Whoops...Part 4
Title: Whoops...part 4
Disclaimer: I own a substantial amount of debt and not a lot else.
Rating: R
Warnings: A Joker amount of swearing, violence...MPreg
Summary: All these things seem random, schizophrenic even until they all come crashing together in the most brutal of circumstances. Not drunk, not hung over or high, dressed impeccably in his tailored purple suit and his smiling face Joker was on his hands and knees vomiting in the bathroom.
A/N: Because nothing says bad luck like a Joker-whoops-a-baby. Special thanks to luc_darling who has been generous enough to beta read for me! <3
It was either very late at night or very, very early in the morning. Regardless, when Leslie picked up the phone her voice was warm and welcoming as he imagined his mother's would have been. Her voice had the calm even tone of a doctor but Bruce could hear the subtle worry infused in it, the unspoken questions. She always worried about him.
Every child deserved a mother.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine.”
“Fine as in I should get the difibulator and break out a few pints of blood?”
“Fine as in I am driving someone else to see you at this hour.”
“Will they need the difibulator?”
Batman chanced a glance to the other seat where the Joker sat curled in on himself. His head lay against the cold glass of the window, his hands clenched over his stomach, eyes closed. He should really blindfold him before they got any further. The breath heaved in and out of him, lifting his slight chest; he was obviously forcing back the nausea that brought the fevered flush to his cheeks.
Did the churning in him hurt the creature inside? Did it mean something had gone wrong?
“I hope not.”
“I will see you in five.”
“Le-” Bruce stopped himself. It was not his place to give her name away, not his right to put her in danger for him, for them. “He is dangerous.”
The Joker let out a choked moan as the Batmobile took a sharp turn, jarring the careful position he had manipulated his body into. He gave no indication that he could even hear Bruce.
“Is he sick?” Leslie asked, her doctor mother voice calming the burn that had begun in his blood at the sick sound.
“Yes.”
“I will see you in four.”
It was never difficult to find a dark hiding place in Crime Alley; the only trick was finding one unoccupied by something potentially darker than yourself. The car went into lockdown as Bruce turned to the Joker.
He had been roused by the sudden stop the way a sleeping child would; weakly he lifted his head and offered Batman a painful smile, bitter and self-loathing.
“Cars don't seem to get alone with me anymore.”
His arms pulled at his shirt wretchedly, even in this semidarkness Batman could see the angry red scratches that now painted his pale flesh. The Joker had not been holding his stomach; he had been tearing at it. The thin purple fabric fell into place, hiding the angry welts, but its fold was off, obvious that something lay beneath.
“Blew up too many of their counterparts.”
The Jokers eyes stayed carefully closed until his coat was pulled into place, until there was no chance of an accidental glance. He was flushed with sickness and too many layers of clothing; he laid his cheek back on the cool window of the Batmobile.
He shivered despite it all and his smile seemed to die on his lips as he realized it was a wasted effort.
Nothing seemed funny right now.
Batman did not ask him if he could walk. The answer would be the same as on the roof and if not…Batman did not want to have to see that kind of self imposed torture, not now. He leaned over and unclipped the Jokers' still body, lifted it over the consol and onto himself.
“Wait-” The Joker paled as he was shifted again in Batman’s lap. The door was barely open when his upper body spilled out of the car and the contents of his stomach spilled out of him.
The gagging was horrible, thick mucus and sick were coming up in painful spurts of his seizing stomach, muscles being crushed and twisted as he forced his body unnaturally out of the car.
Before either man could think about it, a heavy arm was holding him up, supporting his slim weight. The other tangled almost gently in his hair, holding it back as he retched onto the filthy sidewalk.
The Joker wanted to die.
His stomach seized and pulled an agonizing muscle with the force of it, his face was suspended an inch from the pavement, a single strand of blond hung next to his face and his ass was half in the air like a deranged hooker. Too weak to do even wipe it away a string of saliva hung from his lips to the ground.
