Candy Cigarettes (3/4)

[draqonelle]

Title: Candy Cigarettes (3/4)
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Rating: PG-13 (Though I want to say R)
Word count: 15218
Warnings: Drug use, violence, disturbing imagery, and innuendo (Bats and Clowns do not make nice housepets)

Summary: Superman visits Arkham, and finds the Joker behind bars.  He and the Joker have an unusual conversation about Batman.

A/N: This is my first DC fic.  I really want to thank

quiet__tiger for the exhaustive beta read. (So many rounds. She is totally cool!  And all those that offered their support.  Hope you enjoy

The Joker was a thin figure, dandyish in proportion, but absolutely deprived of fat or bulk. He sat confidently, crossing bone-thin legs with an arch to his back and a dancer’s grace.

Despite the fact he had extremely expressive brown eyes, the Joker’s facial expression stayed just about the same: full of scorn and contempt and evil glee. It could have been the grimace he painted on his face, or his furrowed brows. It could have been that it was difficult for him to move the muscles on the right half of his face. Who knows? He gave his permanent smirk to Clark, sat there looking down his nose on him. A criminal in an insane asylum, chained like a beast, still possessed a sense of arrogance. Clark began to wonder if the Joker knew something he didn’t and it set him ill at ease.

“They’re letting you out of top level security?” Superman asked. He couldn’t believe he was sitting in Arkham talking with someone so dangerous in broad daylight, even drugged and handcuffed to the bars.

“For a little stroll among the hoi-polloi,” the Joker said. His verbal skills were up to par. It was hard to believe they had just injected him. Superman was no psychiatrist but wasn’t he supposed to be only semi-conscious right now? “I’m here to visit my friend Arnie until they fix my bachelor pad. I tried to hang up a swell picture of Elvis Presley in black velvet I bought. Well, someone replaced my Putty-Tak with C4. The whole wall went and I just laughed and laughed.”

“How did you get plastic explosives into your cell?” Superman asked.

“Internet.” Joker shrugged.

Superman was confused. “How-- ”

“I’m not supposed to be talking with other people until they fix my cell. I’m enjoying the chance to stretch my legs.” The Joker couldn’t make very dramatic gestures hobbled like this, but energy exuded from his face as he sat on the floor. The sedative didn’t really seem to be working.

"So here is the hero who’s dating Batman. I guess that makes him Fruitbatman, The Flying Fox of Gotham. Meow." He pulled himself up into a different position as he sat. "Congratulations are in order to the happy couple. I thought I was being trendy. Like the Will and Grace saying, you two were an item. I guess I‘m psychic. You are an item… for now.”

"I don't discuss my personal life with supervillains. It's not my style. And Batman wouldn’t like it.” There was no way he was going to let a psychopath like the Clown Prince of Gotham get under his skin about Bruce. Or give Batman’s enemies any more attention. This blatant homophobia was something that Superman didn't let affect him in uniform.   There were many pathetic people in the world always looking to blame those who were different. He would never forget that when people tried to bring him down, and tried to ignore their blatant ignorance and stupidity.

Since he and Batman began their relationship, they couldn’t hold everything in check anymore. They were more in tune in battle, argued more and were more expressive with each other. They did not play around in uniform. That was one of Bruce’s few stipulations. The JLA started uncovering the mystery with amusement and a lot of respect, happy their comrades had found each other. That didn’t make it easier for them to get along, but their colleagues always gave them a wide berth. Soon rumors circulated into the closely knit and insane community of supervillains.

Ironically, the villains were not surprised and didn't care as long as they could still strap them to a Phaser Cannon. Villains were selfish, sensual and megalomaniacal generally, and didn’t consider anything past their own nose. It became little more than a running gag, like the Flash having a big mouth or the Green Arrow being pussy whipped. Who would have thought the public they protected would be less tolerant then their whack job enemies? The whole world was in denial, it seemed, and it wasn’t something that Bruce ever wanted to talk about with him. Bruce was too determined to let things like that throw him off his game. Bruce invented the word macho.

"Now, now, Superpansy.” He gave a little grunt as he propped himself up against the wall to sit. His arms stretched out in front of him and to the left. He let out a grunt as he settled. “I'm not one to judge. I don‘t destroy people because they are gay and like to have a lot of sex. I‘m not the Catholic Church,” he said. “Just tell me, do you have to wear little silk boxers with bats all over them, or has he got over that possessive phase?”

“I don’t wear Bat-shaped boxers.”

“I hardly think you would look good in a thong, with those chubby thighs.”

