Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

EPISODE ONE: RED THREAD

It had been six months since Alfred left.

Six months since John had been back in Arkham.

Six months since Batman had essentially disappeared from the world. 

Six months since he had lost everything. After all that struggle to save everyone and everything, he ended up with a big empty house and a “best friend” who refused to talk to him. 

Bruce had been sitting at his computer for about four hours at that point. He wasn’t planning to patrol, just like he hadn’t been planning to for the past several weeks. The main news headlines circulating were all debating whether Batman had died or not. It hadn’t made John any easier to talk to. Apparently he had to have his TV privileges revoked after one too many outbursts at a Batman headline. 

“He’s been such a big fan of the vigilante ever since he arrived here” Dr. Leland said, “It would be a huge setback to his therapy if he’s gone. I know that it’s a terrible thing to only care about him for John's sake, but I do.”

Bruce understood what she meant, he only dawned the cowl when he felt that it was necessary (A.K.A. when Jim lit the signal), but he did skip most nights. Maybe he should just give Jim a phone number instead of using a stupid skylight. After all, Batman hadn’t been seen in action in a long time, he mostly just did things that the GCPD couldn’t do on their own.

“Are you sure that taking away privileges is a good thing for him?”

Leland rolled her eyes, “I’ve known him for as long as anyone can remember, including him. It’ll be fine.” She shook her head as if to reset herself, “I’m sorry. I’m taking up your visiting time, aren’t I? I’ll take you to him” she said even though both of them knew damn well that Bruce had the way to John’s new cell memorised. 

“Bruce! Have you talked to her about the TV thing yet?” 

Bruce had to keep himself from laughing, “Yes. She says no and also that she can hear you”

“Oh, crap”

Bruce did end up laughing, “It’s okay. I’m sure that she doesn’t mind”

“I may care a little bit” she said with a smile, “I’ll be back in a few hours, god knows that we’re going to have to drag you out of here with your hands tied.”

“Oh ha ha” Bruce said dryly, he could have sworn that John was giggling behind him.

Leland leaned in close, “Be careful with him.” she warned.

“I know” was all Bruce said in response. 

The door to John’s cell swung open suddenly. He had been moved after another night of seeing the batsignal stay on all evening, crying when it never turned off. Leland decided that it would be better for him to not be able to see it anymore. The Batman doll had been taken away too. John was certainly upset, but after a short explanation from Bruce, he had calmed down a lot. 

“So what brings you here today?” John asked with a tilt of his head, despite him knowing the answer.

“What else would it be?” Bruce responded, trying and failing to keep a smile off of his face.

“You’re not checking into the looney bin again are you? Coming here to ask to become my cell mate?” he joked. 

“Ha ha ha, John. You’re such a-” he was about to say Joker, before realising that it wasn’t a good idea. 

That was one of the things worrying him most, that after all these months of progress, John was just going to jump right back into the “vigilante” persona of Joker. He would end up getting out again only to be thrown right back in again. It wasn’t helping either of them that both knew about the Batman thing and both couldn’t say anything about it. Bruce had made sure of that.

He could remember that visit. Scribbling down questions on a piece of paper with a crayon, Have you told anyone? A small reply of No why would I?  

“What?” Poor John seemed genuinely confused, “I’m a what?”

“Nothing” Bruce rubbed his temples, frustrated with himself, “I was gonna say something that I shouldn’t have”

A moment of realization crossed John’s face, “Ohhhh! Oh, I get it now” he said softly, “Sorry. You really shouldn’t have to change things like that for me”

“It’s okay. It’s all fine, it doesn’t bother me” 

“It should”

Bruce grabbed his hands fully knowing that he wasn’t (technically) supposed to, “It’s okay John. I just want to make sure that you get better. Nothing that would potentially harm you is ever going to be a ‘bother’ to me”

“Heh, you say that….” John pulled his hands away from Bruce’s, wrapping his arms tightly around himself, “You might not think so in two years”

“Two years? It’s not going to take that long, John”

“Liar,” John snapped, “I heard Dr. Leland and another doctor were talking about it the other day. He told her that I didn’t deserve to leave, ever. She said that I should be out in a little over two years. Honestly, I’m surprised that I would even be allowed to leave at all.” 

“John, that’s crazy you-”

“Crazy?! CRAZY!? I can show you crazy! You’re in the looney bin, Bruce! You wanna see crazy?! That’s probably why you’re here! Of course, that makes perfect sense! Why else would you be here!?” he stood up and started pacing, laughing hysterically as he did. 

“John, please. That’s not why I’m here, can you please just calm-” 

“CALM DOWN!!?? Ohhh, yes sirree! I can calm down! Just ask the guard! Him and his buddies LOVE ‘ calming me down ’!”

“Wait, John, what does that mean?”

John started violently hitting his head against the wall, “Calm down! Calm down! CALM DOWN!”

“Dr. Leland!” Bruce called out, “Mitch, please! Some assistance!”

Mitch (the guard primarily in charge of watching over John) was at the door in an instant, but the second he got there, John stood up straight. He would have gotten away with the innocent act, but the mass amount of bruising and blood on his forehead took that away.

“Another incident, John?” Mitch asked, “Are we going to be making this a weekly thing?”

“No Sir” John said, his hands behind his back like a soldier, “Just stressed. Brucie over here is just trying to baby me again. It’s enough to drive anyone mad” he joked.

“Mhm, well your ‘Brucie’ is going to have to leave now. And I’m going to have to get Leland and the sleeping pills.”

“No wait! Please, it won’t happen again” he seemed frantic, Bruce felt like this was something that had happened before.

But Leland was already there, “John? Did something happen?” she said with a tone implying that she already knew.

“Nothing,” John said sharply, “I was having a chat with Bruce. Now, if you don’t mind, I would like to continue that chat”

“Then why’s there bloody bruises on your forehead?”

“That was there before, you must have missed it” John said, his tone of voice reminded Bruce of Joker. It brought back memories of bright acidic green, the same color that seemed to follow John everywhere, and the smell of the sludgy cocktail of chemicals ACE had been working up.

“Bruce, I would hate to ask you to leave but…” 

“No, I understand. I have a meeting this afternoon anyway” Bruce stood up, moving around the several people in the room.

“Bruce!” John said, slapping the sad puppy dog eyes on, “Do you have to go?”

“Yes,” he said simply, not wanting to give John anymore reason to hate him, “I’ll see you next week”

“Yeah, sure.”

Chapter Text

The signal turned on way later than Bruce had expected.

Luckily, he had an alarm that went off everytime the signal lit. He had Spectrum work on it after Alfred left. Shockingly, Bruce had been getting more sleep recently, it was kind of nice to not have to live off of coffee and maybe two hours of sleep if he was lucky. 

It only took him about twenty minutes to get to the GCPD, fully suited. 

“Ah, there you are” Jim flicked his cigarette off of the side of the building

“Those will kill you” the modulated voice was more robotic than he would have liked, but he broke the last one that Lucius had made at ACE. Tiffany had to use messy blueprints of her dads to remake it. 

“There’s been a series of robberies tonight. All pharmaceutical companies, ACE Chemicals too. The guy responsible was wearing a burlap sack over his head. Another costumed freak to add to the club. No offence”

“None taken. What did he take?”

“Everything. Antidepressants, anxiety meds, psychotics…”

“Maybe he’s a dealer”

“Doubtful, come on I’m expected to be at the crime scene. I’ll get you access in”

Bruce jumped back in the car, following Jim’s police cruiser like a dog. They drove to a small hole-in-the-wall pharmacy in the Narrows, one that Bruce had never really paid any attention to.

Jim stopped his car right in front of the yellow tape keeping civilians out. He stepped out with a new cigarette in his hands, “Here it is” was all he said, before pulling up the yellow tape.

Bruce stepped over the threshold. Tapping a small button on the cowl, the same one he used to contact Alfred before he left, he connected the line to Tiffany, now known to the public as Spectrum.

“What do you need?” Tiffany said, her drone hovering over Bruce’s head.

“Security footage. Anything you can find” 

“Got it,” she said and her drone zipped away

A few seconds later, a short video showed up at the corner of the cowl’s vision. A man, brandishing a gun in front of him. The burlap sack over his head was taped to his shoulders, like he knew that it was going to fly off with one slightly strong breeze. He yelled (Tiffany apologized about the lack of audio, apparently the place didn’t have mics in their security system) and someone behind the counter ran to grab what he had demanded. 

The security footage ended with the man shooting the camera without even looking at it.

“Dammit” he swore under his breath.

“Something wrong?” Avesta seemed to be the only officer in the GCPD that could actually sneak up on Batman himself. The only person that rivaled her was Tiffany.

“Crap, Avesta! Warn me next time maybe?”

She laughed, “Yeah sure”

Bruce was forever glad that she had joined the police force. It was nice to have just one person at the GCPD that he didn’t have to keep up the “broody, cold superhero” act around. She knew. She knew who he was and didn’t say anything. To be fair the competition for best at keeping his secret wasn’t really a competition, because the only people in it were either accomplices of his or former criminals. 

Not really the best look.

“The guy hit up three other places tonight. This is the only location that we have footage for. He cut the wires on the cameras everywhere else he robbed. Probably wanted to make an entrance with this one”

“What about ACE Chemicals? How do we know that it was him?”

Avesta laughed, “Slow down Bats, one question at a time. He left calling cards at all four locations. It’s a pumpkin”

“A pumpkin? And when I thought the criminals in this town couldn’t get any weirder”

“Says the guy in a bat costume beating up said criminals”

Bruce couldn’t help but laugh, “Touche” 

Avesta led him into the building, “The calling card’s over there” she pointed to where several forensics team members stood around a table.

“Spectrum?” Bruce asked, pressing the button on his cowl again.

“I’m here,” except this time, she was standing right beside him, “You want me to check for any DNA?” 

Bruce almost jumped out of his skin. Avesta and Tiffany laughed at the same time. 

“You guys have to stop sneaking up on me all the time”

“Not a chance,” Tiffany said, skipping over to the pumpkin calling card with her drone trailing behind her.

Avesta smiled at him. “What?” he asked, “Do I have something on my face?” 

“No, you just seem happier. Also less exhausted”

But honestly, Bruce was far from happier. He felt better physically, but his head was a mess. Some days he had played around with the idea of “checking himself back into the looney bin” as John felt like calling it all the time. Deep down though he knew it wouldn’t do anyone any good. He had just managed to scrape his reputation back together, taking some time in Arkham would only break all that down again. Just like it did the first time.

Although he would be lying if he said that he didn’t think about going back to the facility full time if only to look after John. When John was out of Arkham, Bruce could text him or head out to the Old Five Points to see how he was doing. Now he had to go through metal detectors and plan out a schedule of when he was going to see John. He knew that he couldn’t watch him all the time, but it would be a comfort to have that easy access again.

Bruce shook his head to clear his thoughts. John had already distracted him while he was on the job before, and god help him if he was to make it a regular thing.

“Batman!” Tiffany called out, “I found a small trace of DNA. It’s barely even there, but I might be able to synthesize it”

“Try that,” Bruce said, heading behind the counter.

The shelves of medication had been tipped over in the incident. Glass lay on the floor. Somehow the light bulbs had broken, Bruce’s shoes were crunching on glass shards. 

He looked behind himself to see Tiffany chatting casually with the GCPD’s forensic team. He wasn’t surprised. They saw more of her than him most days. “Spectrum” he said, “can you check the electrical cords? Something broke these bulbs. It might be our scarecrow character”

“Scarecrow?” Avesta said, looking at Jim who had just come up to stand next to her, “How does that work for the code name of the suspect?”

“Fits in with the rest of the creeps in this city. We’ll keep it”

“Cool I’ll go put it on the report” She walked out of the building to go check in with the records.

Bruce kept walking. Towards the back of the building was extra storage, except these shelves held harder drugs. Oh wow, he thought sarcastically, Another crooked business in Gotham, who’s surprised?  

Even further in the back, past all the mass amounts of illegal drugs that the GCPD (and by extension, Batman and Spectrum) were going to have to look into now, there was another room.

The only thing in there was a TV and a cassette player. A tape sat on top of the TV, with a sticky note on top. It read “ For The Batman”

Great.

“Jim!” He called out, “There’s a video back here!”

Jim came to the back, Spectrum in tow. Along with two other officers, Ramirez and Wertz, the only people in the major crime’s unit still left after the Joker incident. 

Bruce slid the tape into the machine while Spectrum struggled to turn the ancient TV on. 

“ Hello. I’ve been waiting for you.” The man still had the sack over his head, “ All you really need to do is check up on the nearest news station. Or was it the park? I can’t remember. Y’know fear does mess up your mind quite a lot.”

“What does he mean by that?” Ramirez asked.

“Hell if I know,” said Jim in response.

The video was cut out then.

“That’s it?” Jim said, “Okay then. Wurtz, go round up a squad to get to the nearest park. It should be two blocks away from here. Ramirez,, do the same, but head to the GCN.” 

“Yes sir,” Wurtz said at the same time as Ramirez said, “Got it”

“I’ll send the drone over to the park” Spectrum said, “Actually, on second thought, I’ll go in person. I haven’t gotten any chance for real action yet.”

“Be careful,” Bruce said, knowing that it was completely useless to try and protest. She was going to go or die trying.

She sprinted off, refusing to be cautious around the broken glass. 

Bruce decided that he might as well follow Ramirez to the GCN, seeing as how he was already suited up. 

Chapter Text

It only took him three minutes to get to the GCN. Ramirez and her crew weren’t there yet. Before Alfred left, Bruce would have gone barreling in by himself. However, seeing as how he was a guest actor in this caper (and honestly in every caper) he decided to wait for the “professionals” as Alfred always called them.

That was until he saw mass amounts of green hazy smoke pile its way out of the building.

“Crap!” he hissed. He tried to run inside, but somebody had locked the door shut. His finger flew to the button on the cowl that he had used twice already, “Spectrum!” he yelled, “If there’s not a situation at the park, I could really use your assistance here!”

“What happened?!”

“You have the lockpicks”

“Got it” she said, and Bruce could hear her shoes slapping against the pavement as she ran, “ETA is one minute, can you wait that long?”

“Maybe” He said, trying to open the door by slamming his full body into it.

It gave way much easier than Bruce had expected. Spectrum said in his ear, “You still need me?” 

“Yes,” Bruce said, pulling a gas mask from his utility belt and strapping it on.

The whole building was filled with people, all of them were cowering on the floor clutching their heads. Most were crying and some were even screaming. 

Bruce picked up the pace, trying to find the source of the gas. Before he could find it though, the whole thing shut off. 