Tears sprung to his eyes.
If he was to die anyway he wished it would come soon.
Life was not worth this.
Not in front of the Bat.
But as the gagging slowed and stopped, for now, a gloved hand brushed the strand of blond out of his face and out of harm’s way, held with the rest above his neck.
It was sick and twisted and wrong… the intimacy of it made the tears come faster.
He could not do this anymore.
He lowered his head purposefully to the ground, just avoiding his own bile. He had sunk this low and could not bear any more. He would not let the Bat see him like this, so broken.
“Joker…”
The Bats voice was soft and unsure in a way he had never heard it before, not even their complicated relationship could survive this sickness. It ate at the foundations of his world.
“Leave me.”
He tried to crawl out on his hands and knees but the Bat held his waist with no more effort than he would a child. Booted feet touched the ground next to his head and he was lifted into the Bat's cold embrace, tucked carefully into place despite his squirming body.
“To what?” Batman asked ” To curl up and die?”
The Joker pouted and when the spinning world became too much to see through he laid his head on the Bats chest, surrendering for now.
“That was the general idea.”
He would not puke on the Bat.
He would not puke on the Bat.
His mantra took over the higher thought processes of his mind; he needed to focus on this, only this. Strong arms held him and he could not even enjoy it. If there was a fate worse than death he had found it. To have everything and nothing he wanted, a dream and a nightmare stitched Freudianly together. He had the Bats' attention, he was held tight, could feel his heat…but the heat made him ill, his attention was on his mutilated, twisted, violated body and all he could do was grasp at the straws of himself not to vomit on the Bat who had been forced to hold his hair as he was sick on the ground.
He was not brought to his knees in front of an enemy, he was thrown face first into the muck in front of his soulmate, brought trembling to the ground in front of the yin to his yang.
Hell was wallowing in a pile of your own sick in front of the only person who had ever meant anything.
He would not puke on the Bat.
Finally something hard beneath him, flat, a bed. His body was twisted and there was no use.
He would not puke on the Bat.
Familiar, normally brutal hands pulled away and there was no time to think, he thrust his head over the side of the bed, opening his eyes for the first time since they left the car to see the single new mouthful of acid and bile land on the Bats' booted feet.
He lay back when his shaking body was satisfied.
Traitor.
He had puked on the Bat.
He bit back a whimper, not bothering to expel energy on the other person in the room until a cool, dry hand touched his forehead.
She was old and insignificant, but she did not make him move as she checked his pulse and his temperature. Considering his state she would be allowed to touch him and live, for now.
A sharp needle splitting open his vein was a welcome change to the gnawing cancer growing inside of him, familiar. He wished she would do it again, that the vein would collapse and she would be forced to stab again, give him another moment of fresh, clean, beautiful pain. Pain like he was still the smiling clown and not the bearded lady.
“What is that?” He asked, but expected no answer, a grunt perhaps from the Bat who now hovered over them both as if not sure who to protect, but a new soothing voice spoke.
“You are severely dehydrated, it is a miracle you are functioning at all, this is just an IV bag of fluid and nutrients.” She waited until his eyes were on her face to give him a warm smile. “When is the last time you ate?”
Her hands felt good on his fevered throat, he did not have the energy to flinch and reciprocate the venerable position. Did not have the energy to figure out the strange woman in front of him with the stranger smile.
It was the Bat who spoke for him in the stretching silence.
“He has lost a significant amount of his body weight.”
The Joker closed his eyes again and smiled, laying still at last felt good, almost bearable.
“Aw Bats” The words were soft and broken; he could feel the other two lean in to hear him. “I knew you cared about my girlish figure.” He wished the words had come out more vivid, more Joker and less…wrecked.
He fought back the pain of the too-bright lights just to see the Bat grimace, but any reaction from the Bat was overshadowed by the suppressed smile of the old woman with the cool hands.
Someone actually thought his jokes were funny.
So the Bat had the same taste in friends that he did in enemies.
