Team Anarchy, Round Ten, Fanfic: I Got Music
Author: Fairlyfelonious
Title: I Got Music
Word count: 783
Raiting: pg
Disclaimer: I don’t own Batman, the Joker, Zatanna, the song: "I got rhythm, I got music", or the musical idea from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, upon which this was very vaguely inspired (since I haven't seen it years, but still remember that making non-musical characters sing was a fun idea).
Warnings: I have no excuse for this. Sorry, fans of everything I reference in this story, but I just couldn’t help myself. OOC crack, deliberately bad show tune lyrics, deus ex machina in which someone literally appears out of nowhere to move the plot forward.
Prompt: "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
--from The Dark Knight
Summary: What would have happened if someone had cast a spell on Batman and Joker during the interrogation scene, causing them to sing throughout the entire thing?
“A little less conversation, a little more action.” Elvis Presley
Batman was looming over the Joker from the other side of the interrogation table, doing his best to look like an intimidating creature of the night. The Joker just smiled up at him with a content sort of derangement.
“Why do you want to kill me?” he growled, sounding like a lawn mower that wouldn’t start.
“I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you?! Go back to rippin’ off the mob?”
“Why not? Not dangerous enough for you anymore?”
“Let’s see…how can I put this…”
Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and a woman with a top-hat and a skimpy pinstriped skirt-suit appeared in their midst.
There was silence for about two seconds.
“Why helloooo, sweetness, but if it’s not too much to ask-” the Joker started.
“Who the hell are you?” Batman said, unintentionally finishing the Joker’s sentence. “No offense, but half-dressed women don’t usually just materialize in the middle of police stations. This just doesn’t make sense.”
She smiled at him pleasantly.
“Zatanna Zatara, stage magician and sorceress. Pleased to meet your acquaintance. I’m bored, and you boys looked like you could use something to brighten up your lives a little bit. You take yourselves far too seriously.”
“Look honey, I’m the Joker, I don’t take anything seriously-”
“That’s not a good enough answer, and I don’t do this for myself,” Batman growled.
“Sure you don’t.” Then, with a mischievous wink in their direction, she said: “Gnis wohs senut.”
With that, she disappeared in a flash of light, just as suddenly as she had come.
Batman frowned.
“What in the world did she mean by, ‘gnis’?” he sang in a surprisingly pleasant baritone. “I just wish someone would explain all of this,” was added pointlessly, seemingly out of unquenchable compulsion to rhyme something.
The Joker rolled his eyes dramatically.
“She was obviously speaking backwards, Bat. She’s definitely magic, from the look of that hat,” he sang in a warbling tenor. “Now we must speak in just music and rhyme, but the clock has struck twelve, so we’re just out of time.”
Batman frowned, a little worried at the choice of words, but the Joker couldn’t have meant anything real serious by ‘we’re out of time,’ could he? No, that was ridiculous.
“But how to explain us so you’ll understand? We’re such different people, and you, with your plans…” he trailed off contemplatively, then grinned mischievously at Batman, and got down on bended knee before him, as if proposing.
“You complete me, my dear Batsy
but I hope you understand-
I mean that in the straightest sense
I’d say that to another man.
I’ve never once wanted
to grab that nice tush-
Or dance the love tango
As this town turns to mush
“I’ve never once dreamt
Of tying you up
Of knives, cuffs and clamps
And your kinky get-up
“So ask me again
to tell just where I hid them
I made you a killer
‘cause you know I wanna be…
Your victim!”
He ended on a crescendo, spreading his arms out in front of him as if waiting for applause.
There was silence for a few moments within the interrogation chamber, and without, until it was suddenly broken with cries of: “Crimes against music!” and “Somebody stop this monster!”
Batman, for his part, was still too taken aback by the out of tune voice and the stalker-like quality of the lyrics to register any ominous undertones or clues that the Joker might have given away during his enthusiastic serenade. He just stared at the Joker in shock until he remembered to scowl at him.
The Joker, who had been watching him hopefully for his reaction, slumped pitifully. Sure he was faking his sorrow in the way that two-year-olds cry when they don’t get there way, Batman ‘nudged’ him head first into the table to help him out of his tantrum. His enemy slid to the ground with a thud and began giggling and rolling around on the floor, somewhat concussed but not completely unconscious.
Commissioner Gordon chose this time to intervene, because he had been waiting for Batman to give the Joker a broken arm, or something. They had to get him back for the mayhem he had caused somehow.
“Thank god he’s done singing, but now that he’s dazed
How in cold hell will we find our DA’s?” he sang in a pleasant, if slightly airy tenor.
Batman’s eyes widened in horrified realization.
“What did that clown say about ‘out of time’?”
The Joker spoke up from the floor, where he had still been laughing and mumbling incoherently.
“They’d still be alive if you’d heeded my rhyme.”