Spectrum was talking to him, he noticed that now, “Bruce? Bruce?” she said, “It was in the air vents, the drone found it. I was able to remotely disable it. Wurtz and his team searched the park and didn’t find anything like what I’m seeing right now, but it might just be in a different shape. We need to get over there.”

Bruce found himself speaking, “What about the people that are here? We need to find an antidote.” When had that happened?

“Fine” Tiffany snapped, “You can stay there, seeing as how you don’t do anything else”

“What do you-!?” Bruce started, but it was too late. She had disconnected the call already.

He sighed, running a tired hand over his face despite the cowl. He ran out of the building, opening doors and windows as he went. Luckily, most of the gas had disappeared. 

He ran out the door as fast as possible, running down the street to the park. He’d deal with the aftermath of the news station later.

Ramirez’s team was at the park already. Gordon had even called in the bomb squad to get the dogs to sniff around for any signs of Scarecrow’s gas.

“Gordon! I’ve got a large back box over here!” 

Bruce snapped to attention. With Spectrum and Gordon in tow, he rushed to the officer, gas mask still firmly in place.

Spectrum’s drone approached the box, scanning it quickly. “Yeah it’s a gas bomb.” she said after a few seconds.

“Can you disable it like the other one?”

“Yes, just give me a second”

And then the bomb went off.

“Crap!” Bruce hissed, grabbing Gordon a gas mask from his belt. Gordon threw it on sloppily. Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce could see Ramirez faint. Spectrum’s drone crashed to the floor after being hit by a rogue piece of metal.

Spectrum was next to him, feeling her way to the drone on the floor. The green gas was so dense this close to the source that neither of them could see. She found the drone and pressed the failsafe button on it to get it working again.

“It’s not working” came a voice from his ear. Tiffany must have called the cowl. 

“The drone?”

She nodded quickly.

“Do you have the acid?”

She just handed it to him.

It had been months since Bruce had been forced to disable a bomb, he hoped that he could still remember. He pulled open the bottle along with grabbing a small drill out of his utility belt. It wasn’t the easiest way to diffuse a bomb, but it was the only one that was going to work right now. 

He slowly poured the acid into the hole that he had made, and waited for it to eat through the machine. There was a chance that the chemicals in the gas were immune to the acid’s effects, but he didn’t really have time for that. 

Luckily, the acid burned out the contents of the box. In a matter of minutes, the gas had dissipated from the air. 

He could hear screaming and crying around him. Looking behind his shoulder, he could see Spectrum trying to fix her drone, Gordon contacting the bomb squad behind her.

He walked up to Spectrum, “Do you want me to take it back to the cave?”

“Leaving already?” 

“I wanted to check up on the chemical components of the gas. And the possible side effects. Maybe an antidote can be created”

She stood up, drone in hand, “Okay then, I’ll debrief the police about the situation and the video.” She handed him the drone, trying to cradle its injuries.

“I promise that I won’t be a stranger on this case, Spect”

She smiled at the nickname, one that her brother had given her when she dropped the news. One of her conditions after she joined him was that her family was told about her father’s relationship with Batman. Her brother had helped her come up with the name “Spectrum” too. But the moment was ruined when she rolled her eyes, a smile still plastered on her face, “Yeah sure. I’ll believe it when I see it”

Bruce had never been prouder of her.

Chapter Text

Bruce had almost not been allowed to see John that week. His outbursts had been more frequent recently. Apparently someone had turned up the volume on the TV in the rec room so loud that John could hear it from his room. He got overly excited about Batman showing up at the crime scene in the Narrows and had started yelling out of joy and skipping around his room, even past curfew. Bruce didn’t see why it was that big of a deal, especially seeing how depressed John had been since being back in Arkham.

But that didn’t mean that he was going to indulge him.

“Bruce! I didn’t think that you were coming back. After last time….” he looked down at his lap, picking at the skin around his nails. Bruce was sure that if he kept this up, he would start bleeding pretty soon.

“Why wouldn't I? I told you that I would visit you every week, John”

John pushed himself into the furthest corner of the room, “Yeah but…”

“It’s okay. I promise”

“Oh… So what was the fight like?” He said, snapping his head up.

“You know that I’m not going to talk about that,” Bruce said coldly. He hated using that tone, but after everything that had happened, he felt the need to. The threat of John telling people about Batman’s real identity was still a real thing he had to consider. John’s blinding loyalty was a good trait to have, but eventually it would end up with him having to choose between betraying one friend or disappointing another.

“But this is the first person since your whole affair with Waller that’s gotten a cool supervillain name! This is a big deal!” He said, picking up the photo of him with Batman on his nightstand. Bruce had never figured out why he had kept it. From what he could tell from John’s actions and what Dr. Leland had told him, John didn’t like Batman. He felt too betrayed for him to be able to stomach the hero anymore. Bruce was sure that was why his TV privileges were taken away, “What happened to the hero who didn’t even hesitate to go undercover with a group of dangerous criminals just so that a few people wouldn’t get hurt!”

“I was being blackmailed, John. It wasn’t my choice” he said. He could feel himself getting agitated, it felt like every time he came to Arkham, he left with one of them being upset. 

“But after everything, you would just give it up!?”

“Keep your voice down. And no, I wouldn’t there were a lot of factors adding to me dropping the act more often. It wasn’t just a ‘I don’t feel like it’ kind of thing”

That seemed to calm John down, “Oh,” he said, setting the photo back on his bedside table, “I’m sorry”

“It’s okay. If it makes you feel better, I’m trying to do better at being there for the city.” he looked at John in the corner and suddenly felt terrible. John was only here because of Bruce’s poor decisions. If he hadn’t pushed him closer to the edge, Joker would never have even existed, “We don’t have any information about Scarecrow yet, other than the video he left. The sample of the gas we got showed signs of epinephrine, which is a chemical that increases adrenaline. It’s a little strange, but the chemical compound wasn’t complete, so we’re assuming it’s a prototype.” he wasn’t quite sure why he was telling John all of this.

“So he’s gonna strike again?” John was slowly but surely pulling himself out of the corner, his eyes lighting up with excitement.

“Possibly. We’re not sure where though, which is why I’ve been back on patrol recently” he chose his next words carefully, “We should change the subject. I wouldn’t want someone to accidentally overhear”

“That’s okay! I get it” his smile looked wide enough to split his face in half, “Thanks for letting me know. We don’t get any good news here. Well, we kinda do but you know how that worked out for me… heh”

Bruce couldn’t help his own smile spreading on his face, “You’re welcome” he stood up, “So what do you do for fun around here?”

Chapter Text

The batsignal was a sight that Bruce was growing more and more used to. 

After he had decided to join the Scarecrow investigation, Gordon had been calling for his help again. He had found himself back on the same pattern as he was six months ago. He would be up all night, at the office by day, asleep two hours a night if he was lucky. The nice thing was that not only was he helping people, but he was helping John get better.

“Hello, what’s on the agenda tonight?” he had made it a habit to not be as dark and mysterious towards Gordon. Sure he had to keep some sort of distance between them, but he didn’t have to be a jerk about it all the time.

“We’ve got another robbery. ACE Chemicals again.”

“ACE? What does he want with ACE?”

“Your guess is as good as mine-”

Someone burst through the door, it was a woman. She was short and held herself with a strong sense of authority. Her plum blouse reminded Bruce of someone else…

Amanda Waller burst through the door.

“Gordon! I’m joining this investigation” She said, not remembering the deal she had made with Batman all those months ago.

“Hell no! You lost most of your stupid freaking ‘Agency’ during your last stunt! I'm not giving you anything!”

“I have a new team, one that’ll work in the tactical field.”

Gordon looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel, “If you’re talking about that dumb Suicide Squad, then you’re fresh out of luck. I’m not letting a bunch of criminals protect this city.”

“So what’s he then?” Waller said, her head tilting towards Batman.

“A cop without a badge” Gordon’s defiance against one of the scariest women that Bruce had ever known was bound to get him killed.

“Also known as a criminal. You’re lucky that I’m not calling your authorities about this” she turned to Bruce, “I’m sure you don’t need reminding, but there was a reason that you worked with me in the first place”

Bruce wasn’t even sure that he would care all that much if she told anyone who he was. It would be an easy excuse as to why Batman had given up, “Try it” he said to her with the same tone he had used with John earlier. 

“You son of a-”

“That’s enough!” Gordon yelled, “Waller, isn’t this team of yours only like three people?”

“We’ve added more criminals from around the globe since then. We have about twenty six members right now”

“And they’ve all got the hand grenade in their necks?”

“Yes” she said

Bruce decided to cut in before Jim lost his job, “If that’s true, then I want the remote.”

“Obviously” she said, rolling her eyes.

“And you won’t be commanding them”

Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. Bruce was sure that he shouldn’t have said that. She looked like a Satan reincarnation. “What?!”

“I mean it. I want to make sure that you won’t be sending them into a situation. You’ve shown to me multiple times that you don’t think over all the facts before sending your ‘agents’ into a dangerous environment.” He decided to leave at that moment. It was fun to piss Waller off sometime.

“Batman! Batman!” she called out, “If you don’t stop right now I could yell your real name at you. If that’s what you want!”

Bruce kept walking. He didn’t even care anymore. Gordon honestly deserved to know, after all these years. Waller could do anything she wanted.

But what about John?

He cursed his rational subconscious. Yeah, he couldn’t really let her tell anyone. If people knew, then Batman wouldn’t exist anymore. He really couldn’t deal with John’s heartbreak at it.

Crap.

He turned around, “So what the hell do you want?” he snapped. God, he hated that he was doing this. 

“You let me help you. You’ll have a remote, but I command them.”

“Fine, but I get to handle Scarecrow’s bombs”

“Fine,” she said. She started pacing, her red heels clicking on the concrete, “What do we know about this guy?”

Gordon pulled a file out of his back pocket, “He’s robbed several pharmacies over the past two weeks, obviously you know about the attacks on the GCN and that park that happened last week.” he handed over the file to her (albeit reluctantly), “This is all we have on him”

“Waller! We’ve got a situation with Bane!” a new voice came from the door to the staircase, it was heavily accented and not even in the fake way. Oh god, Bruce thought, not-

Then she burst through the door.

Harley Quinn herself.

“Heya there, Batsy!” she said, her voice thick like poisoned honey, “How’s my John doin’? Probably not very well seeing as how you keep takin’ little week long trips. He’s truly obsessed with you. I wonder how you feel about that, knowing what happened to him and all”

“Thank you for the perspective, Harley” He said, trying not to get in another argument tonight, “I’ll be sure to think about it”

“Aww you sound upset! Or maybe it’s just that voice box of yours. I broke it last time, didn’t I? Or was that your little Joker? ”

Bruce held back the urge to punch her, “John is back at Arkham as you know. Joker is gone and I would appreciate if you don’t bring him up”

“C’mon Bats! It’s just a friendly conversation about our mutual friend! How's Joker doing anyways?”

“It’s John and he’s fine. Can we move on to the task at hand?”

She tutted, “Fine, Bats, so what do you want me to smash? I can do both forms of the word if you need” she swung her clown themed mallet into her hands.

“Nothing yet” he said, “All we need is surveillance around the city. And a team to get to the spots of his robberies before he can leave. I’m going to ACE. If you need me, you know how to contact me”

“What? You mean that stupid signal?” Waller yelled at him.

He didn’t feel like responding to her.

Chapter Text

The trip to ACE had taken longer than Bruce had hoped. He had almost missed his scheduled call with Alfred. It was lucky that he even got there at all, he had spent most of his time at ACE running his fingers over the dents in the wall that he had made. Working his way to the small upstairs room that still had traces of blood on the metal, a photo of John with Batman on the wall, had brought up memories too painful to ignore. 

He could still hear John, his voice thick with tears, “ I really wanted to be a hero, you know?”. Blood was leaking out of his hand, a batarang stuck in it grotesquely, “ I know you used me. I know I should hate you for that. But I don’t, because… I had such a good time with you, Bruce” 

He had to choke back tears of his own.

“Hey Alfred, how’s England?” he said when the call connected.

“It’s just like I remembered. I got to catch up with some old friends recently” he said, a sight smile growing on his face, “You look like you’ve been sleeping more”

“Yeah I have. I’ve been trying to take a break from crime fighting. Tiff’s been helping with that.”

“That’s nice.” he paused for a moment, looking like he was choosing his words carefully, “What’s been going on with that Scarecrow character?”

“Mostly just small robberies. We’ve been setting up better security in pharmacies recently. But other than the one attack, he hasn’t done anything major yet. Why?”

“I worry about you Bruce. I may not be there, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t care for you” his smile dropped, “You are still doing okay right?”

“Yeah” he lied, “I’m fine. So how about you?”

Alfred launched into stories from the last six months, about watching two guys play cards in a park and ending up selling their entire lives to win, of the bird outside his window that would get mad if any other bird was in its spot. By the end of his stories,  Bruce’s smile was so wide it physically hurt. 

“Bruce? You might want to look behind you” Alfred said, a weird look on his face.

“What?” Bruce turned around, the batsignal hung brightly against the dark rain clouds in the air, “Ah, well I’m sure that they don’t need me that bad. I can stay on the call longer”

“Yes but then you wouldn’t be the same person that I know. It’s okay, we can finish later.” Even as he said it, Bruce felt a dark pit of guilt in his stomach.

“Thanks, Alfred. I promise I’ll call you later.”

“Remember to not push yourself so hard”

Bruce smiled, “I won’t. Bye Alfred”

“Goodbye Bruce” and he disconnected the call.

Bruce couldn’t help but feel like he was letting everyone he loved down. Alfred, Lucius, Tiffany, Selina.

John.

Maybe some time in the cowl would clear his head.

Chapter Text

EPISODE TWO: WELCOME TO THE SHOW

Only a few minutes into the cowl and Bruce’s head was already pounding. 

“We’ve got a situation at the precinct!” some officer that Bruce couldn’t pinpoint based off of their voice yelled over the radio system. Bruce was already on his way, but something about the officer's voice made him press his foot down further on the gas, almost flooring it.

He got there about three minutes later, resisting the urge to bust the door down on the precinct. 

“Batman!” Spectrum called out, “I’ve got the drone in there. It’s Scarecrow”

Bruce sped into the building, knowing about the beating he is going to be getting from Waller for rushing into this. 

“Batman!” Scarecrow said. He was wearing a black and orange suit, the burlap sack still taped to his shoulders. He had tied up several officers including….

Avesta.