No wonder Crane and the other head shrinks wanted him.
“Now what is this all about?” The woman had turned her sights on the Bat, it was a look that made the Joker want to laugh if it would not make him wretch. This tiny old woman was looking at Gotham’s Dark Knight like he had been caught stealing cookies. “You would not wake an old woman from her sleep for dehydration.”
Bruce looked between Leslie and the Joker; he silently wished the Joker would just blurt it out, save him from the words that stuck in his throat, unwilling to come out. He found his eyes drifting to the supine figure on the bed, the fevered green eyes that were looking up at him…looking just as lost as he felt.
He did not want Leslie to confirm a child, did not want to see proof of its existence, did not want to acknowledge with words the hell he found himself in. The unborn life set to torment because of him.
The Joker squirmed under his gaze, not fearing him, no, never him. It was an echo of himself he saw lying there, attached to this thing, this life, in a way he was not. It was cruel. It was unnecessary.
He did it anyway.
The Jokers weak hands pried at his grip as he unbuttoned the Jokers coat. A soft whimper escaped the clown when Batman had had enough and pinned both thin wrists above his head with a single hand, the other pulling up his shirt to reveal rounded flesh.
“No…” The Joker arched under his grasp but the shirt only fell higher, his back arcing until it was unmistakable next to his sunken ribs.
Batman let go when he heard Leslie’s soft gasp.
The Joker pulled his hands down and rubbed at the bruising flesh. Batman felt a surge of guilt. He was not use to the fragile new body in front of him.
His fault.
“How long?” Leslies voice was soft but even.
“87 days.” Batman replied without thinking. He froze when soft weak laughter filled the room, growing by the second.
The Joker was not embarrassed when tears streamed down his face this time. His stomach twisted as if it would revolt and climb out of his body, but it did not matter. He had not felt this good in months.
He laughed until all the breath was gone from him, laughed until the joyful sound became a breathless wheeze and those soft hands fell gently on his throat, counting the beats of his heart.
“You know-!” He choked. The words allowed another breath in and another burst of laughter escaped him. The smile hurt it was so wide, it felt like his scars were going to break open, crack and tear his face in two.
“You know how many days it has been.” A snicker. His vision was clearing even through the tears that now ran over his cheeks, his hands wiped at them.
“You know off the top of your head!”
The funny part is that after the shock and fear in his face… he was sure the Bat smiled too.
But when his wet lashes cleared the rest of the tears from his eyes the smile was gone, the Bats face was a mask of emptiness, feeling nothing, showing nothing. As if both their worlds were not being broken apart by a man who was dead and cold and had no legacy save for the time bomb ticking within the Jokers body. As if they could handle this night like it were any other. Like he did not feel the manic panic rising within him.
The woman smiled and settled a hand on his. Foolish. Stupid.
The panic ebbed. Just a little.
“My first priority is making sure you are both okay.” And just like that, without a single look of horror, without pity or disgust she got to work.
They were silent as she worked, what was there to say? They knew the diagnosis. Terminal. Terrible. Life altering. Life fucking. Life fucking to more than just strangers, more than just themselves…fucking something evil and innocent.
They were just waiting for the final confirmation. They both knew it was coming. Knew vaguely what to expect.
But they were not ready for it.
It was never suppose to be life this.
Leslie, the woman with the sweet smile and the cool hands had whispered the name to him like two school girls in sacred confidence. Leslie pulled up his shirt higher, revealing him to the air, to their eyes, to reality.
His body did not tense; the bile did not rise in his throat. Maybe he was getting use to it. Do the freaks in the circus get use to the stares and jeers? Can you be brought so low that nothing can touch you? Brought below human, brought to the level of lab rat? Malfunction of humanity? Rancid fluke in opposition to Darwinism?
Maybe it was the drugs.
The Bat took a step closer to the bed when she… when Leslie, put the cold gel on his parasite infused body, the Bat rested an armored hand on the edge of the bed. Not touching, just present.
