sloth," he says, swinging from side to side.
"Catching you would be less of a pain in the ass."
"And then you wouldn't like me anymore," Joker says as he rocks to a stop. "I rescind my statement."
"I do not—"
"Don't you ever tire of these denials? I've long known they're lies. I know more than I'd care to, really."
"Really," Bruce repeats.
"It lacks mystique," Joker explains as he lowers his legs to the floor, "knowing you're just a kid whose parents got blown away by a bad man with a gun."
Bruce's jaw sets.
Joker rolls his eyes. "I guess we wouldn't be where we are if you weren't still touchy about it."
"Are you done?"
"And it is the result that enamored me," Joker goes on, cocking his head as if in thought, "and it's not like it isn't dramatic. Really it's overly dramatic, which suits you."
"Like nearly drowning in an acid vat," Bruce fires back, "and using it as an excuse to dismiss the humanity of everyone else around you?"
"Exactly!" Joker chirps. "Two peas in a pod we are!"
Of course that barb wouldn't wound the clown. Bruce already reminded himself that he knows better than to indulge this conversation. Wordlessly, he turns to go—
— and Joker's legs wrap around him for the second time that day, pulling him back. Bruce punches both arms outward, swiftly breaking free, and whirls around, latching one hand around Joker's throat and the other around his knee. He digs his fingers warningly into the joint.
He expects the jester to lean into his grip with a leer, but instead Joker scowls and says, "You can't just leave in the middle of a conversation."
Bruce lets go and steps back. "Provoking me isn't a conversation," he growls.
"You don't talk if I don't provoke."
"There's nothing to say."
"Ha, you have lots to say! You're just not used to using your words."
"You prefer that I don't."
"You think I'm one-note, is that it?" Joker asks, almost teary, but his voice dries up as he tilts his head back. "Go on, Batsy. The heat of the moment is one thing, but afterward, you must sit in your dank little cave, brooding over what else can be done, what else can be said to finally draw me onto that beam of light."
Bruce stares at him, exhaustion suddenly weighing on his chest. There is nothing to be said. There hasn't been for ages, probably since before the night the clown has so callously referenced. They never again connected quite like that, when they laughed together in the rain. Sometimes Bruce heard the echoes follow them down their winding path in the years since, but that path never forked. It led to now, to Joker using that vulnerable moment as a taunt. Joker will never change no matter how much Bruce wants the calamity to stop.
So Bruce should return to the bedroom, should leave the door open and make Joker endure being ignored. If the clown gets disorderly to force a response, Bruce can knock him out, but otherwise he can leave the matter be.
But it's never mattered how overtaxed Bruce feels. The compulsion to push back fills his lungs.
"When I go back to the cave," he says sharply, "after locking you away, I'm thinking about the next threat to Gotham. I'm not concerned with your delusions. I've proved them wrong again and again. We are not and have never been the same, and that's self-evident in more ways than I can count."
Joker grins cheekily and croons, "But you've thought about how many."
His impudence crackles up Bruce's spine, as does Bruce's irritation that he's not immune to these gibes by now. "I've thought about how ridiculous it is that you think of yourself as freed from humanity when you constantly attach your fate to mine. I think about your delusions of grandeur whenever Arkham reports that you're strapped to your bed, raving or dissociating. And when you're out, and word gets around that you had a breakdown in your own hideout, I think about how much more desperately you declare nothing matters afterward."
Joker's smile persists, but it shrinks. "You have no idea what I—"
"You're pitiful," Bruce snaps. "That's what I think."
The smile vanishes with a twist of Joker's mouth, indignance narrowing his eyes. He starts to retort, but Bruce keeps going.
"That's what you wanted to know. That's how I see the facts. You have a cunning intellect but you wield it with the philosophy of a child. You knew you needed my help, but rather than ask, you risked your life in a distorted play for attention."
"I don't need your help," Joker snarls.