“Welcome to the show! We’re all so glad to have you here! I was hoping that you’d bring the girl too, but there’s not much I can do about that, is there?” he laughed wildly waving around the gun. A spray bottle with a green liquid was in his right hand. Bruce could assume that it would create the gas he had used last time. Bruce guessed that he was left-handed. It would certainly be a disadvantage to Bruce, “Although, what can I really say? We have a mutual acquaintance that would love to see your little vigilante friend. And I’m not talking about the girl” he laughed. The sound reminded Bruce of Joker at ACE.

“Anyway! You probably want to know what I want, don’t you? I just need a few chemicals from you!” he took a second to struggle to get a piece of paper out of his pocket, “Dammit” he said, a drop of the liquid escaping from the bottle. It fell on Avesta’s forehead and her eyes widened in… fear.

“Ah!” Scarecrow yelled, “Here it is! Hey, sweetheart” he turned to Ramirez, “Can you be a doll and give this to old batty for me?” he then lowered his voice, “But if you try anything, I’ll gas you with enough of this stuff that you’ll be hearing voices for the next six months” 

Ramirez took the note to Batman, her eyes begging for help as she looked at him. Bruce took the note, it was sweet smelling (never a good thing in Bruce’s opinion). He unfolded it, skimming his eyes over the messy handwriting, “How long do we have to get this to you?” the voice modulator growled for him.

“Every hour that I don’t have it, one person dies” then he fired his gun as if to make a point. Definitely left-handed , Bruce thought. 

“I’ll take this to Gordon for you” he said, flooding the paper again.

It took five hours .

Five people had to die because the stupid mayor didn’t think that it was that serious. Bruce was fuming.

“There’s nothing much that we can do about it now,” Gordon said, “But we have him now. We’ll storm the place. All the entrances and exits are sealed, and we have about twenty officers waiting on standby”

“Not Waller’s team?”

“They’re here too.” Gordon said with a grimace, “She’s got her freakshow waiting in that SWAT van over there”

“Great. Can you get her to me? I want to talk to her”

“You what?! You really can’t want to have her parade her physiatric rejects through an active hostage situation!” Bruce could have swore that he saw smoke coming out of his ears. 

“They have skills that might be useful in this situation, just put me in contact with her” Bruce said, trying to be nicer than usual and failing miserably.

Thirty minutes later and the “Suicide Squad” was ready.

Selina wasn’t there. Waller had apparently done this on purpose, but Bruce was pretty sure that she just didn’t want to see him. It was a bit disappointing. He had been wanting to apologize to her, for choosing John over her.

Although, maybe that wasn’t the best idea either.

“Whoo boy am I ready for this!” Harley yelled, her dyed hair was a few shades lighter than Bruce remembered it. Maybe she wasn’t allowed to dye it? Honestly, he didn’t even know why he cared.

“Be careful” he warned Harley, “We don’t know what mystery chemical cocktail he’s got in that spray bottle.”

“Yeah I don’t really care, Batsy. It’ll be really fun to go out in a way that isn’t through this crap in my neck” She took a few practice swings with her mallet, “I’m guessing you have the remote, Bats?”

“Yes, obviously”

“Good” she said simply, “if you didn’t I would have worried that John’s wasted his heart on an idiot”

Bruce blinked at her even though she couldn’t see it behind the cowl’s white lenses, “What’s that supposed to mean-?!”

“Not enough time for arguing,” Bane said, his accent thick. Waller had taken away most of his venom, mainly because of his strong addiction to it. Itt was clearly taking a toll on him, he had dark circles under his eyes and his movements were sluggish.

“Okay Bane, baby” Harley teased, “Let’s tear this prick to shreds!” 

Harley had insisted on being the first one there. She slammed the door open, “Honey, I’m home!!” she yelled running up to Scarecrow and attempting to bash his head in. 

Scarecrow dodged the attack as Waller’s newest member, an assassin named Deadshot, shot at his legs. The man was known for never missing his shots, so either he was missing on purpose or he was being outsped by a guy in a crappy Halloween costume.

Bruce knew the feeling.

Bane was too big to really help anyways, he barely fit in the building with all the desks packed right next to each other. He mostly spent the battle time yelling advice at Harley, Deadshot, and another member, Katana. 

Bruce used a grappling gun to get up towards the ceiling. He was planning to drop down to grab the hostages, but Ramirez was shaking her head at him. 

“You little cheat! We had something going on there, Johnnie!” Harley yelled, swinging her mallet directly at Scarecrow’s head. Surprisingly, she made contact, “You just left me! All for this stupid plan of yours!” 

“Harley! Baby it’s not that deep-!” he yelped as she swung again.

Johnnie?

Baby?

Wait, Harley knew his name?! He would have to interrogate her later. 

He swung down at Scarecrow’s head, his feet landing against the man’s temple. 

“You son of a-!” Scarecrow yelled. He grasped next to him from where he was pinned to the floor. His fingers made contact with his dropped bottle of gas. Before Bruce could stop him, he got a direct hit to the face. Scarecrow laughed as Bruce stumbled backwards.

“Have fun with that trip, Batsy!” he yelled, “Also by the way Harls, thanks for the awesome nickname for our beloved dork knight!” Harley swung at him again.

“Don’t call me ‘Harls’ you med school drop out!”

Bruce’s vision began to go blurry, images peeked at the edge of his mind.

“ Did you ever think of me as your friend? Like, a true friend. Someone… you actually… care about?” John with blood red tears in his eyes, some spilling over the edge. 

Of course I did, Bruce thought. He knew that John wasn’t there. This must have been what the gas did. It explained the adrenaline boosters, and the psychotic meds that Scarecrow was stealing. Despite knowing all of that, it didn’t make him feel any better about the hallucination.

“ I know you used me. I know I said that I didn’t care, but that was for your benefit, Bruce. Why don’t you stop visiting? It’ll surely make your little butler happy”

The was the freaking Batman this shouldn’t have been as unnerving as it was. 

Then there was Tiffany, her mouth split into a permanent smile with bloody scars, shrapnel coming out of the side of her Spectrum costume. Her father stood next to her, but Bruce wasn’t even sure that it was her father. His whole face was marred with scarring. 

“ It’s all your fault that they’re dead, Bats.” John hissed in his ear, “ It would just be so easy to give it all up, right? Quit the crime fighting for good. Maybe some faceless people will die, but if you hadn’t intervened, Lucius wouldn’t have been dead. I would probably be working some basic 9 to 5. Not suck in Arkham. Tiffany wouldn’t be putting her life at risk for your stupid hero tirade.”

“You’re not real” he said, trying to not let his voice get too loud, praying that Harley couldn’t hear him. 

“Bruce?” said a voice in his ear. Spectrum . “I heard you got hit. We can’t get inside right now. What’s happening?”

“I’m fine, Spect. Just give me a few minutes. It’s a fear toxin” he choked out, trying not to look at the fake John’s knowing smile.

“Okay, we should be getting inside pretty soon” the line cut out

“ Tsk tsk tsk” the fake John said, “ Pushing her away again, Brucie? Typical.”

“Shut up” he hissed, shaking his head to clear it. 

“ Oh I have other versions of myself for you. Do you want to see them?”

“No”

The fake John laughed maniacally, “ It’s so cute that you think you have a choice”

The image in front of him swirled viciously. Morphing into green and purple shapes until it settled on John specifically from that night. Before their heart to heart in the upstairs room. Joker was clutching a photo, his fingertips stained with blood.

“ Bruce? I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No! No you didn’t!”

Spectrum was running up to him, “Batman! Batman! Scarecrow got away. Come on, we’ve got work to do”

Bruce flinched away from her involuntarily. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. His armour pressed tight against his chest. Spectrum’s face was blurry. A side effect of the toxin? He thought, before realizing that it was just the tears in his own eyes. Luckily, Tiffany couldn’t see them behind the cowl’s lenses. 

“ Aww look at you!” John cooed, “ it’s so cute to see you freaking out over someone taking care of you”

Bruce shut his eyes as tight as possible, “Shut up John”

“John?” Tiffany said, “He’s at Ark- oh, right. The fear toxin” she held his hand, “It’s okay. He’s safe. I’m here. You’re gonna be okay, Bats” she smiled softly. Taking a deep breath, she began to sing softly, “ People stared at the makeup on his face

Laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace” 

Bruce recognised the song. It was one of Lucius’ favorites. He couldn’t help but laugh softly. He leaned in closer to the sound of her voice, trying to follow along as best he could. 

“Lady Stardust sang his songs

Of darkness and disgrace

And he was alright, the band was altogether

Yes, he was alright, the song went on forever

Yes, he was awful nice”

It was the best that Bruce had felt in months.

Chapter Text

“Harley, for the last time. How do you know Scarecrow?”

Jim and Bruce had been trying and failing for hours to get her to say anything about “Johnnie”. 

“I know really nothin’, Batsy. We went out before I met you an’ John. He’s a jerk, and I’m glad that we’re not together anymore. I’m about ready to bash his head in, well, even more than I already did.”

“Do you know his name?” Gordon asked

“Jonathan Crane. We met at Arkham.” 

“Was he a psychiatrist?” the voice modulator crackled. Bruce was sure that it had been damaged again. 

“Yeah. Crazy himself too. I’m pretty sure he killed his parents too. He kept using hypnosis on his patients. He was obsessed with fear.” Harley said, rolling her eyes like she was done with this conversation.

“Fear?” Gordon pushed.

“Shut up will ya? I’m done talking about him” She stood up, attempting to leave the room.

“I’m not done questioning you” Bruce moved swiftly to block the door.

“I don’t really care, Batsy. I’ve got work to do” she attempted to shove him to the side.

“Waller told us that we were allowed to hold you until we got what we wanted” Gordon said, “So you really don’t” 

Harley hissed at him (yes, literally hissed like a cat. Bruce was shocked to realise that it wasn’t the weirdest thing he had seen that day). She moved to grab her bat, only to realise that Bruce had taken it while Gordon was talking to her, “You-! How dare you! Let me out!”

“No, I’m afraid that I can’t do that” Bruce said, letting a slight hint of smugness into his voice just to piss her off. 

“Let me go! I told you all I know!” she had the same look that Waller did when she was mad. Bruce was surprised that he only noticed their similarities now.

“No you haven’t” Bruce said, hoping that pretending like he knew would get her to spill.

“Yes I have, Bats ” she spat the name out, “I’m not talking about that washed up reject anymore.”

“What do you mean washed up?” Bruce asked.

“Jerk lost his medical license a few months ago. He assaulted a patient. All in the name of ‘curing her’” she scoffed, “Serves him right”

“At Arkham?” Gordon cut in

“No, he left Arkham a month before I did. It was at a facility in Metropolis, I think”

“Why did he leave Arkham?” Bruce asked, his voice modulator was on the verge of breaking.

“Because I found out that he’s only nineteen” she turned her head to the side, as if she was ashamed of accidentally dating a minor, “He didn’t tell me. Apparently, he graduated early. Got a fake ID to increase his age, so he wouldn’t be pushed out of the field for being young.” 

“That freak’s nineteen?!” Gordon exclaimed, “Explains the awkwardness” 

“He’s probably not even coming up with this on his own. He’s a good psychiatrist, but that’s about it” Harley rolled her eyes, “Can I go now?”

Bruce stepped out of the way, pointing her to her mallet, “Go on ahead” 

She left the room, flicking her hair in Bruce’s face as she left, “Thanks, Batsy ” 

Bruce tried not to feel mad about the inflection in the pet name. It didn’t work very well. He had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything stupid. It backfires and he ends up drawing blood instead, the coppery taste rolling over his tongue. 

“I have access to Arkham’s records. I can look into Crane.” Bruce said to Gordon, “You should get some sleep, you look exhausted.” he said, hearing Alfred’s voice in his head ‘ Hypocrite’

“Why do you have Arkham’s rec-” Jim started, but cut himself off when he realised that the bat was no longer there.

Bruce had a lot of work to do.

Chapter Text

Jonathan Crane, 19 years old, graduated from Gotham University about three years ago. He had hopped around jobs for a few years before working at Arkham. When he was there, he had been written up multiple times for unorthodox hypnosis and other practices. 

There was file upon file of dirt on this guy. Records of his fake IDs, misconduct reports, even information on the murder of his parents. It had been highly speculated that Crane had hired a hitman of his mother and father after they refused to let him work at Arkham. Although that claim was running really thin. 

Bruce rubbed his temples, again. He had been doing this all night in the hopes of calming down the raging fire headache pounding around his brain. He hadn’t slept in over thirty six hours and he was really starting to feel it. 

This was around the point in any investigation where he would have been arguing with Alfred over his terrible habits. He would have loved to say that he didn’t miss it but then he’d be lying. It was nice to know that someone cared, even if it was through an argument. 

Plus, he had to focus on the case, because if he didn’t the fake John from the fear toxin would come back into his mind. “ I know you used me.” kept rattling around in his brain.

And then that would bring him back to every argument he had ever had with the ex-vigilante over the past few months. Every time one of them said a wrong thing and it ended up in disaster. Shattered glass being broken into even smaller pieces. 

Maybe he should go to bed. 

“Bruce?” Spectrum called out, pulling herself off of her bike as she did, “Oh, I could have sworn that you would have been asleep by now.”

“No, I told you I’m back on the case,” he said with a smile. He raked a hand down his face, trying to pull some of his exhaustion away, “Have you figured out what’s in the toxin yet?”

“Yes, I have. It’s the same as the last one, but it has stronger effects. You got to experience that firsthand, sadly. Actually, I have a few questions about that.” She came up and sat down in the rolling chair that was designated in the cave as hers. It even had the black and purple detailings on it to match, “What did you see?”

“I-” Bruce started, before realising that he couldn’t do this. Not now, “Can we do this after I’ve gotten some sleep?”

“Yeah, sure” Tiffany was clearly trying to sound supportive, but underneath that Bruce could tell that she was frustrated.

“I promise that we will talk about it, but I’m sure that if I did it now, I wouldn’t be able to handle it.” he reached out to squeeze her hand, “I promise, Tiff”

She smiled softly, “Sure, I get it” this time it sounded a lot more generous, “But I’m gonna hold you to it”

“I have no doubt that you will.”

Chapter Text

Bruce’s next visit with John was a little different than before. 

Waller had gotten him access to a private room in the hopes that John could say something about Crane. Honestly, Bruce was against the idea, but they didn’t really have anything else to work off of.

“Ooh, I’m getting the royal treatment today! It’s not even Thursday yet, Bruce” John was chipper as always, almost bouncing off of the walls.

“Yeah, we kinda need your help. Harley refused to say much and seeing as how you were in Arkham at the time…”

“What’s going on?” John’s eyes went wild, “Why do you need me? I’m in an asylum, if you haven’t noticed”

“Waller wanted me to talk to you about Doctor Jonathan Crane”

“Waller? Dr. Crane? What’s going on?”