The Joker was almost positive the Bats action was unconscious.
Leslie held a device to the sick expanded flesh, touching him, touching it. Their eyes were on him, dissecting him. Freak.
But she was not laughing, not sneering; her face showed none of the disgust he felt deep within his own violated body. The Bats face was serene in its emptiness yet…on edge; waiting for that final blow, but the shock had worn off.
If he squinted and pretended with all of his ample imagination the Bat was not waiting for news of an alien parasite infecting his greatest advisory…he was a man waiting for news of his first child.
Maybe it was not drugs after all.
Leslie was watching a screen he could not see, working in silence again. Time passed for minutes like this, the slick wet on his skin odd, drawing his attention, the disgusting gleam of it. She began to speak as her movements grew more sure over his abdomen.
“The surgeries were well executed, whatever they may have been. This was no hack job; they wanted you to survive this.” Her face was calm, even, like she had seen this every day of her life. Like she was more than just another human. He could picture her with a mask.
“They implanted areas of new tissue; it must have been a perfect match for you, grown for you, by you.” The Joker looked down at one of the shinning new surgical scars, fading somewhat now. Perfect freak.
He got the competent sociopathic doctors. What a relief.
She paused, the button on the hand device clicked. “Perfect” she whispered.
With a hint of a subdued smile she looked at the two imposing demigods in front of her, she looked at the Bat first then down to the Joker. Her smile grew.
“Do you want to see it?”
Normal. Expected. Just moving lines and blobs against a black screen. Nothing more than abstract art.
He nodded.
The monitor swiveled the same moment Leslie turned up the volume.
All sound of the life he had known disappeared and quick thrumming of a tiny fluttering heart filled this new world.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
The image move, it was alive and vibrant and flickered with the sound in his ears.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
Batman’s hand moved from the railing to his frozen, dead, hand.
A baby. A real, squirming, pink, human child. It had a heart.
They were so screwed.
The Joker did not speak again. Even when the clear sludge was wiped from his stomach he refused to comment, his only reaction was to bring his legs up, guarding it, hiding it, his pale hands brushing, and then holding the flesh, the creature.
The motion was enough to make him ill.
“Batman…Joker.” Leslie tried to catch their attention. The Bat had not spoken either; her only response was two sets of wide eyes turned on her.
“I believe you are suffering from a rare disorder associated with pregnancy. Hyperemesis gravidarum would explain the extreme nausea, the weightless and the dehydration…with the torment your body is going through with the mess of hormones both you and the implants are creating…”
“Will I die?” He whispered without looking up from where his legs cradled the bump.
“Not from this. Not with proper medical intervention.”
“…Will it die?”
“Not from this.”
Silence fell over them. Batman’s hand still rested still over the Jokers, the Jokers pale fingertips brushing his own stretched skin.
“Without the experiment and research data I cannot tell you much more without invasive and potentially harmful tests. I do not know if your body will be able to carry it to term, I do not know the effect it will have on you…”
For the first time she looked lost as the Joker glanced up at her through his downcast eyelashes.
“All I can tell you is that it will hurt. That you will be bedridden and sick and that leaving Batman now is an impossibility. I can treat the disorder but I cannot make the symptoms stop until the pregnancy is over.” She took a deep breath. She would have looked almost beautiful in a mask. Like them.
“I cannot tell you if it will survive.”
The Joker pulled the IV from his wrist; it had been there long enough. He would survive. Batman was looking down at him with an openly blank face but he could feel the turmoil behind the cowl, see it in the subtle press of his mouth. It was nice having your soul mate around, they could understand you even when they don’t agree with what they see. Words were unnecessary.
So when he held out his arms he was lifted off the bed and into strong arms.
The sun was rising. The time of the children of the night had come to an end. They needed time to think.
It was all too fast.
Thump-thump-thump
They walked out with an arsenal of medical equipment and promises of checkups from the maskless woman.
