Chapter Text
So this is how it ends.
Bruce had always given some thought to how he’d die. The lifestyle he led didn’t exactly lend itself to a happy ending. Vigilantes always got caught eventually. Either by the law or by the people they were trying to stop. He just didn’t think that it would happen so soon.
He was in his prime. Sure, he wasn’t a spring chicken like he had been when he first started out on the streets of Gotham City, but what he lacked in youthfulness, he more than made up for in experience. He could take down ten armed men in under a minute. He could diffuse a bomb without a second thought. He could rescue hundreds of hostages from terrorists with no casualties.
That was why he was shocked when his grappling gun didn’t deploy. He should have known better. He’d gotten sloppy. Years of perfect performance had culminated in carelessness. He was Batman, the hero of Gotham. He didn’t make mistakes.
Until he did.
The Joker was oblivious to it all as they plummeted. He didn’t seem to realize the situation like Bruce had. Bruce could feel him relax in his arms, as gravity did its work.
He gave a cursory look towards the ground as they fell. He wasn’t looking forward to the impact, but luckily, he didn’t think he’d feel it for long.
Then, without any warning, the Joker twisted around in Bruce’s arms, flipping their positions.
Before he could do anything about it, the world turned black.
Bruce opens his eyes to a white light.
It’s blinding, but for some reason, he’s not scared. He knows he should be. He’s in an unknown place that feels more like a dream than reality ever should, and yet the comforting rays of warmth take away all of his fear.
He hears a familiar voice calling out to him in the distance.
“Come and get me, Batsy!” it says. “I’ve been waiting for ages!”
‘Joker,’ he thinks and pushes forward into the blinding light. Wherever he is, the Joker is close. He just needs to—
He can feel the rays of sunshine hitting his face as he opens his eyes. Instead of the intense light from before though, Bruce finds himself looking up at the sun.
In front of him is a sprawling field. Green grass rustles on every side of him, and trees line the distant horizon. The sky is a brilliant blue, and despite the lack of clouds, the sun is tempered. Neither too hot or cold. Just… Perfect.
He knew this wasn't Gotham from the minute he saw the scenery, but as he draws in a breath and smells the sweet air, he wonders if he is even on Earth anymore.
He looks down at the clothes he’s wearing. White robes, like something he’s seen on ancient statues, chiseled out of marble. He doesn’t understand what’s going on. There’s no rhyme or reason to any of it.
“Ugh,” he hears someone say behind him. “What a shame. They didn’t let you keep the mask?”
He turns around to see the Joker. He looks the same as he always does, except his clothes are different. He’s not wearing his purple suit. He’s in white robes as well. It looks bizarre on the clown, and he imagines it looks just as strange on him.
Bruce immediately covers his face with his hands when he realizes that his identity is exposed, but the Joker just shakes his head.
“No. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re here.”
“Where is ‘here’, exactly?” Bruce asks, turning his back to the Joker to keep his face hidden.
“The end. Heaven. The afterlife. Whatever you want to call it.”
Bruce isn’t convinced. “No. If there was an afterlife, I wouldn’t end up in the same place as you.”
“You can imagine my surprise. When I opened my eyes, I was ready to jump into the lake of fire, and instead, I’m lying on my back in paradise. Apparently, it doesn’t matter what you do,” the Joker says, almost laughing. “Everyone ends up here. Whether you’re a billionaire philanthropist or criminal scum!”
Bruce feels a chill go up his spine at the comparison. “I guess you saw my face already.”
“Brucie,” the Joker says, walking around to face him once again. “Can’t you feel it in the air? Have you ever been to a place like this? Where else could we be?”
“I don’t…”
“Face the facts. What was the last thing you remember?”
“Falling. I was falling. We both were. And then…”
“And then you woke up here, right?”
“I heard your voice,” Bruce recalls. “I heard you calling for me, and I followed it. I was trying to stop you.”