Bruce took in a deep breath, trying and failing to steady himself, “Jonathan Crane is Scarecrow. Waller wanted to know if you knew anything about him. I know he wasn’t ever your therapist but...”

“Why do you think I would want to do something for Waller?” John growled. Bruce caught himself in a defensive stance. John’s tone was reminding him too much of Joker. It left him on edge.

“It’s my case, John. She suggested questioning you. That’s it. She forced her way into the investigation. She has a special team that we’ve been using to deal with Scarecrow. It’s all okay” he said in a rush, praying that it would suppress any Joker-related feelings. 

John had a moment of clarity, “Sorry, I just got upset” he said, and Bruce could tell that he was working through his Arkham issued breathing assignments. 

“It’s okay” Bruce responded simply, “Take your time”

John took the next few minutes to just breathe. Eventually the tears in his eyes went away and he let himself relax, “Sorry about that,” he apologized again, “I know we don’t have much time, but-”

“I can stay as long as you need this time” Bruce hated cutting John off, but it was certainly helping him, “Part of the Waller package. If you need some time, we have it”

John’s smile could have powered all of Wayne Enterprises. It had been so long since Bruce had seen him truly happy. It was like breathing clean air for the first time in months. “Really?!”

“Yeah,” Bruce said with a smile. He loved seeing John this excited. Hopefully he’d be out soon and moments like this wouldn’t be stolen ones. 

But not even a second later, it was all gone, “But once you’re done questioning me… You’ll have to go, right?”

“No, there aren’t any cameras recording. With the sensitive information and all, we couldn’t let this be compromisable. Nobody knows when it ends” he hoped that he didn’t come off desperate, but then realised that he didn’t care.

“Really?” John’s voice was timid, something that Bruce had never really heard before.

“I’m sure. So, what can you tell me about Jonathan Crane?” 

John started rambling, sharing stories of men happy to come back from Crane’s sessions. They would see loved ones or their victims during these sessions, Crane told them that they were actually there. 

“So then Butch had almost strangled Crane, which was probably why he didn’t get suspended immediately. They probably felt bad and didn’t want him to sue. So they let him keep his job. He was kinda scary though. He would stalk around the halls all the time and would hiss at you if he was having a bad day” John shuddered, “He was pretty rude too-” he paused suddenly as if realising what he said. His eyes widened. Bruce could see tears coming up.

“Hey! Hey, John! It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it. It’s okay” he held out a hand for John to take. John grabbed it swiftly and looked up at him sadly.

“I just… you thought I killed him. I- I didn’t-” John cut himself off.

“It was rude of me to assume you killed him, John. I shouldn’t have done that. Now I know that you didn’t. There are ways of expressing your feelings without aggression. It's okay” Bruce said softly, fiddling with John’s fingers. Rubbing circles into his palms to help calm him down. 

John was cycling through breathing routines again, “This isn’t going to be an everyday thing right?”

“No, unless you want to when you get out” Bruce smiled at him, “I’d be happy to have you working by my side again.”

“Really?” John breathed

“Yes”

John took one last deep breath before continuing.

They ended up talking for two hours. Bruce’s throat was aching for water by the end of it, but it was worth it. John was laughing and smiling as Bruce told him about Scarecrow’s stupid taped down burlap sack. 

He really didn’t want to leave, and he could tell that John didn’t want him to go either. But after another hour, they couldn’t keep going on.

“You’ll come back on Thursday right?”

Bruce smiled, his throat raw, “Yeah.”

And he turned around, pretty sure that the next Thursday was going to hurt a lot more than usual.

Chapter Text

“What did he say?” Waller said the second the door closed.

“None of your business” Bruce hissed. He stood right outside of the makeshift interrogation room, waiting to make sure that a guard brought John back to his cell.

“You were in there for three hours, you should have gotten something!” she yelled. It was terribly unfortunate that John was brought out of the other room at that moment. He glared at Waller, not letting his eyes leave her as he was pushed lightly to his cell.

Well, it was now or never.

“I’m not going to disclose that information to you. Not after the harm you caused. I’ll be telling Gordon about it later, maybe he’ll give you something” Bruce said. It was something he had been wanting to do for months. Ever since he met Waller. To rip into her. To let her know about the damage she could and would create. 

John cheered in the background. The orderly rolling his eyes like he was used to this (but Bruce couldn’t miss the soft smile on his face). 

Waller had on that demon-esque face again. Bruce was sure that he could smell smoke. “This is my case just as well as yours, Bruce.”

“It really isn’t seeing as how you demanded your way onto it. The only thing that you’re good for is your stupid team. And I already have the remote for them. You’re useless” it was like he was finally allowed to let out a breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding in. He turned around and left, not even letting Waller get the satisfaction of yelling back. John’s face looked ecstatic.

He drove to the GCPD with a lot more force than necessary, only remembering to duck into an alley to put on the batsuit and switch the car from red to black. 

“Did Wayne tell you anything about what he said?” Gordon asked the second Bruce stepped through the door.

“Apparently, Doe mentioned a few places in the city that Crane might be at” He handed over the papers that he had been using to take notes while John talked, “Here’s some of the things he said.

What Bruce didn’t say was that these notes had been typed up by his computer, the real ones were still in his glove compartment on the Batmobile. He had asked the computer to take out the most sensitive information. This was all baseline stuff. 

He knew that John had consented to telling him about the abuse that his fellow inmates suffered at Crane’s hands, but he still didn’t trust himself to not break that consent. He had learned over the past two and a half years that trust was a fickle thing. It could be pulled one way or the other in just a few seconds. He had lost Selina’s trust just as he was beginning to get it. He didn’t want to lose John’s over something as small as an investigation. 

Gordon took the papers and started flicking through them. Giving orders to Ramirez next to him, he sat down at an empty desk that he seemed to use more than his actual office, “This is a pretty extensive list” 

“Doe said that Harley kept tabs on him so that she wouldn’t run into him” Bruce said, trying his hardest to make it seem like he had only been a spectator, “She had more lists of his hideouts, but Doe said and I quote, ‘I don’t have a photographic memory’”

Gordon chuckled lightly, “I’m really not surprised that you remembered everything he said. You guys used to be friends, right?”

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Bruce said, turning around.

“Why’d you even work with him anyway?”

Bruce let out a small sigh, he had been hoping that this wouldn’t come up today. “He helped with Riddler’s laptop. He gave it to me. After a while he asked to help me stop Harley. I found him attacking some agency members and got him out of the situation. That’s all”

“Really? So what was up with the talk you guys had at ACE?”

“I’m not going to talk about it, Jim,” Bruce said firmly. Luckily Tiffany had fixed the voice modulator, but it was even more robotic now than ever.

“Why not? He does have to do with this case. What happened?”

“I really can’t tell you, Jim.”

It was silent between them for a moment. Jim’s eyes widened as he realised what Bruce was talking about.

“Oh, is it about who you are under the mask?” Then something seemed to hit him, “Wait… Doe, Waller…” he stood up, “You’re?!”

“Keep your voice down” Bruce hissed, “I meant to tell you months ago, but things came up”

Jim leaned in closer and whispered, “You’re Bruce Wayne aren’t you? Under the mask?”

And Bruce said the only thing that he could, “Yes”

Chapter Text

EPISODE THREE: GREETING CARD

“I don't care if I’m not on the list! I work for the government, I have a job to do!”

Bruce had gotten called into Arkham Asylum at two in the morning. Waller was trying to start a scene. Nobody was quite sure why. 

It had only been a few days since he had let Gordon in on his secret. Despite wanting to let him know, it was still severely affecting the process of the investigation. It was driving him up the wall, and now he had to deal with Waller’s shenanigans.

“Waller!” he growled, sounding more robotic than ever, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to get to Doe!” she yelled, turning to the staff member in charge of guest entrance, “This is government business!” 

“Back up” Bruce said to her, “Doe will just get agitated if you’re trying to question him. Just get Wayne again.”

“Yeah why don’t I? C’mon Bats, let’s go talk to your best friend” she grabbed his kevlar covered arm and tugged him past the gate, knowing full well that nobody would stop her when she was with The Batman.

Bruce kept trying to pull away from her, but Waller was stronger than she seemed. She twisted down halfway after hallway until she came right up to John’s cell. 

“We have to talk to Doe” she said to the guard in front of John’s door.

“You’re not on the list” Mitch said, but then he pointed to Batman, “He is though” 

“Like Hell I’m not” Waller said, pushing her way through the door with Bruce to get to John.

“Waller, get out of his room!” Bruce yelled.

John looked stunned, “Oh, hi Batsy. Why’s she here?” He was completely calm. Not freaking out or panicking at all.

“See!” Waller exclaimed, “He’s not upset at all!”

John rolled his eyes (a sight that Bruce was sure that he had never seen before), “I am upset, but I want to get out of here in two years like Doctor Leland said. I’ve got friends to visit” John said, winking at Bruce as he did, “So if you could please leave, both of you. Sorry Bats, but I’m not quite in the headspace to hang out right now. Maybe thursday?” he joked, with a smile on his face.

“John” Waller started, “I’m having you join my team. The information you gave us greatly helped with the Scarecrow case. It would be beneficial to all of us if you were out of here. I have connections. You could leave next week. Help out me and Batman again.”

“I don’t- I don’t think that would be a good idea” John said, picking at his nails again, “I don’t want to get in trouble again” 

“You won't,” Waller said. She looked mischievous, like she had been planning for him to say that, “We have contingency plans in place. If something happens, we could cover it up”

“Waller” Bruce cautioned, “Don’t”

“I don’t want to,” John said, “I want to leave just like I did last time. On my own terms, not yours” he smiled like he was really proud of himself

I’m proud of you John, Bruce thought. He wished that he wasn’t wearing the cowl, maybe then he would be able to communicate that with his eyes. 

“Why you little-!” Waller started, but Bruce wouldn’t let her. He grabbed her arm tightly.

“You touch him and you’re leaving here in a body bag” he said. Behind her, John was trying his best to not look excited. 

“Let. Me. Go.” Waller growled.

“Can you two fight outside of my room please? There’s barely enough room in here for me. Plus, Bruce’s renovations to Arkham made sure that my room doesn’t have any blood in it. I’d like to keep it that way” John said, picking up a lime green crayon and beginning to color on a loose piece of paper. 

“Exactly. Leave Waller. I’ll show you out if you need it” Bruce said, sarcasm leaking into his voice like Killer Croc’s sewer water. 

Waller huffed and stormed out. Bruce had caught himself smiling.

“Do you need anything?” he asked John simply, “I can go if you want me to” 

“Can you stay?” John asked, “I know I said that I didn’t want to, but that was mostly just cause she was here”

“And you were trying to look cool?” Bruce asked with a laugh

John guffawed, “How dare you assume such a thing” he said with fake poshness, “I would never dare!”

“Mhm yeah sure” Bruce closed the cell door. He sat down next to John, the heavy layers of kevlar pressing into the mattress, “I told Gordon” he said, hoping that he wouldn’t have to provide any context.

“Really?” John said with sarcasm, “Good for him. It’s been long enough. Honestly, if I hadn’t figured it out by myself, would you have told me?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. If I had told you rather than let you guess, would you still have become Joker?”

John smiled, “Maybe. I’m not sure” he parroted, “Honestly, it might have ended up speeding the process up.” he looked down at his hands in his lap.

Bruce reached out and grabbed his hands as he did almost every visit, “Hey, I wouldn’t have been able to admit that.”

“I highly doubt that” John said, “You’re the freaking Batman” he started fidgeting with Bruce’s hand instead of his own, “You can handle a ‘mental snap’. I’m sure of it”

Too fresh memories of another John with bloody tears entered Bruce’s mind. He debated telling John about it, but then again, he was still in the suit, it wasn’t a Thursday, and he most definitely had to get back to finding Scarecrow now. 

But yet again, he had been trying to be more honest with the people he loved. Telling Gordon who he was, promising Tiffany stories of what he saw through the gas. This was just another step to that wasn’t it? 

It was now or never.

“Do you remember the Scarecrow attack that Waller’s team helped on a week ago?” John nodded in response, “I got hit with his gas. It’s a fear toxin.”

John scoffed, “I’m not surprised. Ol’ Doc Crane liked to mess around with people’s brains like that. He attempted to try it on me too, but Doctor Leland said no. I never did tell you that, did I?”

Bruce took a deep breath, trying to not let John’s sincere ramblings distract him, “I saw you. From that night”

“ACE?”

“Yeah. You kept telling me that you hated me. And that all the people around me should hate me too. I haven’t really slept since then” he admitted truthfully. It was relieving. He watched as John started getting upset. He was about to open his mouth to insist that he didn’t think that John would ever do that, but John cut him off.

“I said that?” he asked, looking like he was trying to make himself as small as possible, “I-” 

“I know that you wouldn’t ever do that. It just happened. It’s a fear drug. It brings out irrational parts of your brain.” Bruce stumbled over his words, trying to get them all out in the same moment. 

John started speaking so softly that Bruce could barely hear him, “Joker would have said that, wouldn’t he? Did he say that to you?”

“No, neither did you. It wasn’t real at all.” He watched John shake slightly in his wound up state, “Do you want me to go get Doctor Leland?”

John nodded, squeezing Bruce’s hands before he left, “Come back Thursday. Please? I won’t be like this I promise.”

“Even if you are, I don't mind.” He smiled, “I’ll be there, always”

John’s bright smile wouldn’t leave his head for days.

Chapter Text

More had been found dead from Scarecrow’s fear toxin later that same day. Gordon had called him (not with the signal this time. Bruce had given him his phone number in case of daytime emergencies after the mask reveal) and asked for some assistance with a new group of bodies discovered near one of the spots John had given them. He ended up having to pull Tiffany out of a meeting just for this.

She trudged up to the Batmobile sluggishly, “Sorry, Bruce” she apologized, “I’ve been up since three AM” 

“It’s fine Spect.” he said as she tugged at the parts of her costume that had gotten twisted. 

“This better be a one and done thing. Just once I don’t want this to complicate itself” she slid into the passenger seat. Usually Bruce didn’t trust himself with anyone else in the Batmobile, (mostly due to the reckless nature of driving that he had to use sometimes) but Tiffany was too far gone to drive herself anywhere. 

“I highly doubt that. This is Gotham after all”

Tiffany laughed. And then proceeded to fall asleep in the car.

Bruce couldn’t help but smile fondly at her. He liked having her around. It was nice to see some friendly faces during his nights out. 

When they arrived at the location Gordon sent him, Bruce had to nudge Tiffany awake. “You can go back to bed once we’re done. I just need the drone to pick up DNA samples. Y’know forensics stuff” 

“I could have just taught you how to use the drone.” Tiffany slurred.