“It has a heart.”
Disclaimer: I own a substantial amount of debt and not a lot else.
Rating: R
Warnings: A Joker amount of swearing, violence...MPreg
Summary: All these things seem random, schizophrenic even until they all come crashing together in the most brutal of circumstances. Not drunk, not hung over or high, dressed impeccably in his tailored purple suit and his smiling face Joker was on his hands and knees vomiting in the bathroom.
A/N: Because nothing says bad luck like a Joker-whoops-a-baby. Special thanks to luc_darling who has been generous enough to beta read for me! <3
It was either very late at night or very, very early in the morning. Regardless, when Leslie picked up the phone her voice was warm and welcoming as he imagined his mother's would have been. Her voice had the calm even tone of a doctor but Bruce could hear the subtle worry infused in it, the unspoken questions. She always worried about him.
Every child deserved a mother.
“Are you okay?”
“I am fine.”
“Fine as in I should get the difibulator and break out a few pints of blood?”
“Fine as in I am driving someone else to see you at this hour.”
“Will they need the difibulator?”
Batman chanced a glance to the other seat where the Joker sat curled in on himself. His head lay against the cold glass of the window, his hands clenched over his stomach, eyes closed. He should really blindfold him before they got any further. The breath heaved in and out of him, lifting his slight chest; he was obviously forcing back the nausea that brought the fevered flush to his cheeks.
Did the churning in him hurt the creature inside? Did it mean something had gone wrong?
“I hope not.”
“I will see you in five.”
“Le-” Bruce stopped himself. It was not his place to give her name away, not his right to put her in danger for him, for them. “He is dangerous.”
The Joker let out a choked moan as the Batmobile took a sharp turn, jarring the careful position he had manipulated his body into. He gave no indication that he could even hear Bruce.
“Is he sick?” Leslie asked, her doctor mother voice calming the burn that had begun in his blood at the sick sound.
“Yes.”
“I will see you in four.”
It was never difficult to find a dark hiding place in Crime Alley; the only trick was finding one unoccupied by something potentially darker than yourself. The car went into lockdown as Bruce turned to the Joker.
He had been roused by the sudden stop the way a sleeping child would; weakly he lifted his head and offered Batman a painful smile, bitter and self-loathing.
“Cars don't seem to get alone with me anymore.”
His arms pulled at his shirt wretchedly, even in this semidarkness Batman could see the angry red scratches that now painted his pale flesh. The Joker had not been holding his stomach; he had been tearing at it. The thin purple fabric fell into place, hiding the angry welts, but its fold was off, obvious that something lay beneath.
“Blew up too many of their counterparts.”
The Jokers eyes stayed carefully closed until his coat was pulled into place, until there was no chance of an accidental glance. He was flushed with sickness and too many layers of clothing; he laid his cheek back on the cool window of the Batmobile.
He shivered despite it all and his smile seemed to die on his lips as he realized it was a wasted effort.
Nothing seemed funny right now.
Batman did not ask him if he could walk. The answer would be the same as on the roof and if not…Batman did not want to have to see that kind of self imposed torture, not now. He leaned over and unclipped the Jokers' still body, lifted it over the consol and onto himself.
“Wait-” The Joker paled as he was shifted again in Batman’s lap. The door was barely open when his upper body spilled out of the car and the contents of his stomach spilled out of him.
The gagging was horrible, thick mucus and sick were coming up in painful spurts of his seizing stomach, muscles being crushed and twisted as he forced his body unnaturally out of the car.
Before either man could think about it, a heavy arm was holding him up, supporting his slim weight. The other tangled almost gently in his hair, holding it back as he retched onto the filthy sidewalk.
The Joker wanted to die.
His stomach seized and pulled an agonizing muscle with the force of it, his face was suspended an inch from the pavement, a single strand of blond hung next to his face and his ass was half in the air like a deranged hooker. Too weak to do even wipe it away a string of saliva hung from his lips to the ground.