"You knew I would show up!" Bruce bursts. "But I don't need you to admit it. You are one-note. You're what makes the joke. You can't see that being willing to follow me anywhere but that damn light makes you a coward."
The planes of Joker's face go hard and flat like ice while the gleam in his eyes dims, drawn into his pupils.
"And maybe it makes me a damn idiot that I still see a speck of value in keeping you alive," Bruce adds, "but my soul is still of use to me."
It's a rare moment, Joker struck silent. It's temporary, but it's Joker admitting that Bruce is right, and Bruce has to take in that satisfaction before the clown recovers with a laugh or an insult.
Or by leaning forward and pressing his mouth to Bruce's.
Joker's cracked lips are dry but warm. Bruce grabs his shoulders and pushes him away, holding him at arm's length.
"You followed me," Joker says, the corner of his mouth quirking up, eyes alive again, "to save your soul, hm?"
Bruce steps back, shoulder pivoting into the right position to lift his arm and punch— but he completes the turn instead, stalking from the room, away from that smug face. He paces at the foot of the bed out of view of the bathroom. Joker threw him off again, but that doesn't mean Bruce has to let him see his frustration that it worked, that the clown never fails. But of course he never fails. Joker twists everything with ease because he's a goddamn sociopath.
The tile gives Joker's voice a slight echo when he says, "Speaking of cowards."
Ridiculous. Bruce has never been a coward. He doesn't run; he regroups and restrategizes. But what strategy is there for a bastard who is only trying to rile him up? Retaliation proves Bruce's irritation, which is just what Joker wants. So what's the strategy?
He's not sure, but he's not a coward, so he returns to the bathroom. He resists the urge to repay the clown's gall with a right hook, like he should have done in the first place. Why didn't he? It doesn't matter. What he needs to do is throw Joker off guard again.
"No worries, darling," Joker sighs. "I know the repression is stuck right up your—"
The remark gets cut off by a squeak when Bruce grabs Joker's lapels and kisses him, hard and firm. This time when Bruce leaves the bathroom, Joker is silent.
There, Bruce thinks, staring at the dark TV. His point is proven. He's unbothered.
And for the next hour, the two of them will remain alone in this room. Bruce still has to watch Joker, look at those strung-up arms and wet clothes and warm mouth.
Bruce doesn't know what he's thinking anymore. He proved his point. He threw Joker off. Joker crossed a line, and Bruce showed it doesn't matter.
But it did matter. That line mattered very much, and now it's broken, and Bruce can't fix it. He can't forget it. Joker would never let him. Bruce knows that. Why did he follow Joker across the line?
So what? It only means as much as Bruce lets it. He only walks as far past it as he allows himself. He's not being dragged.
No, his feet take him step by step to the bathroom doorway, to the bound clown. The man. Joker felt obviously, wonderfully human pressed against him. The touch didn't burn, send them up in flames as it should.
"We can't do this," Bruce says mechanically, as firmly as the kiss.
Joker isn't smiling, and he isn't frowning. He looks at Bruce expectantly. "Can't we?"
Of course he poses a deceptively simple question, with a horribly simple answer. Bruce looks at that wet magenta suit and thinks how it needs to dry like his jacket. All their clothes could dry before the plane arrives and they're stuck in damp for hours more.
Bruce is not a coward but there's something horribly wrong with him, trying to reach for something practical. What he's thinking is not practical. Practical would be shutting this down, forgetting it ever happened. Practical is… "We can do this, if you tell me where—"
"Batsy," Joker interrupts fondly, "don't make this about that."
Because Bruce will find the documents one way or another, whether he has to fight for the drive or Joker hands it over, whether this happens or not.
And he's already said it would. They've already kissed. Their clothes are wet and need to dry.
Bruce comes forward, his hand dipping in his pocket for the handcuff key. Every instinct but one screams for him to leave it there, and he hesitates again. Joker eyes Bruce's hidden hand and his smile blazes. He lets himself dangle on the rod and brushes aside Bruce's last defense.
"I told you. I'm into it."