“Yeah, but it’s nicer to have you with me” he pulled her drone out of the backseat, “C’mon Spect, we’ve got a crime scene to pick through.”

Tiffany pulled herself out of the car, begrudgingly. 

Jim walked up to the pair of them, Spectrum’s drone trailing behind them, “You’re here. We’ve got a few bodies over there and some-!” he yelped as Spectrum fell on the floor. 

Bruce leapt to pick her up, “Spectrum! Come on, wake up” he said. He turned to Jim, “Sorry she’s sleep deprived”

“Hasn’t picked up on your insomniac ways yet?” Jim laughed

“I guess not. She said she’s been up since 3 this morning”

“Geez. Guess a lack of sleep runs in the vigilante tree”

Spectrum moved to stand up, her eyes heavy with sleep, “Sorry Bats, I’ll get on the forensics”

“Maybe you should go to bed?” Jim suggested

“Yeah Heather, maybe I should,” Tiffany joked. Jim looked confused until Bruce mouthed, movie nut. Jim nodded in agreement. 

“My daughter likes that one. ‘Heathers’, right?” Jim says, as a way to break the slight awkwardness.

“Sorry,” Tiffany apologizes again, “I’ll take the drone over there” she pushes herself off of Bruce’s support and walks (albeit a bit shaky) to where Jim had pointed earlier.

“She reminds me of you when you first started,” Jim said, watching Spectrum use her drone to pick up blood samples.

“Yeah, I had just started running the company full time around then too. She works in R&D. Had to pull her out of a meeting for this” Bruce said with the same fond smile that he had used earlier. He was sure that it was pretty close to the one Lucius used to wear while talking about his daughter.

“Well I’ll take time with The Batman rather than any boring meeting. But not if it means this.”

Bruce laughed slightly, he knew the feeling.

But then Avesta and Spectrum were running up to them. “Batman!” Avesta called out, “We found something you might want to see!”

And just like that, the nicest moment Bruce had had with Jim was shot dead in two seconds.

“What is it?” he asked, stepping up to her to grab what was in her hands. It was an evidence bag bearing a small card inside.

Avesta took a deep breath, “It’s a riddle” 

Chapter Text

Harley had been dragged back to the GCPD. Bruce had also asked Waller and Avesta to gather up all the agents that worked on the Riddler case that were still alive. The witness holding rooms at the station weren’t as crowded as Bruce had thought that they would be by the end of it. 

John had also been brought in from Arkham, Dr. Leland in his wake. He had been allowed to walk around without a straightjacket on account of his recent good behavior (and because Batman and his therapist were there, but nobody dared to tell John that). He wandered around the station looking for Batman at every turn.

Sadly, Bruce hadn’t been able to see it with his own eyes, but at least he knew it was real.

He hadn’t been able to greet John because a certain Harleen Quinzel had decided that she was over this case.

“I want out! I’m not giving you anything on Eddie!”

“We’re not asking for anything, we just want to know what happened to the body!” Jim was about ready to claw her eyes out (Bruce felt like he knew that look better than anyone Jim had sported so far in his career), “if you don’t know anything, then just say so and we can move on!”

“Uh uh.” Harley said, shaking her head, “The Pact had only one rule, Jimbo. We don’t sell each other out. Poor John never seemed to get the memo.”

“It was probably three times, Harley!” Bruce exclaimed, getting just as agitated as Jim now.

“Three more times than I’m ever gonna do!” she stood up sharply, like she was about to get in a fight that would end in death. 

“Sit down !” Jim snapped, “I’ve had enough of this. Get out of my interrogation room.” 

Harley huffed and stormed out. 

Honestly, Bruce was really proud of him.

“How in the world did you tolerate her for months?” Jim asked, twitching his fingers out of frustration.

“God knows how” Bruce let out a breath, “Who’s next on the questionnaire list?”

“Some Agency member, I don’t really care.” Jim plopped himself down in the spot that Harley had been a moment before, “I just wish that freak would leave us alone for one day so I could actually get some sleep”

“You and me” Bruce said, “Apparently Spectrum too” 

Jim laughed at that, “Please tell me that she’s sleeping right now”

“I would hope so. She said she was going home”

“Good.”

It took several hours to comb through every agent to figure out even the slightest bit of evidence on what happened to Riddler’s body. 

Apparently it had been dumped in a ditch after Waller was done with it. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Waller said when she was pulled into the interrogation room, “That was classified information anyway. Who told you that?”

“Avesta,” Bruce said simply. The only person who he was completely fine with giving the full Batman treatment at this point was Waller. He was seriously giving up trying to be even slightly polite to her anymore.

“I could file a lawsuit against her, you know?” Waller straightened in her chair, “Yes, I did tell my agents to dispose of the body. I did not tell them to dispose of it recklessly.”

“Do you have proof of that?” Jim asked.

“Not on paper if that’s what you mean.” 

Bruce was rubbing his temples again. God, couldn’t Waller just cooperate for ten minutes? 

All he wanted to do was just get this over with. 

“So then why was his body in a ditch?” Jim kept pushing. Waller’s mouth downturned in a snarl.

“I didn’t tell them to put the body in the ditch”

Then something hit Bruce. “Harley was one of the last people in the Old Five Points. She left while John was there, then me and Avesta showed up. He left before we did.”

“Maybe he knows something?” Jim opened the door as if to shove Waller out.

“If he does it’s not on my hands if you find out that it’s his fault”

“Shut up, Waller” Bruce growled, “Get out of my sight”

Waller let herself laugh as she walked out the door. Bruce caught himself before he raised his hands to his forehead again, “I don’t want him to get anymore hurt because of this”

“You guys are still friends right?” Jim asked, “I’m sure that he doesn’t mind helping you” 

“I visit him every Thursday. And almost every Thursday he ends up getting upset because of me. I doubt that he won’t get upset”

“He didn’t last time. I thought you were trying to be more open to help?” Jim said standing up, “if you want I can talk to him?”

“It’ll just make him more upset” Bruce pulled the cowl off, not caring anymore.

Jim made a noise of surprise. After a minute of silence he said, “Sorry I should have known”

Bruce gave him a weak smile, “It’s a bit odd seeing it the first time. I just have a headache” he rubbed his temples as hard as possible, failing to get his headache to die down.

“Want Tylenol?” Jim returned the weak smile.

“Thanks” Bruce said, slipping the cowl back on, hating the throbbing feeling in his head that increased as the material pressed against his skull. 

Jim opened the interrogation room door and walked briskly over to his office. The desk was dusty from lack of use. Jim pulled open a side drawer and pulled out two small light pink pills.

“Here you go” Jim handed the pills to Bruce.

“Thanks” he said, popping the tylenol in his mouth and swallowing it.

A soft knock came from the open door. Bruce turned around to see one Doctor Leland.

“We have to get going if you don’t have anything for us. Technically it’s past curfew anyway, but since this is a police investigation we were allowed to stay longer.”

Thank god the tylenol was kicking in, “Yes just give me a minute.” 

By the time he got into the room, John was already there. He was smiling sweetly at the bat in front of him. “Hi,” he said.

“Hello John.”

“Ooh! I don’t think I’ve seen Batman in a while! How long’s it been? Six months? Seven?” he laughed, “Sorry, Bruce. It’s just kinda funny to treat you like two separate people” 

The cowl was pressing into his head again, “Did you see Riddler’s body when you got to the Old Five Points the night Harley hit you?”

“No, she told me that some agents had taken it.” John shifted in his chair, “Does it have to be a metal chair?”

“It’s supposed to be some kind of psychological thing. Did Harley make any kind of notion that she took Riddler’s body?”

“No, she complained about not being able to finish the Lotus virus thing”

“Okay. I’m not sure if there’s anything else” He suddenly felt stupid for dragging John here.

“Oh, okay. Are you still coming Thursday?” John asked with a smile bright enough to blind someone, “I have good news, but I’m not sure if I can tell you until then”

“Good news?”

John shook his head excitedly, “Doctor Leland said that it’s a big if. But! It’s probably true!”

Bruce couldn’t help but laugh, “I’ll try my best, but this case is just getting even more complicated.”

“Is that why you asked me here? Does Scarecrow have the Lotus thing?!” He looked scared, like he had personally messed something up.

“No, no. We just…. Think that Riddler is alive” 

John physically recoiled like Bruce had hit him, “Alive?”

“We found a green card with a riddle on it at the crime scene. The victims had been killed by Scarecrow’s gas. We think they might be working together”

“So all that grief I was getting for killing Eddie was for nothing?!” John raged, “I can’t believe he would do that to me! I thought we were friends! Well, maybe he made me mad quite a bit, but I never thought that he would get me wanted for murder!”

“Nobody had you wanted for murder, John”

“Close enough!” John exclaimed, “How does Spectrum feel about this? I bet she’s not excited either. After all the trouble she went through”

“She doesn’t know yet,” Bruce said, “She didn’t sleep very much, so I sent her back to the cave”

John laughed slightly, “I’m not surprised that you actually have a batcave” 

“It’s a lot less exciting than you think”

John hummed softly. He waited for a few minutes, looking like he wanted to say something. He started fidgeting again, nervous as ever. 

And that’s when Bruce figured it out, “You don’t want to go back to Arkham, don’t you?”

“Maybe” he shifted in his seat again, “It’s not like I hate it there, but it’s nicer out here.”

Bruce reached out to grab his hands ( again, the meanspirited part of his brain thought bitterly, you’re not supposed to do that ), “It’s okay. If it weren’t for you I probably wouldn’t have ever gone back”

John smiled, “Y’know, that kinda feels like an insult” 

“It’s not”

“It’s my home” John said, trying to pick at his nails again even though Bruce was squeezing his fingers, “It’s gross and problematic, but I can’t remember anything else” 

“That’s understandable” Bruce glanced at the clock by the door, “You should probably go now. Doctor Leland was already getting ready to go”

“Okay” John said sadly, “Remember! Thursday!”

Bruce couldn’t help but smile, “I’ll try my best”. He watched as John skipped out of the room and started talking to Doctor Leland, Bruce was sure that it was about the ‘good news’ John had mentioned. 

But now it was time to figure out where the hell Riddler was.

Chapter Text

The broadcast had started thirty minutes ago and nobody could track the signal.

Bruce was currently racing around the city, heading to each radio tower that Spectrum had given him the locations of. He was praying that nothing bad happened.

He had woken up to his phone buzzing with several messages from Jim and Tiffany. Apparently, Scarecrow had taken some inspiration from Lady Arkham and had a group of hostages on a live broadcast. He wasn’t even demanding anything, just laughing at a bunch of people drugged out of their minds. 

Bruce really felt like he hadn’t slept in days. He had just gotten to sleep when the broadcast started. The police couldn’t even tell people that they were looking for Scarecrow because he had his program on every TV in Gotham. Scarecrow was raving like a madman on the scream currently, talking to some invisible being he jokingly called ‘ dad’ .

“Dammit!” Scarecrow hissed, “I’m out! Eddie?”

If you upped the background audio (which Spectrum had done for him graciously) you would be able to hear Riddler hissing in Scarecrow’s ear, “I don’t know where you put it!”

“Under the sink!” 

A few minutes later, Scarecrow had several new tanks of gas and Bruce wasn’t any closer to finding him. He went to a last ditch resort and called Waller.

“ I thought that you didn’t want to talk to me?” Waller snapped over the phone

“I need Harley.”

“ She’s not telling you anything. She’s still government property” 

Bruce rolled his eyes under the cowl, “She’s not property, Waller” He could have sworn that he heard Harley say an exasperated ‘thank you!’

“ I’ll tell you where Johnny is!” Harley yelled over the line, “ He’s probably at the radio station by the abandoned Funhouse!” Then there were muffled screams of protest and Bruce was sure that she had been dragged away from the phone.

He still didn’t like Harley very much, but this was definitely helping her case. 

He ended the call and started a new one, this time to Tiffany. “Spect, he’s at a radio station by the docks. That’s why he didn’t show up at any of the sights we checked. I’m on route as we speak”

“Need back up?” she asked, and Bruce could hear her motorcycle revving up.

“Probably” he admitted, “Meet you there?”

“Got it” and the line disconnected.

Bruce was at the radio station in record time, the moon taunting him, reminding him of the last time he was here at night. He broke into the radio station (more like a radio shack, but he couldn’t really do anything about that) with ease. Probably too much ease. It might have been a trap, but Bruce was in too deep now to pass this up.

He would take Scarecrow in tonight. He was sure of it.

The building had support beams in the roof. Perfect for him to scout out the situation before he dropped in. Scarecrow had a whole camera set up in front of him. Lights and all. So many lights that it must have been uncomfortable to stand under them for so long with the full Halloween colored suit on. He was waving a knife in the face of one hostage. She was squirming in his arms, trying to get free, and Bruce could see a sheen on her eyes that indicated that the gas had been used on her. 

Scarecrow had about twenty other hostages, all squirming and crying. Scarecrow raved about a cold unfeeling world as the lights on his camera blinked a bright red. 

He probably had about two hours before these people died, if the pale skin and greenish demeanor was anything to go by. Luckily Tiffany had already synthesized an antidote for the new string of toxin.

He leapt to another support beam, praying that the whooshing of his cape didn’t alarm Crane. He looked for a door, not seeing one nearby. He’d have to get Crane out of here before any of the hostages could leave.

A light buzzing in his ear indicated that someone was calling, “Tiff?” he asked softly, as not to announce his presence just yet.

“I’m here” she said, “I’m still outside. Do you need the antidote right now?”

“Give me ten minutes. And stay on the call”

“Got it” she said, before promptly staying quiet

Bruce shifted slightly to give himself a better view of Crane, letting his cowled face hit the light ever so slightly. One of the hostages’ face lit up. Bruce could swear that he heard a faint ‘ we’re saved’.

He slid down to the floor without a sound, watching Scarecrow though the paper thin background that he hid behind.

“Ooh! Johnny! We’ve got company!” came a voice from behind him. Bruce had just half a second to duck before a question mark cane swung at his head. The razor sharp edge made a shing sound as it barely passed his ear. Riddler .

Bruce jumped up and landed behind Eddie, his leg kicking out at his head. Riddler responded by slicing the thin cloth in half and revealing Batman to the camera. 

“Batman!” Scarecrow said excitedly, “Finally! I’ve only been waiting an hour!” He grabbed a gan of the fear gas and aimed the nozzle right at Bruce’s face.

“Spectrum!” Bruce yelled.

“Coming!” Spectrum said. It took two seconds for her to get in the building, but it was too late. Bruce had already gotten a face full of fear toxin.