Tears sprung to his eyes.
If he was to die anyway he wished it would come soon.
Life was not worth this.
Not in front of the Bat.
But as the gagging slowed and stopped, for now, a gloved hand brushed the strand of blond out of his face and out of harm’s way, held with the rest above his neck.
It was sick and twisted and wrong… the intimacy of it made the tears come faster.
He could not do this anymore.
He lowered his head purposefully to the ground, just avoiding his own bile. He had sunk this low and could not bear any more. He would not let the Bat see him like this, so broken.
“Joker…”
The Bats voice was soft and unsure in a way he had never heard it before, not even their complicated relationship could survive this sickness. It ate at the foundations of his world.
“Leave me.”
He tried to crawl out on his hands and knees but the Bat held his waist with no more effort than he would a child. Booted feet touched the ground next to his head and he was lifted into the Bat's cold embrace, tucked carefully into place despite his squirming body.
“To what?” Batman asked ” To curl up and die?”
The Joker pouted and when the spinning world became too much to see through he laid his head on the Bats chest, surrendering for now.
“That was the general idea.”
He would not puke on the Bat.
He would not puke on the Bat.
His mantra took over the higher thought processes of his mind; he needed to focus on this, only this. Strong arms held him and he could not even enjoy it. If there was a fate worse than death he had found it. To have everything and nothing he wanted, a dream and a nightmare stitched Freudianly together. He had the Bats' attention, he was held tight, could feel his heat…but the heat made him ill, his attention was on his mutilated, twisted, violated body and all he could do was grasp at the straws of himself not to vomit on the Bat who had been forced to hold his hair as he was sick on the ground.
He was not brought to his knees in front of an enemy, he was thrown face first into the muck in front of his soulmate, brought trembling to the ground in front of the yin to his yang.
Hell was wallowing in a pile of your own sick in front of the only person who had ever meant anything.
He would not puke on the Bat.
Finally something hard beneath him, flat, a bed. His body was twisted and there was no use.
He would not puke on the Bat.
Familiar, normally brutal hands pulled away and there was no time to think, he thrust his head over the side of the bed, opening his eyes for the first time since they left the car to see the single new mouthful of acid and bile land on the Bats' booted feet.
He lay back when his shaking body was satisfied.
Traitor.
He had puked on the Bat.
He bit back a whimper, not bothering to expel energy on the other person in the room until a cool, dry hand touched his forehead.
She was old and insignificant, but she did not make him move as she checked his pulse and his temperature. Considering his state she would be allowed to touch him and live, for now.
A sharp needle splitting open his vein was a welcome change to the gnawing cancer growing inside of him, familiar. He wished she would do it again, that the vein would collapse and she would be forced to stab again, give him another moment of fresh, clean, beautiful pain. Pain like he was still the smiling clown and not the bearded lady.
“What is that?” He asked, but expected no answer, a grunt perhaps from the Bat who now hovered over them both as if not sure who to protect, but a new soothing voice spoke.
“You are severely dehydrated, it is a miracle you are functioning at all, this is just an IV bag of fluid and nutrients.” She waited until his eyes were on her face to give him a warm smile. “When is the last time you ate?”
Her hands felt good on his fevered throat, he did not have the energy to flinch and reciprocate the venerable position. Did not have the energy to figure out the strange woman in front of him with the stranger smile.
It was the Bat who spoke for him in the stretching silence.
“He has lost a significant amount of his body weight.”
The Joker closed his eyes again and smiled, laying still at last felt good, almost bearable.
“Aw Bats” The words were soft and broken; he could feel the other two lean in to hear him. “I knew you cared about my girlish figure.” He wished the words had come out more vivid, more Joker and less…wrecked.
He fought back the pain of the too-bright lights just to see the Bat grimace, but any reaction from the Bat was overshadowed by the suppressed smile of the old woman with the cool hands.
Someone actually thought his jokes were funny.
So the Bat had the same taste in friends that he did in enemies.