“You followed me here? How romantic. You know, I’m still angry with you for letting us fall like that.”
“My grappling gun malfunctioned.”
“I figured,” Joker says, pouting a bit. “Way to ruin everything.”
“Did you try to save me?” Bruce asks suddenly. “Right before we hit the ground, you switched places with me.”
“I’m sorry, I just can’t get over the whole ‘Bruce Wayne’ thing,” replies Joker, ignoring the question.
His lack of a reply is in itself the answer.
‘He tried to save me,’ Bruce thinks. ‘He realized that I was about to die, and he tried to take the brunt of the impact.’
“I mean, it makes sense. You had to have some way to afford all of that technology. To be honest, I never really wanted to know who you were. Your real identity was always better off kept secret.”
“Joker—”
“Oh well,” he interrupts. “Small price to pay for getting to spend eternity with you.”
Bruce… Hadn’t thought about the whole eternal aspect of the afterlife. An infinite amount of time spent with the Joker. He can’t imagine it. It sounds like his own personal idea of hell.
“Don’t give me that look, Batsy. Eternity isn’t the end of the world. In fact, it’s only the beginning. Forever.”
“There’s no way,” Bruce says, not letting the thought take hold. “There has to be a mistake—Someone I can talk to about this.”
“Excuse me!” Joker replies in a gruff tone, mocking Batman’s voice. “I need to speak to your manager!” He waves his hands around in the air obnoxiously.
He wonders what the rules are for this place. Other than the Joker, he hasn’t seen anyone else here. If he were to set out to fix this mess, would it be safe to leave the Joker behind? Can he hurt people? If this is really the afterlife, then maybe he can’t.
But Bruce isn’t ready to accept that as the answer.
“How long have you been here?” Bruce asks.
“A few days, I think.” The Joker shrugs. “Time moves strangely in this place.”
“Tell me everything you know.”
The Joker shakes his head. “You need to say please.”
“Please.”
“Please what?”
“I’m not doing this,” Bruce says, setting off to walk toward the horizon. There are trees there. Maybe there’s something on the other side, hidden by the leaves. The grasslands don’t seem to have any people living there, but the forest looks promising.
“Where are we going now?” Joker asks, following along behind him.
“ I’m going to get answers.”
“Ooh.” Joker claps his hands together. “A little adventure? Sounds fun. I’m in.”
“You’re not coming with me.”
“Says who?”
“Me.”
“Oh yeah?” Joker says. Bruce doesn’t need to look at him to know that there’s a grin on his face. He can hear it in the way he speaks. “You’re going to try and stop me?”
He thinks for a moment before deciding. “No. I guess I’m not.”
It would be harder to try and stop the Joker now. He doesn’t have handcuffs, or batarangs, or anything else he’d actually need to get the Joker to leave him alone. Besides, he still doesn’t know what’s going on. If there are others here, the last thing he’d want to do is leave the Joker lying around for some unsuspecting bystanders to deal with.
“You didn’t take much convincing. I guess I’m coming along with you after all.”
Bruce doesn’t give him a response. He continues to wade through the long grass. In the white robes that he’s donning, it’s not easy. The grass threatens to trip him with every step and the cloth tangles in the foliage. He’s barefoot too, yet the brambles never cut his feet.
He looks back to see the Joker struggling to keep up behind him, but he doesn’t slow down. If anything, he wants to move even faster.
Bruce picks up his speed. His shoulders are tense as he pushes through the grass. His hands are balled into fists and he wants to scream.
If the Joker is right—if this is the afterlife…
He pushes the rising bile in his throat back down. He’s angry, but he needs to keep his head cool. There’s no point jumping to conclusions. There’s still a chance that this has an easier explanation. He wouldn’t put it past the Joker to pull something like this.
The idea feels flimsy, but it’s the only thing he has anymore.