He braced himself for the image of John again, but something completely different happened instead. He was in an alley, bloody pearls on the wet concrete floor. His parents weren’t there, but there were two body bags. He couldn’t move, his feet stuck to the floor.

“Bats!” Tiffany yelled, “They got away. The hostages are fine, and the police are on their way. Bats?!” she shook him lightly, “Are you okay? Bats!?”

Bruce squeezed his eyes shut, attempting to escape the memory. Except that was a terrible idea because the image behind his eyelids was a mix of the alley and ACE. John’s bleeding hand and scattered pearls. His chest tightened uncomfortably. 

Then John’s voice was in his ear. But it wasn’t John, it was Joker. Soft hushed tones whipped by his ear. A soft, “ After everything we’ve been through together… .” said through gritted teeth. And he could remember it clear as day. John’s body convulsing wildly as the agency stun guns hit him. Bruce grit his teeth. A gunshot rang in his ears, one that was slightly muffled. He knew that it wasn’t real. 

“C’mon Bats, let's go home” Tiffany said, trying her best to lift Bruce up. 

“Jim” Bruce said, his teeth still wired together, “Need to find-”

“No you don’t. We’re going back to the cave”

Chapter Text

Tiffany lugged him out of the car and into the medical bay in the batcave. He was placed on the bed as softly as Tiff could (which wasn’t very soft. He didn’t blame her the kevlar was heavy) and he started to strip the many layers of kevlar off, leaving himself in the skin tight suit underneath.

“I’ll be back” he said, pulling himself up as Tiffany started preparing a medical kit.

He came back ten minutes later, showered and out of the suit. He could still see the neon green of ACE’s sludge everytime he closed his eyes. “We need to find him”

“We do, but not tonight” Tiffany said, starting to stitch up a wound from Riddler’s cane on his arm. Somehow Bruce hadn’t even noticed it. 

“Not tonight,” Bruce agreed.

“Didn’t you mean to tell me about what you saw in the fear gas?”

Bruce sighed, “I did”

“And what did you see?”

“What I am seeing” Bruce corrected, “is ACE Chemicals and that night in the alley” he didn’t mean to sound frustrated, but it came out anyway.

“Oh” she said, like she hadn’t thought of that.

“Last time it was you and Lucius dead” then as an afterthought, “and John too. It’s not the prettiest picture.” the icy voice that came out of his lips was closer to the Batman of the past than the person he was trying to be now, “I’m sorry” he said, rubbing his temples for the eight-thousandth time that month, “I shouldn’t have said that”

“It’s okay, Bruce,” Tiffany said with a light smile, “I get it, you’re stressed. I am too”

“That’s not an excuse though”

“It’s not, but it does help explain your actions. Sorry, I minored in psychology.”

Bruce laughed, “Not something I would have pictured you doing”

“Me neither, but it’s really interesting. I’ll have to talk to Quinzel about it sometime”

“I’d be careful” Bruce jokingly warned, “She’ll tear your throat out”

“I can handle her,” Tiffany said, packing up the medical supplies. 

Bruce felt himself laughing again and a feeling of warmth spread through his chest. She really did remind him of Lucius. 

And then the warmth immediately disappeared. 

Lucius was dead. All because of Bruce and that stupid puzzle box. And after all of that, Riddler was still alive and free. It was good that Tiffany hadn’t killed him (well he had been killed, but he was back due to Crane’s freaky mad science lab) because now she wouldn’t have to live with that, but then again, neither of them had gotten any kind of closure from the whole ordeal.

God, he needed to sleep. 

Chapter Text

EPISODE FOUR: JOKER'S REQUIEM

He woke up to bright green. 

And panic. The colors sent him into a frenzy. What if the antidote hadn’t worked? It could have been a new string of the toxin. He better call in Tiffany. But before he could open his mouth he heard a bright and sunny, “You’re alive!”

The toxin was definitely still in effect. John was at Arkham. He fumbled around for another tube of the antidote on the table next to him. Tiffany must have forgotten to pick it up. 

“Woah there! Spect- I mean Tiffany, told me to not let you touch that. It’s for emergencies.” he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, “Waller came and got me. Said that I’ll be useful. Doctor Leland agreed too! She said that it would be a good way for me to prove I’m ready to be released again! By the way, that was my good news.”

“Wait-? What?” Bruce tried to sit up, but it didn’t work all that well.

“Woah there buddy! Spect- Tiffany!” he sounded like he was slightly upset with himself for messing up the name twice now, “Told me that you’re supposed to be resting”

“What was the good news?” Bruce said groggily, his head still fuzzy from the blood rushing to his head.

“Doctor Leland said that I might be released again soon! Like not as a temporary thing like right now, but for good!” his smile was a million miles wide.

“That’s great John” Bruce tried his best to sound excited, but was too tired to really do much. He laid back down again.

He woke up for the second time roughly six hours later, John nowhere to be seen. He was sure he had imagined him until Tiffany came into the medbay.

“It’s kinda weird having him here. Last time I saw him he was threatening Waller with a knife. But now that I know her I don’t really blame him” she set the cup of tea she had been holding on the nightstand next to Bruce, “How are you doing?”

“He’s really here?” Bruce didn’t dare sit up.

“Yeah” she looked back at the door, “Waller just dumped him at the GCPD this morning. I felt bad for him and brought him here. I hope you don’t mind”

“As long as he doesn’t destroy anything. And I’ve probably jinxed myself by saying that” 

Tiffany laughed softly, “You probably have. It’s okay, I’m sure he’s not a toddler”

“Clearly you’ve never met him. He could probably destroy anything he puts his hands on”

“I heard that!” John said from the other room. Bruce had no doubt that he had already stolen Tiffany’s rolly chair. But the thought was quickly abandoned because Bruce could hear a loud crash followed by a “I’m okay!”

“Guess you were right,” Tiffany laughed, “He stole my chair”

Knew it

Bruce attempted to sit up. He did it slowly this time, not letting the blood make him woozy again. Tiffany placed the tea she had brought in his hands and he tried his best to sip it slowly.  

“So what’s next?” Tiffany asked.

“We find Scarecrow, wherever he is, and then after that, I don’t know”

“What about Riddler?”

“If he hasn’t done anything yet, then he’s not a priority” he set the tea down, “For now, we need to administer the antidote to hospitals. Mainly Gotham General”

“Ooh!” Tiffany exclaimed, “Batman’s back!”

“I never left, Tiff”

“Maybe not, but you weren’t really Gotham’s dark knight for a while there” she stood up, “I’ll start replicating the antidote. It shouldn’t take very long”

“Thanks. I promise that I won’t do anything that you wouldn’t want me to”

“I doubt that” she said walking out the door, “John!”

“Can I smash the Harley museum?” he asked, Bruce was sure that the chair was still in his possession. 

Bruce felt himself smiling again, something he had seemed to be doing more often. He sipped his tea again, taking a deep breath as he did.

He had a family again.

Chapter Text

“But you all get to go on these missions, why can’t I? Waller left me here for a reason!”

Bruce’s fingers reached instinctively for his temples, “You weren’t ready the first time, and you’re not ready now” 

“Like hell I’m not! Just… trust me please. I won’t mess up this time” John had applied the puppy dog face into the equation, even though he knew it would get him nowhere.

I have fear gas nightmares about the last time we let you off the leash, the rational part of his brain wants to say. Bruce himself just bites his tongue and waits for someone else to cut in.

“Just let him, Bruce,” Tiffany says from her spot at the computer, not looking up from her work, “We’re just running toxin antidotes to hospitals. What trouble is he going to get himself into with that?”

“People don’t trust Joker. Which I'm assuming you still want your name to be.” Bruce said, turning his attention back to John.

“If you don’t want me to then I won’t”

“It’s whatever name you like, John” Tiffany spun her chair around. Bruce was surprised that she put her work down for even two seconds, “I’m sure that Bruce doesn’t mind that much. Right Bruce?”

Bruce swallowed down the bile growing in his throat, “Right” he said through gritted teeth.

John was absolutely ecstatic, “So I’m on the team again?”

With the looks from Tiffany and the sound of John’s voice, Bruce gave in, “For right now, yes” 

“You won’t regret it! Do you have anything in the purple and green area for the costume?” 

“I’ve got purple” Tiffany offered, “And we might be able to spray paint something green, if you really want” 

John squealed in excitement and followed Tiffany to the armoire. 

Twenty minutes later, John was in full vigilante getup. He listened carefully as Tiffany explained what hospitals the vials of antidote were to be delivered to. He saluted mockingly to her as he laughed, then turned on his heel and sped out the door.

“He’ll probably be back in a few hours.” Tiffany said

“On foot? It’ll be a lot longer than that.”

“That was a sign to go help him, Bruce”

“Oh” 

John was even more excited to get to ride in the batmobile again. He was practically jumping up and down in his seat as they drove. 

“This is going to be so much fun! Getting out of Arkham and teaming up with you on the same day! I can’t believe my luck!” he drummed his fingers on the center console, “The only not fun thing is that Riddler’s still out there”

“He’s not our priority right now. Scarecrow poses a bigger threat, we’ll get to Riddler later”

“Ooh, we’re getting all superhero right now. I like it!” John smiled, the light fabric covering his eyes stretching over his skin.

And as if on cue, a call from Spectrum came in, “Bruce, Riddler’s on the ferry where I killed him. He’s got Avesta and Waller in the torture boxes”

“Waller? How’d he nab her?” John asked, clearly not fazed at all by the fact that the car had a call system installed. Mostly he just seemed fascinated by the tech.

 “We don’t know. How far away are you from the docks?” 

“About six minutes” Bruce responded, “But I’m going to have to drop John off at the Wayne Enterprises bunker”

“What?! No, you can’t do that” John protested, “I thought I was part of the team”

“You are, but..”

“But what? I’m apart of this team too, Bats” 

“He is!” Tiffany chimed in (unhelpfully) from the monitor, “Just let him come, Bruce. Him and Eddie had history”

“Where they tried to rip each other apart”

“I’m right here, please stop talking about me like I’m not” John said, clearly irritated. 

“I’ll lock down the bunker remotely.” Tiffany said, “You won’t be able to get in.” Bruce opened his mouth to speak, but Tiffany interrupted, “And I have overrided your override” 

“Spectrum the tech genius!” John exclaimed, “You are my personal hero, Tiffany”

They reached the docks not long after. The ferry was parked right in front of the pier with a messy “Welcome Agency Pigs” sign that Riddler must have gotten from the remnants of John’s old water tower. Bruce could see John stiffen at the sight. 

“It’s okay. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to” Bruce said, parking the car.

“I’m fine.” John hissed, “Stop babying me”

That was something that Bruce hadn’t thought about yet. 

“C’mon, let’s go.”

He stepped out of the car and watched as John took a deep breath and left with him. Somehow, John had nicked a batarang knockoff of his from the monument in the cave and was fidgeting with it despite the sharp edges. Bruce could see John’s hands shaking slightly and decided not to comment on it.

“Spectrum” Bruce said, pressing the button on the cowl, “Are you on your way?”

“ETA two minutes” she replied and John seemed absolutely giddy to be hearing her in his ear too.

“Got it,” Bruce said before promptly disconnecting the call.

The plan was to have Bruce distract Riddler with all the theatrics he so loved while John and Spectrum freed Waller and Avesta from the boxes. He explained the whole thing to John who (surprisingly) actually paid attention this time. Spectrum showed up not long after that and she and John moved around the back of the ferry.

“Ah, Batman. How good of you to join us! I’ve just got most of my recreation back. Poor Avesta’s partner died, so I had to make due with Waller over here. It’s close enough so I’m not complaining. Should I turn on the heat, or do you need a minute?” Riddler joked, waving his cane around broadly. His trench coat style suit jacket was an emerald green, dark cartoonish question marks littered over it. He had ditched the small mask this time and had added a deep green bowler hat.

“Always a fan of the dramatics, aren’t we Riddler?” Bruce growled. Luckily Tiffany had been able to get the voice modulator back to its regular sound.

“Don’t kid yourself, Bats. You love this just as much as I do” Over Riddler’s shoulder, Bruce could see John giving him a thumbs up. So much for subtlety. Not like he really expected anything less from John. 

“Maybe, what’s your angle?” Bruce asked, as Spectrum attempted to hack into the electronic locks on the cages. Riddler really updated his tech. 

“No angle ” Riddler said, giggling, “Just plain old murder and mayhem. My favorite.”

The latch to Waller’s box opened swiftly and she bolted off the ferry as quietly as possible. Avesta’s came off a second later. The unfortunate part was that the lock mechanisms were much louder. Riddler snapped his head back to see Spectrum next to the door. John was nowhere in sight.

“I had been hoping that you would bring the girl Bats. I was hoping for my taste of revenge tonight.” Before Bruce could even blink, Riddler had leapt up to where Tiffany was standing and shoved her in the box, making sure he grabbed the tablet off of her arm as he did. Riddler turned back to the bat, “Your turn”

Bruce ducked as Riddler’s cane swung by his ear, a metallic shing sound following it closely. Bruce aimed a roundhouse kick right at Riddler’s head, but Eddie caught it just before it would have landed. Riddler shoved Bruce’s leg in just the right direction and he went toppling to the floor. 

A few seconds later, he heard the click of a lock closing and felt a mild heat under his feet.

The torture box.

“Spectrum!” he called out, before pressing the call button on the cowl again, “Spectrum are you there?”

“Yeah I’m here.”

“John?” no answer, “Joker?”

“He can probably hear you,” Spectrum said, looking over to where John had been minutes before.

“John, I’m going to need you to distract Riddler for a few minutes while me and Spectrum figure out how to get ou-”

“Eddie!” a familiar voice called out from the edge of the ferry.

Riddler’s head snapped back to the voice, “ Joker! ” he exclaimed, “How nice of you to join us! I was just about to barbecue the bat and his little friend. Want to stay for the show?” 

“Let. Them. Go.” John hisses, about ready to pounce.

“And why should I do that? You messed up our little operation. Oh, yes Harley told me all about that. The Lotus virus. How you sold us out all to play dress up with a bat. It’s pathetic really”

John was gritting his teeth uncomfortably, “Batman’t my friend. I can’t say the same about you, Riddler”

“Ooh, you’ve gained a bit of bite since I last saw you, Johnnie. I’m impressed truly”

“Don’t pet name me” John said as Bruce used the screwdriver feature in his glove to pry open the door slightly. The heat was already starting to make him feel nauseous. Tiffany looked like she was about ready to faint. 

“I think I have every right to,” Riddler said, swinging his cane at John. John ducked at the last second.

The metal door snapped open, luckily quietly. Bruce moved over to Tiffany’s box and started to disassemble it.