No wonder Crane and the other head shrinks wanted him.
“Now what is this all about?” The woman had turned her sights on the Bat, it was a look that made the Joker want to laugh if it would not make him wretch. This tiny old woman was looking at Gotham’s Dark Knight like he had been caught stealing cookies. “You would not wake an old woman from her sleep for dehydration.”
Bruce looked between Leslie and the Joker; he silently wished the Joker would just blurt it out, save him from the words that stuck in his throat, unwilling to come out. He found his eyes drifting to the supine figure on the bed, the fevered green eyes that were looking up at him…looking just as lost as he felt.
He did not want Leslie to confirm a child, did not want to see proof of its existence, did not want to acknowledge with words the hell he found himself in. The unborn life set to torment because of him.
The Joker squirmed under his gaze, not fearing him, no, never him. It was an echo of himself he saw lying there, attached to this thing, this life, in a way he was not. It was cruel. It was unnecessary.
He did it anyway.
The Jokers weak hands pried at his grip as he unbuttoned the Jokers coat. A soft whimper escaped the clown when Batman had had enough and pinned both thin wrists above his head with a single hand, the other pulling up his shirt to reveal rounded flesh.
“No…” The Joker arched under his grasp but the shirt only fell higher, his back arcing until it was unmistakable next to his sunken ribs.
Batman let go when he heard Leslie’s soft gasp.
The Joker pulled his hands down and rubbed at the bruising flesh. Batman felt a surge of guilt. He was not use to the fragile new body in front of him.
His fault.
“How long?” Leslies voice was soft but even.
“87 days.” Batman replied without thinking. He froze when soft weak laughter filled the room, growing by the second.
The Joker was not embarrassed when tears streamed down his face this time. His stomach twisted as if it would revolt and climb out of his body, but it did not matter. He had not felt this good in months.
He laughed until all the breath was gone from him, laughed until the joyful sound became a breathless wheeze and those soft hands fell gently on his throat, counting the beats of his heart.
“You know-!” He choked. The words allowed another breath in and another burst of laughter escaped him. The smile hurt it was so wide, it felt like his scars were going to break open, crack and tear his face in two.
“You know how many days it has been.” A snicker. His vision was clearing even through the tears that now ran over his cheeks, his hands wiped at them.
“You know off the top of your head!”
The funny part is that after the shock and fear in his face… he was sure the Bat smiled too.
But when his wet lashes cleared the rest of the tears from his eyes the smile was gone, the Bats face was a mask of emptiness, feeling nothing, showing nothing. As if both their worlds were not being broken apart by a man who was dead and cold and had no legacy save for the time bomb ticking within the Jokers body. As if they could handle this night like it were any other. Like he did not feel the manic panic rising within him.
The woman smiled and settled a hand on his. Foolish. Stupid.
The panic ebbed. Just a little.
“My first priority is making sure you are both okay.” And just like that, without a single look of horror, without pity or disgust she got to work.
They were silent as she worked, what was there to say? They knew the diagnosis. Terminal. Terrible. Life altering. Life fucking. Life fucking to more than just strangers, more than just themselves…fucking something evil and innocent.
They were just waiting for the final confirmation. They both knew it was coming. Knew vaguely what to expect.
But they were not ready for it.
It was never suppose to be life this.
Leslie, the woman with the sweet smile and the cool hands had whispered the name to him like two school girls in sacred confidence. Leslie pulled up his shirt higher, revealing him to the air, to their eyes, to reality.
His body did not tense; the bile did not rise in his throat. Maybe he was getting use to it. Do the freaks in the circus get use to the stares and jeers? Can you be brought so low that nothing can touch you? Brought below human, brought to the level of lab rat? Malfunction of humanity? Rancid fluke in opposition to Darwinism?
Maybe it was the drugs.
The Bat took a step closer to the bed when she… when Leslie, put the cold gel on his parasite infused body, the Bat rested an armored hand on the edge of the bed. Not touching, just present.