It’s another hour at least until they reach the woods. At the rate the Joker’s moving at, it’ll be two. He’s debating whether it would be better to pick the Joker up and carry him the rest of the way, but he decides against it.
He knows that Joker can move faster than this. He’s seen it firsthand. The clown moves like a literal bullet when he wants to, so it’s hard for him to feel sympathetic when he’s clearly just trying to slow Bruce down.
Instead of continuing to let his anger fester, Bruce keeps thinking back to those last moments before he woke up in this place. That fall.
It had been brutal. That drop in his stomach always got to him whenever he leaped off a building, but that moment when his grappling gun didn’t deploy, the feeling grew unbearable.
There had been a sort of acceptance towards the end. When the inevitability of things finally registered in his head, it was surprisingly easy to let go. He’d been more concerned about the pain than anything else.
He still doesn’t understand why Joker had tried to save him and, to his frustration, it doesn’t seem like he is going to get an answer. Joker’s being elusive. It’s still a step up from the way he normally acts. There’s no aggression or malevolence in his eyes when he withholds information and drags his feet. They both know that this is the worst he can do now.
So far, it’s just been the two of them alone in this world, and that makes him easier to deal with. There’s no collateral damage to worry about.
It’s still the Joker, though. Bruce knows what the clown is capable of. He’s seen it in the way he’s hurt the people closest to him. There’s been too much carnage to mention.
They’re almost in the woods. Joker’s not very far behind him. Once he realized that Bruce wasn’t going to slow down for him, his pace quickened. He is only a few yards behind him, and he’d be even closer if Bruce wasn’t trying to keep a distance between them.
He looks around the idyllic scene. He hasn’t really decided if this is the afterlife yet. Joker seems to think it is. There was a truthfulness in his eyes when he’d first landed in the field. Joker had looked at his face. Called him Bruce. There’s no way he’d do that unless he thought the game was over.
But Joker could be wrong. This means nothing. They’re both flying blind in this new place. Sure, things are strange now, but there’s no way in hell that the two of them ended up in the same afterlife. There has to be some sort of divine justice when you die.
He’s thinking about his parents, wondering if they’re in a place like this. If they’re exploring valleys and mountains together. He wonders if they’ve gotten bored of each other by now. He wonders if they’ve thought of him.
He pushes the thought out of his mind. He doesn’t feel dead. His lungs breathe in the fresh air. The sun is still shining on him. His feet are still moving through the grass.
Though he’s noticing something disconcerting. He feels no hunger or thirst. His feet are not sore. The sun has never gotten too hot, and the breeze has never gotten too cold. He’s normally keenly aware of every bodily sensation.
And then it hits him. Bruce almost stops in his tracks. He fell off a skyscraper. Even if the Joker took the brunt of the fall, neither one of them should be standing right now. At the very least, if Bruce had managed to survive the fall he’d be feeling a broken bone or a concussion. At the worst, well, he’d be dead.
And the Joker…
This could be a coma, or some hallucination, or a nightmare he can’t wake up from. It feels real, but he can’t accept it. Not until there’s no other explanation for this. The Joker is dead. That much is certain.
Whether the man behind him is a ghost or a figment of his imagination, he’s dead.
Bruce sneaks a quick look at Joker, trying to ascertain whether this was in fact reality or just a trick of the mind. The Joker responds with a wave, and jogs to catch up to him. Bruce stifles a groan.
“Almost there, Brucie,” Joker says, giving him a pat on the back. “I’m not sure what you’re expecting to find, though.”
The woods are only minutes away. He’s not sure what he’s expecting, either. It’s a shot in the dark for answers that he’s not sure he’ll get. But there’s not much else he can do. He’s not going to sit around in a field with the Joker until things are solved for him. He’s a man of action, and this is the only action that he knows how to take.
“Say something, Batsy. I’m dying over here,” Joker giggles. “Well, I guess I’ve already done that.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you,” he replies gruffly.