“You really don’t Eddie. Not after the hyena incident”

Riddler froze, “We don’t talk about the hyenas”

“Mhm, yeah sure. You remember it right? Harley brought in Bud and Lou. They attacked both of us, remember?”

Riddler swung again, “Shut up!”

More screws were popping off of Tiffany’s box. Her face was completely flushed and her eyes were cloudy. Bruce guessed that he only had about three minutes before she passed out.

“And you made fun of me after I forgave the hyenas. You were acting like a child!” John laughed, “That was a good day, not for you though!” 

The torture box’s door swung open, loudly creaking as it did. Tiffany slumped out of the box and into Bruce’s arms. He laid her down on one of the crates next to them.

“Stay here. I’ll be back” Bruce whispered to her, “Try to cool off”

Tiffany nodded lethargically. 

John was still prattling off stories at Riddler. Bruce could practically see the smoke coming out of Riddler’s ears. Every now and again, Riddler swung his cane at John when his stories were too sharp. John ducked each one with ease. Up until Riddler swung for a final time and John caught it. They grappled for a few seconds before Bruce decided to step in. 

“You get what you deserve, Eddie” John said right before Bruce landed a right hook at Riddler’s head. Eddie crumpled to the ground in an instant.

“That was fun!” John said, “Is it always like that?”

“No, we’re usually in a lot less danger,” Bruce said, attaching Riddler’s wrists to a metal pole. After he was sure that Riddler was secure, he started walking over to where Tiffany is. She was still in critical condition. 

“I think I saw some water in the car,” John said.

“Can you go get it?” Bruce asked. John sped off to the car, getting slightly frustrated when he realised it was locked. Bruce watched his struggle for a minute with a smile on his face before he unlocked the door for him. 

Half an hour later, Tiffany was on her way to the hospital with a strict order from Gordon to leave the mask on and Waller was yelling again.

Nobody was surprised by that second half.

Chapter Text

“What were you thinking?! We could have died!” 

And yet she wasn’t yelling at Bruce, she was yelling at John.

“Last time I was in a situation with you, you almost killed me! And even after that you still decided to use stupid tactics to get us out!”

“That’s enough, Waller” except it wasn’t Bruce’s voice that time, it was Gordon, “He saved your life. I think that makes up for when he tried to kill you”

Waller left her mouth agape, “It doesn’t. He can make up for it by joining my team”

“Not happening” John and Bruce spoke at the same time. 

“I don’t even want him on the team” Harley said, walking up to the group of them, “Nice work Joker” she said, tipping her head to him. John mumbled something that sounded like, “thanks Harls”

“You don’t have a say in this, Harley” Waller snapped, “How do we know that he’s not going to go rogue again?”

“I won’t! I promise!” 

“That’s something you woul-!”

“Shut up, Waller” Bruce growled, “Now, I’ve got a partner in the hospital so we’ve got to get going” he stormed off, John following closely behind him.

“Thanks” John said softly once they were in the car, “You didn’t have to say anything”

“I wanted to” 

Chapter Text

They got back to the cave in twenty minutes, Tiffany showed up not long after.

“I just overheated. I’ll be taking it easy, unlike some people.” she said with a pointed look at Bruce. He threw his hands up in defence while John laughed behind him. 

Not long after, an alarm went off.

“What’s that?” John asked, looking around like he was trying to figure out where the noise was coming from.

“There’s been a minor breakout at Arkham Asylum” Tiffany said, tapping on the keys of the computer, “I can handle it”

“You sure?” Bruce asked in confirmation.

“It’ll take like ten minutes. You two rest”

“What happened to taking it easy?” Bruce joked.

“Ha Ha Ha, Bruce. I’ll be fine” she said, pulling herself onto her motorbike while securing her helmet to her head, “I’ll be back in about an hour” and she sped off.

Bruce let out a breath he hadn’t even realised he had been holding. He let himself slump in his chair, running a hand over his face like a tired old man. 

“You okay?” John asked

“I’m fine” Bruce said, even though he did not sound fine at all.

John had reclaimed Tiffany’s purple chair. He used one foot to spin himself from side to side slightly before launching the chair to spin him wildly. He was giggling again. The wind had mussed up his hair and his face was flushed from excitement. He was smiling wildly, “You should try this” he said, inching the chair closer to Bruce.

“I can’t. The kevlar’s too heavy”

“You can take it off” John whined, “It’s fun, c’mon”

“Tiffany could need us. I can’t leave the suit yet” he did however, remove the cowl.

“That’s a start,” John said, a bright smile still plastered on his face. He spun around in his chair again, except this time he slipped out and fell flat on the floor. “Ow” he said flatly.

“How am I not surprised?” Bruce said, extending a hand out to John to help pull him up. John took it and was hauled to his feet. 

“Thanks, Batsy,” he said with another big smile.

“What’s with everyone and using dumb nicknames recently?” Bruce complained without any real malice to it. 

John laughed before turning solem for some reason. He started picking at his nails again and cursed when he started bleeding. 

“Is something wrong?” Bruce asked as he dug around in a drawer for a bandage.

“No” John was obviously lying. He watched in rapture as Bruce pressed the band-aid to the bleeding cut. After it was secured, John proceeded to pick at the bandage. He caught Bruce looking and dropped his hand. “Sorry” he said, “Nervous habit”

“It’s okay,” Bruce said, turning his attention back to the computer.

A few minutes later there was a crash from the ‘trophy’ area.

“Sorry!” John apologised again.

“What happened?” Bruce said, walking over to where John was standing.

“I just…” John gestured to the Joker exhibit, “I’m sorry that any of that happened” he reached out, pressing his finger to a tip of the batarang that had pierced through his hand until it bled. “Waller was right, wasn’t she? I did almost kill her. And I wanted to.”

“That’s understandable, you had just left a mental asylum for the first time in your life. Obviously there were going to be some adjustments” 

“Wanting to murder someone isn’t an adjustment, Bruce. I don’t have an excuse for that.” He pulled his finger down the sharp edge of the batarang, drawing even more blood as he did so.

Bruce grabbed his hand to get him to stop, but he dropped it as soon as it was away from the weapon, “It’s the opposite of an excuse. It’s an explanation. Not everyone’s perfect, and trust me I’ve wanted to deck Waller a few times. You’ll be fine, John.”

John pried open the cut on his finger with his nails, “You never tried to kill anyone though. I did. She’s right. I shouldn’t be here. Thanks for the fun time. Again” he tried to leave, but Bruce caught his wrist. 

“Don’t” Bruce said, voice shaking slightly, “Please, just stay.” 

It was the same statement that John had used over and over again at Arkham, but this time, the context made it different. A bat and a clown in a cave. A scene that would be repeated several times over the history of everything. A scene that felt like a heartbreak, like the chemical burn of a neon green vat.

A scene painted on the walls of a church building that no one would attend. 

The roar of the waterfall in the cave was the only sound except heated breaths. All the colors in Bruce’s vision were dulled by the lack of light in the cave. John’s face was painted in blue.

“Why should I?”

Bruce found his throat dried out, talking was like swimming in sand. But he spoke anyway, “Because I asked you to. You’ve done the same”

“You never do stay though do you?” his eyes flashed with something brighter, and not a good kind of bright. A bright that indicated one thing only.

This was Joker.

“Enlighten me” Joker said, tugging his wrist away from Bruce’s. No, not Bruce, Batman. “Why should I? I’ve got a nice seat at Arkham for me, why stay here?”

“You told me that you would rather stay in the city than go back to Arkham. What’s with the change of pace?” He bit back the man in front of him’s name. Calling him Joker had been strictly forbidden at Arkham. Bruce had been doing so well at not using the name, but now he felt the need to put a name to this thing in front of him. So that he could pretend that this wasn’t John. 

“Not a change of pace. I still don’t want to be there, but it’s better than here.”

“Why? Cause I’m here? Am I upsetting you, Joker? ” Bruce spat, not caring about the stupid name anymore, “Can’t handle a bat?”

Joker lunged, grabbing the batarang from the display of his last appearance. He used the sharp edge to slash the skin on Bruce’s arm. Bruce hissed in response, grabbing Joker’s arm and flipping him over onto the ground. Joker laughed maniacally.

“I forgot how fun you were, Batsy!” He pushed Bruce off of him and stood. He swung his leg at Bruce’s head. It landed, knocking Bruce off of his feet. Joker stood over him, kicking at his head again. When he had his fill of beating up the bat, he smoothed his hair back and moved to walk out of the cave, “This has been a great opportunity, Bats, but I have to be going!”

Bruce put the cave on lockdown, and as he did, Joker slammed his hands against the buttons of the elevator.

“Dammit!”

Joker decided to sit in a corner, pouting. It took Bruce a few minutes to get up. When he did he heard soft sobs coming from the corner where Joker (nope, John again) was sitting.

“John?” Bruce said, moving to sit next to him

“ I’m sorry. I’m sorry ” John cried like a mantra, “I didn’t want to”

“It’s okay,” Bruce pulled off his tactical gloves and wrapped his arms around John. “I get it. You’re okay”

And John cried in his arms. For what felt like hours, until there was nothing left to cry over. Green and grey hazes out of sight, the fight from earlier gone to a wisp. Until everything sad was sucked up into a kevlar suit and cheap spray paint. 

“I’m sorry” John repeated, “I shouldn’t have done that”

“It’s partially my fault too. You’re okay” Bruce said, rubbing comforting circles into John’s back. 

John pushed away from him and started what Bruce could only guess as breathing exercises. Eventually, Bruce found himself doing them with John, letting the anxiety of the fight leave him with every exhale. 

“I shouldn’t be here. Can you take me back to Arkham?” John asked after a few minutes.

“I can, but I’m not going to. You slipped up. It’s okay.”

“But I’ve slipped up multiple times now! I tried to kill people. You told me that vigilante’s don’t kill.”

“Maybe,” Bruce paused for a while, “Did I ever tell you about that time I ran away after my parents died?” he watched as John’s jaw dropped, “Yeah, I went looking for the man who killed my parents. I was missing for two weeks before the cops caught up to me. I got grounded for a month” Bruce finished, laughing as he said it.

“Why look for him”

“To give him a taste of his own medicine”

“At like 12?” John said, his eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Yeah,”

“That makes me feel a bit better,” John admitted, “I still don’t feel great though”

“It’s okay. It takes a long time before anyone adapts to a completely new environment. I’m sure that you’ll be a great vigilante. It’ll just take some time” Bruce smiled, “I’ll let you spin me in the chair if you want?” he added nervously.

“Maybe” John wiped his eyes, “I really am sorry”

“I know you are. C’mon we’ve got work to do.”

“Okay, just one thing first”

“And what’s that?”

That’s when John surged forward and kissed him.

Chapter Text

“Bruce?” came a voice over a speaker, “I’m going to need some help over here at Arkham”

“What’s happening?” Bruce asked, sliding over to the computer.

He was trying his best not to think about the kiss. It wasn’t working all that well. He remembered feeling… soft . And then John was pulling away (all too fast) and turning away (all too fast). Bruce was left sitting in a corner, with John all but running across the cave. He didn’t leave, but he didn’t get any closer to Bruce again. 

Were they going to talk about it? Bruce highly doubted it. 

But he wanted to though.

“The break out is much bigger than I thought it would be.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes” Bruce said, slipping the cowl on

“And one more thing” 

Bruce glanced back at the computer, “What?”

“Scarecrow is leading them”

Chapter Text

EPISODE FIVE: HEADLESS HORSEMAN

The car ride to Arkham was strange. John kept picking at his lip, almost drawing blood again. They both knew what was coming, John’s first official vigilante mission. And it didn’t help that they had kissed a few minutes ago.

“Just remember,“ Bruce started, “If you mess up it’s okay. It’s your first mission”

“Mhm,” John hummed absentmindedly. He was gazing out the window like he was about to not be allowed to see sunlight ever again. Although they did live in Gotham, the sun was truly a rare occurrence.

Arkham was lit up in sunlight. John looked surprised to see it was not surrounded in storm. A large river of the criminally insane flowed through the doors, some still in straightjackets. Some held bloody weapons in the form of broken pieces of metal or glass.  Bruce’s breath hitched at the sight. 

John would still be here if Waller hadn’t got him. The rational part of his brain said, And he wouldn’t have had a regression

And he wouldn’t have kissed you.

Bruce shook his head slightly at the thought. He parked the car hastily and got out before either one of them could say anything. 

“Batman! I’ve been waiting for you!” Scarecrow yelled, somehow everywhere and nowhere at the same time, “And you’ve brought both of your friends! I can’t wait to see what you’ll be looking like writhing on the ground in fear! Was that good Eddie?”

It took Scarecrow a while to realise that Riddler was nowhere to be found. Bruce was sure that he could hear John say, “Yeah I sacked him jerk. How do you feel about that?”

Bruce tried not to laugh at him fondly. Not after the night they just had. 

Spectrum caught up with them, “Scarecrow’s at the top of the asylum. He’s got some kind of gas bomb up there too. Like the one he used in the park. I scanned it with the drone and the components are lethal this time”

“Is there a way up to the roof?” Bruce asked 

“Yes,” John cut in before Tiffany could respond, “It’s a back way up there, but it’s the most efficient” 

“Can you take us up there?” Tiffany shut off her drone and placed it in the backseat of the car.

“Yeah, we have to go in the back way though.” He started walking around to the other side of the asylum. 

He led them to a long set of stairs that they ended up grappling up to the top, Tiffany having to instruct John on how their grappling system worked. All three of them were able to glide up with ease. 

“Don’t move” John hissed, “He’s right there”

He wasn’t wrong. Scarecrow was standing towards the edge of the building, waving his hands madly in the air, a canister of fear gas in his left hand. He had all of the staff tied up on the roof with him, gagged and bound, some crying from their hallucinations. 

Tiffany was currently moving around the massive power boxes for the AC units on the roof, trying her best to get as close to Scarecrow as possible. 

“What do we do about the hostages?” John whispered

“Same thing we did with Riddler, use some kind of distraction. Make sure that Spectrum gets to them”

“Wait Bruce what are you-?” but before John could finish, Bruce had thrown himself on the roof. In full sight.

“Scarecrow!” He yelled out, voice modulator crackling from the volume, “Let them go” 

“And why should I dork knight? I’ve got some more fun up my sleeve!” And that’s when Tiffany lunged at his head. Scarecrow seemed to somehow know that she was there and he used the metal canister to hit her off the roof.

Crap.

He felt his breath catch in his chest. There was nothing they could do. His sidekick had just been thrown off a roof and the other was ready to give up. Bruce was so stunned that he didn’t even notice Scarecrow raising the canister of fear gas right at his face.