The Joker was almost positive the Bats action was unconscious.
Leslie held a device to the sick expanded flesh, touching him, touching it. Their eyes were on him, dissecting him. Freak.
But she was not laughing, not sneering; her face showed none of the disgust he felt deep within his own violated body. The Bats face was serene in its emptiness yet…on edge; waiting for that final blow, but the shock had worn off.
If he squinted and pretended with all of his ample imagination the Bat was not waiting for news of an alien parasite infecting his greatest advisory…he was a man waiting for news of his first child.
Maybe it was not drugs after all.
Leslie was watching a screen he could not see, working in silence again. Time passed for minutes like this, the slick wet on his skin odd, drawing his attention, the disgusting gleam of it. She began to speak as her movements grew more sure over his abdomen.
“The surgeries were well executed, whatever they may have been. This was no hack job; they wanted you to survive this.” Her face was calm, even, like she had seen this every day of her life. Like she was more than just another human. He could picture her with a mask.
“They implanted areas of new tissue; it must have been a perfect match for you, grown for you, by you.” The Joker looked down at one of the shinning new surgical scars, fading somewhat now. Perfect freak.
He got the competent sociopathic doctors. What a relief.
She paused, the button on the hand device clicked. “Perfect” she whispered.
With a hint of a subdued smile she looked at the two imposing demigods in front of her, she looked at the Bat first then down to the Joker. Her smile grew.
“Do you want to see it?”
Normal. Expected. Just moving lines and blobs against a black screen. Nothing more than abstract art.
He nodded.
The monitor swiveled the same moment Leslie turned up the volume.
All sound of the life he had known disappeared and quick thrumming of a tiny fluttering heart filled this new world.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
The image move, it was alive and vibrant and flickered with the sound in his ears.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump
Batman’s hand moved from the railing to his frozen, dead, hand.
A baby. A real, squirming, pink, human child. It had a heart.
They were so screwed.
The Joker did not speak again. Even when the clear sludge was wiped from his stomach he refused to comment, his only reaction was to bring his legs up, guarding it, hiding it, his pale hands brushing, and then holding the flesh, the creature.
The motion was enough to make him ill.
“Batman…Joker.” Leslie tried to catch their attention. The Bat had not spoken either; her only response was two sets of wide eyes turned on her.
“I believe you are suffering from a rare disorder associated with pregnancy. Hyperemesis gravidarum would explain the extreme nausea, the weightless and the dehydration…with the torment your body is going through with the mess of hormones both you and the implants are creating…”
“Will I die?” He whispered without looking up from where his legs cradled the bump.
“Not from this. Not with proper medical intervention.”
“…Will it die?”
“Not from this.”
Silence fell over them. Batman’s hand still rested still over the Jokers, the Jokers pale fingertips brushing his own stretched skin.
“Without the experiment and research data I cannot tell you much more without invasive and potentially harmful tests. I do not know if your body will be able to carry it to term, I do not know the effect it will have on you…”
For the first time she looked lost as the Joker glanced up at her through his downcast eyelashes.
“All I can tell you is that it will hurt. That you will be bedridden and sick and that leaving Batman now is an impossibility. I can treat the disorder but I cannot make the symptoms stop until the pregnancy is over.” She took a deep breath. She would have looked almost beautiful in a mask. Like them.
“I cannot tell you if it will survive.”
The Joker pulled the IV from his wrist; it had been there long enough. He would survive. Batman was looking down at him with an openly blank face but he could feel the turmoil behind the cowl, see it in the subtle press of his mouth. It was nice having your soul mate around, they could understand you even when they don’t agree with what they see. Words were unnecessary.
So when he held out his arms he was lifted off the bed and into strong arms.
The sun was rising. The time of the children of the night had come to an end. They needed time to think.
It was all too fast.
Thump-thump-thump
They walked out with an arsenal of medical equipment and promises of checkups from the maskless woman.
“It has a heart.”