“You just did,” Joker pointed out. “Can we talk about this? I mean, we’re the only people here. Oh, let me guess. You still don’t want to believe you’re dead. Come on and think! You’ve got a bat-brain in there somewhere, so use it, detective! Could anyone survive that fall? Could I have survived? No? Then why am I here next to you?”
“I’m starting to think you’re a hallucination.”
“Ha!” the Joker burst out. He shoves Bruce lightly, almost knocking him over. “You’ve got a good imagination there, Bruce. How did you manage to hallucinate me pushing you?”
“I don’t know,” he replies curtly. “If I’m dead and you’re here too, then we must be in hell together. This place doesn’t feel like hell, so maybe I’m not dead.”
“Maybe we’re in Valhalla,” Joker says with a grin. He moves even closer to Bruce, brushing his shoulders on his. “You know, because we died in battle together. Well, I don’t know if falling off a building in a tender embrace counts as a battle, but you never know how the divine forces make those judgment calls.”
“Even if that was the case, there should be other people here. Valhalla’s supposed to be full of Vikings and soldiers from every point in history. I should have seen someone by now.”
“Maybe you made it to Elysium. The Elysium Fields of Ancient Greece, where heroes were said to spend their afterlife. I mean, we’re literally in a field right now.”
“You’re no hero,” Bruce says, stepping away from Joker. “Wherever we are, it’s neutral ground. You said it yourself when I first got here. Billionaire philanthropist or criminal scum.”
The Joker shrugs. “You have to admit, it was a good theory.”
“No.”
They’re standing by the edge of the forest. Tall redwood pines stick up high into the clouds, and it reminds Bruce of home. The trees paled in comparison to the skyscrapers of Gotham, but they were breathtaking in their own right. Not made by man, but by nature, and yet they’re standing tall.
He tries to climb one of the taller trees, but without his gear, it’s not easy. He slips a few times while his feet get used to the rough bark.
“We just died from falling, Batsy. Are you trying to kill yourself again?”
“I need a better vantage point,” Bruce calls from above. He’s already made good progress. There’s almost three-quarters left to climb but at the rate he’s going, it shouldn’t take longer than a few minutes.
“Hey!” Joker yells up at him. “I can see up your toga!”
His hands don’t ache like he’s expecting them to. The bark isn’t cutting into him. It’s like his skin’s been thickened with callouses that he can’t feel. His muscles don’t feel strained either. He pulls himself up the tree with ease with superhuman strength that he thought only Superman was capable of.
‘It’s not real,’ he thinks to himself when he finally reaches the top. ‘None of this is real. I’m probably in a coma somewhere. Alfred’s doting on me, and I’ll wake up soon. I always do.’
He looks at the world around him. It’s not hard to see this as a dream. The scenery is perfect, down to every last detail. It’s like every tree had been placed exactly where it should. The woods stretch for miles, and he can see what looks like the ocean in the distance.
He doesn’t see any sign of life. No campfire smoke or human structures anywhere, but he’s beginning to not care as much.
‘This is just the coma dream of a dying man,’ he thinks. ‘The Joker’s dead, and I’m just imagining him because he was the last person I saw.’
“Bats!” he hears Joker call from down below. “See anything?”
Bruce isn’t careful coming down. His descent can’t be classified as controlled. It was more akin to a freefall, like the one he’d just been in. There’s a drop in his stomach, but his knees don’t hurt when he finally lands.
“You are trying to kill yourself!” Joker laughs. “Well, good luck with that.”
“I didn’t see any signs of civilization,” Bruce says, getting up from the forest floor. “There’s a beach on the other side of the woods. What do you think?”
“You’re asking me what I think?”
“You’re not the Joker. You’re a hallucination. This is just a dream.”
The Joker grins. “If you really thought that was true, then why are you trying to find other people?”
Bruce falters. “The ocean it is, then.”
The smile still hasn’t left Joker’s face. “Lead the way, Bats.”