In a flood of green and orange, the large grey vats of ACE Chemicals came into view. How many freaking times are we going to come back to this? The rational part of his brain complained.

Except this time it was different. Joker stood on the railing above, Waller in his arms with a knife to her throat. 

“ You can never save them all! You can’t just pretend like you can fix people!” Then it swirled to the meeting room, photos of John on the wall. They weren’t bleeding on the floor yet, but Bruce felt like they might as well have been.

“ I was such an idiot! I was too busy admiring you, wanting to be like you… Be loved by you”  

Be loved by you.

Loved by you

Love.

He wanted to scream. He couldn’t breathe. Bruce could feel his eyes swimming already. What brought him to ACE that night? John obviously, but he could tell that there was something else.

Then it flipped to them both bleeding out on the ground and “ I know you used me” and a sour taste in his mouth. He could hear shouting in the distance, trying to pull him out of wherever he was deep inside his mind, but it was useless. His chest constricted painfully.

Then he felt something, he was hyperventilating. 

He hadn’t had a panic attack in years. 

“Now, where’s the other sidekick?!” Scarecrow raved, his head snapped from side to side wildly, “Where are you!”

Pearls, except they were black. On a pavement floor. He felt the same hot tears trailing down his face as they were that same night, except this time the tears were piling up inside the cowl. 

“Ah! There you are!” Scarecrow had found John. Another surge of panic gripped Bruce. “I have a proposition for you. Join us. I’ll have to break Eddie out of jail, but that’ll be easy. C’mon Joker. We could make such a good trio, even if Eddie doesn’t like you.”

“I’m not Joker” John responded in horror.

“Yes you are. You've even got the whole outfit going on too” Scarecrow pulled the spray nozzle away from John's face and extended his hand out to him, “It’s a simple offer, Joker. Take my hand.”

“I’m not Joker” John hissed, “I haven’t been for a long time and I won’t use that again. You hurt my friends, and that I don’t tolerate” he grabbed Crane’s hand and spun him around, slamming him against the power units. Before he could get the cuffs in his pocket on Scarecrow’s wrists, Scarecrow used a leg to kick John’s balance out from under him. 

A new scene flitted over Bruce’s eyes. He was standing on a bridge, blood rushing in his ears. John was standing on the edge of that bridge, a glowing yellow canister in his hands.

And then he jumped.

Harley was in the corner of his eye now, laughing with John as they threw Crane across the roof. Bane cuffed him swiftly and despite that, Crane was still putting up a fight. 

“That’s what you get for lying to me!” Harley shouted as she kneed him in the gut. Crane groaned and officially gave up the fight. 

“That was fun!” John exclaimed, “Oh, hold on guys. I’ve got to handle something first” Then he moved over to where Bruce was lying helplessly on the floor. “Hold on, buddy” he fetched an antidote from Bruce’s utility belt and gave it to him.

In seconds, the nightmares had fleeted. The panic attack was still prominent in his chest, but its grip had slackened.

“Thanks,” Bruce said, seconds before he passed out.

Chapter Text

Bruce woke up to bright green, except this time it was nestled in his arms.

The cowl was stuck to his face uncomfortably. Apparently, Gordon had given the same order about the masks to not be taken off, but Bruce felt a clawing need to get out of the tight armor.

“Hey!” John whispered, like hadn’t spoken in a while, “You’re alive! You passed out on me”

“Lethal toxin, remember?” He tried to stretch, but realised too late that he was essentially shoving John off the bed, “Why are you here?”

“Tiffany’s in the other room. She broke a few bones, but she’s fine. Plus Waller won’t let me leave the building without either you or Tiffany, so I’m stuck here” he pulled himself off of the bed, “Not like I really mind though”

Bruce resisted the urge to tell him that he didn’t have to leave, but decided against it.

How had they even gotten here? Two years ago they met in a mental asylum and now they were sitting together in full vigilante getup trying to pretend like they hadn’t kissed earlier. 

Not like Bruce didn’t want John to kiss him, or did he? He didn’t know anymore. He was suddenly reminded of his time at the Old Five Points, of late nights at coffee shops or gas station runs just for cheap junk food. Of nights ignoring the signal just so he could spend a few more minutes in John’s company.

I know you used me.

He had, and he regretted it. 

“John?”

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you kiss me? After our fight the other day?”

John turned away, “You’ve been out for two days so it really wasn’t the other day” he laughed uncomfortably.

“Still”

“I dunno. I wanted to” he picked at bandages on his fingers. They wrapped around every single one, like he had been destroying every one of them. 

“Your showdown with Scarecrow was pretty cool” Bruce said as a desperate attempt to change the subject.

John laughed, except this time it sounded like he was genuinely happy, “Yeah, ol’ Johnny is locked up in Arkham now. I heard they gave him my old room” 

“Wait? Your old room? Did they move you or something?”

John turned back to him. The look on his face wasn’t quite happy nor sad, just a strange inbetween state, “They released me. Y’know due to my ‘ heroic efforts and exponential proof of mental stability in stressful situations ’” he recited in a posh voice, “Like I said though, I’m not allowed to leave without you or Tiffany”

“That’s great, John. I’m proud of you”

“I’m not proud of myself.” John said simply, and deciding to leave it at that he said, “I’m going to go find something to eat, I’ll be back in a bit”

“Okay.” God knew that he could use a moment to recollect his thoughts.

The door slid shut, leaving Bruce with fading memories of soft green hair still fresh in his mind.

When did that happened? And why? Then he realised sharply that he wanted John back here. Back to that small memory.

Pull yourself together, he told himself, You’re the freaking Batman.

That he was, which reminded him, he could take the cowl off now. There weren’t any cameras or open windows in sight and the feeling of cool air against his face again made him feel less sick somehow. 

John came back half an hour later, “I couldn’t find anything, but maybe I could sneak out and find something”

“I probably wouldn’t try it. You haven’t seen Waller truly angry yet. It’s terrifying” 

John laughed at that, “I’ll take my chances. I’m starving.”

Bruce couldn’t help but laugh back, “Me too. I’ll take you out of here” he stood on shaky legs, but at least managed to stay upright. 

Waller looked slightly mad at them leaving before she expected them to and Bruce made sure to tell Gordon to message him if anything happened with Scarecrow or Tiffany. 

Despite John’s instance, Bruce did not let him drive. They headed to the Manor first so Bruce could take the suit off. His breath hitched slightly when he saw the corner that John had been crying in two days ago, but he tried to not let that bother him.

It didn’t work all that well.

“What are you going to do now? Now that you’re out of Arkham?”

“I don’t know, but I sure as hell am not joining a gang just because somebody I thought was pretty asked me to. Well, actually I guess I am, aren’t I?”

“What do you mean?”

John rummaged around the costume storage, “You don’t happen to have just regular clothes? Don’t get me wrong, I love playing hero, but I’ve been in the same thing for like three days.”

“Oh, let me get you something” 

He returned from upstairs ten minutes later with plain grey sweats, which John changed into quickly. He came back out looking soft and tired. He stole Tiffany’s chair again and spun himself around lightly. 

“Your gang” John said seemingly out of nowhere, “I’m joining a group of vigilantes”

“What?”

“You asked me what I meant. Earlier”

“Oh, I guess I did” Bruce decided very pointedly to not make any other comment on that. 

Then John flung himself around in the chair so fast that he looked like he was going to fall out again, laughing like a child the whole time. 

“If you really did want to stay on the team, it wouldn't bother me” Bruce said, watching John intently.

“Really!?” John abruptly stopped the chair from moving, “That might have been the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!”

“You’d have to go through official training though.” and he felt himself laughing at John’s upset face, his lower lip exaggerated into a pout. 

“But I’ve already gone on missions!”

“Because of extreme circumstances. Tiffany had to as well” he said, praying that it was some kind of reassurance. 

John huffed, “But that’s not nearly as fun” 

“But it won’t get you killed”

“Eh, I seem to be able to survive anywhere. You saw where I was living before the whole Joker rendezvous.”

“But not any thing ,” Bruce corrected, “Just-... Fine, but you need to be careful”

John practically squealed with joy, “I won’t mess up this time, I promise”

“That’s not what I’m worried about but okay”

John watched Bruce silently as he worked. Pulling file after file up to flick through them. Checking up on Crane’s intake at Arkham and his new therapy. 

Bruce knew that he should have ignored what John had said earlier. The ‘pretty’ bit. But it was an itch he needed to scratch. Especially after that kiss a few days ago. 

Did John really think he was pretty? He wanted to ask, but knew that it was completely out of line. 

John was humming in his ear. Bruce didn’t recognize the song, he was sure that John was just making it up as he went. He felt the overwhelming urge to kiss him.

Stop, he told himself, he probably doesn’t want that.

“Are you okay?” John asked, breaking his train of thought, “You looked like your brain was overheating”

His brain probably was overheating. He felt like he couldn’t think straight.

Well, I guess you technically aren’t

“Bruce?”

“I’m fine, just distracted. Sorry” John laughed at him and he felt himself blushing like a teenager. 

“Silly bat” it was muttered softly, but Bruce still managed to hear it. Bruce took a deep breath, pulling himself together so that he could pull himself apart again.

“You called me pretty earlier”

“Did I?” Bruce was sure that he was joking, “I did, didn’t I? Hmm, maybe” he giggled. His face dropped when he finally looked at Bruce, “If you don’t want me to joke about stuff like that I won’t. I should have assumed that you wouldn’t be comfortable with that”

“It’s fine, John. I don’t care.”

“Okay…” he looked like he was debating something. He kept tapping his foot and picking at his hands. He tapped Bruce on the shoulder.

“Yeah?” Bruce said, putting the computer down.

“Can I kiss you again?”

Oh, so he does want that.

He didn’t know what to do other than say yes. 

He was about to die. This was perfect. He was so scared to ruin the moment so he didn’t move.

“I’m not going to run away,” John murmured.

And Bruce was just kissing him back all the harder.

Chapter Text

“You look about ready to keel over” Tiffany joked, “Are you okay, Bruce?”

“I’m fine,” Bruce lied, “Just haven’t been to anything social in awhile”

“So it’s definitely not about the John thing?”

“Definitely not” he lied again.

Not only was this his first gala in a few months, but it was also the first time that he and John had gone public.

They were both really trying to keep their relationship as private as possible, but they also weren’t really being subtle. The press had gotten photos of them on a few dates, but with no public statement from either Bruce or John, they couldn’t really publish anything that wasn’t just speculation.

However this gala they were officially dispelling the rumors. They weren’t going to say anything necessarily, but John had been Bruce’s date for the night

 (John had even insisted on wearing a small bat symbol on his lapel, despite Bruce reminding him that nobody knew that he was Batman

“But I know”

“Nobody else will”

“That’s fine.” John gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, “My Batsy”)

“He seems ecstatic,” Tiffany said, pulling Bruce out of his thoughts. She was keeping an eye on John for him. John had recently gotten through the whole process of getting out of Arkham, visiting parole officers and therapists almost every other day. “He’s waving at us, you should go see him”

“Is he?” He smiled, turning around to face his partner.

John was wearing his typical purple and green. A nod to a certain vigilante. 

Yes, everyone in town knew who this mysterious “Joker” was. It came as a shock to literally no one.

There had been a slight problem with John joining the team, especially since Tiffany insisted that he stick with the Joker persona. Luckily for them, the press had just decided not to comment on the fact that they already knew exactly who this new vigilante was. John’s parole officer and his new therapist had done the same (although it was mostly because a certain Jim Gordon had “anonymously” said that John wasn’t to be questioned by the law about things like that anymore to “not interfere with his therapy” but they all knew what it was really for). 

“Hi Brucie” John said with a soft smile, “How’s the act going?” 

“I’m ready to go home, but my obligated two hours isn’t up yet”

“Obligated? Is someone holding you here against your will?”

“Yes. Her name’s Tiffany”

John laughed, “Pray that she doesn’t hear you” he smoothed out the lapels on Bruce’s suit jacket. He stole a quick kiss before walking away. Bruce assumed that he was going to try to convince Tiffany to take them home.

Bruce could hear the click of a camera.

Well then. Let them talk.

***

“Thanks for getting us home early” Bruce said, tugging his bowtie off.

“You’re welcome. You hungry?” 

John was surprisingly a good cook. Especially after the ‘life skills’ class that Arkham had forced him to take post release. Often he had just randomly made food, usually after Bruce had been up for three days and could barely get himself to do anything other than work. He had only started a fire once and that had been the last time he had tried to cook. Bruce and Tiffany had been lightly joking about it for days now.

“Yeah”

John squealed as he found something in the pantry. Even though it was about three in the morning, John pulled out a box of pancake mix. Bruce was then commanded through whatever John needed to make his pancakes, but it was mostly just “where’s the spatula again?” and “can you pass me that bowl?”.

Before he could blink, Bruce had pancake batter on his nose. John giggling as he watched Bruce challenge him to war.

Luckily nothing had been cooked yet, which left Bruce and John free to smear each other with batter. 

Nothing got burnt which was really surprising seeing as how they were kissing the whole time that John was cooking. He even added chocolate to some of the pancakes, leaving their kisses sweet.

Alfred called later that night. He already knew and despite the fact that he didn’t exactly approve, he did appreciate that Bruce seemed a whole lot happier. 

“Have you made any sort of public statement yet?” Alfred asked as John left the room to grab the pancakes from the kitchen.

“No, we’re kinda just existing and letting people figure it out on their own”

“Probably the best idea” Alfred nodded slowly, “Especially seeing as how he’s an ex villain turned vigilante and a man”

“And I have no shame in any of that. We have a public appearance in a few weeks too”

“Ugh! Another one?!” John said, a plate of pancakes in his hands, “How do you do this?”

“We can do something else if you want?”

“Nah, I get it. Keeping up appearances and all” he sat down next to Bruce, leaning into his arm sleepily as he did. He yawned softly, snuggling in closer.

“I’ll call you later, Alfred. I think somebody needs to go to sleep”

“I’m a vigilante” John slurred, “I’ve been up later”

“Great, now there’s two of them,” Alfred complained, but they both knew that it was more in jest than actual complaint.

“We’ll talk soon” Bruce said, “Bye”

“Goodbye, Master Bruce” the call disconnected.

“Bye” John said, his eyes drooping as he said it.

John did in fact have his own room in the manor. It was rarely used though. John seemed to enjoy latching on to Bruce like a parasite as he slept. Bruce found that he didn’t care all that much. He buried his face into John’s hair, smelling lemon all around him.

“I love you,” John said softly.

Bruce took one last deep breath before returning the sentiment.

“I love you too”

Wanting to be like you…. To be loved by you.

They had both gotten their wish.