“I am not talking to you,” Superman said. “Now sit down and stop making fun of me, you homophobic…”

“Homophobic. Harrumph. I’m way more gay than you.” Joker snorted at him contemptuously. “I'd been on the inside three times before Bats and I began our little fling, since I was 15. I've had my share of vanilla pudding." He licked his fingers.

Superman turned his head. He wasn’t going to be able to look Joker in the eye again without thinking about his wet finger making that popping sound from between his lips.

"The magnificent Dr. George decided that we all in the Rogue’s Gallery should focus on all the dark little secrets and boring little tragedies before we all met Batman. My mind can't help but reflect on those early days when I hear that no talent hack prattle on and on about coming to terms with the past. So many memories."

Superman continued to try to pretend he wasn’t there. But Joker would not tolerate being ignored. It was not an endearing character trait.

Joker pulled himself into an upright position, splaying his legs, almost lewdly. "Well, it’s about time you came down from Metropolis to see us. The whole world is abuzz with gossip about your budding romance. Going to the carnival and winning a stuffed bear. Milkshakes at the corner drugstore. Candlelight dinners on top of Mt. Rushmore next to Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. I can imagine the wholesome American fun you’d have on your dates.”

“I’m not talking to you, Joker. It’s sad how much you want attention.” Clark smirked to himself. That would shut him right up. The freak thinks he can rattle me. He just wants to pull my pigtails.

“How is the sex?” Joker asked as he stood up.

Joker stared right at him, every word dripping with husky exhalation. Superman was shocked, at the sound in his ear.

“How is the sex with Batman?” Joker asked; even though the Joker was shorter they were looking eye to eye now.

Superman bit his tongue to keep from screaming his head off at the psychopath.

“What, supermen don’t do that these days?” he asked.

Clark turned pink and stared straight at his feet.

“It’s good that our Dear Fruitbat found the only other being in the world that likes it so athletic,” he purred. “Let me guess, his favorite position is some insane choreography. Upside down in a cave in midair hanging from a rope.” Joker’s eyes sized him up, trailing up and down, as if measuring him for a giant super-harness.

“You are so lucky that he’s strong enough so you don’t snap him down the middle, like a cooked chicken. Unless the sex is that boring for you. He is so little and insignificant, it must do nothing for you. Like loving a little rat or a mouse or one of those little brown bats with brittle wings spread out all over you. But he must love all those bruises you put on his body.”

“I would never try to bruise him. I don‘t… I--” He felt compelled to defend himself at the wild accusation.

“I’ll bet you he has your superlogo burned into his ass with heat vision.” Joker licked his lips. “Meow.”

Superman was reminded of the reddish imprint of a hand and its palm he saw last week on Bruce’s thigh, when he gave Bruce an open palmed swat on the leg for trying to steal all the blankets, and the sharp hiss Bruce gave. Bruce retorted by straddling him and giving him the worst blue balls he had in his life. Clark wondered if the color of the bruise had improved in the last few days. Bruce didn’t think a spanking was fun if it was a surprise. He and Bruce were always bumping into each other in some fashion.

Superman tried to think about Bruce and not answer anymore of the man’s insane sex questions. That was private.

“You’re a masochist’s dream. You could crack open his skull with your finger. What does he use on you when he wants to get kinky? A crow bar? A semi-automatic? A bulldozer? If you ever need to spice up the old boudoir you can always borrow my shit.”

Superman groaned outwardly in disgust, though he tried to suppress it. This man was insane.

Joker’s hands were cuffed to the bars of course. He struggled to look into his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, but his hands were shackled together, so while he could walk, and move his arms, he couldn’t do a thing with his hands. He tried to grab one with his teeth. He was a tenacious bastard.

Superman unconsciously helped the man out. He took a few steps closer and reached through the bars, taking the cigarettes from his front pocket and handing him one. Superman was always ready to help. In seconds the Joker puffed away. Superman wondered if that was allowed, and how he lit the cigarette at all and so quickly. It was only then realized he had just helped the Joker.

“Such a gentleman.” Joker held the pack out for Superman to take one, gesturing.

“This is when I take a cigarette and it's poisoned and you say something schticky like 'Those things will kill you.' Or some off color joke about prison sodomy. And you shiv me in the neck..." Superman tried his hardest to brush the villain off.

“The correct verb is shank, Superman.” He actually held one of the cigarettes out to him. Clark scowled.

"What's it gonna do to you?” Joker looked at him wearily. “You’re invulnerable to poison. I’m tied up. What am I going to do to you? Break my ribs over your knee? You Superman. Me human.”

Clark grabbed the pack to crush it to tobacco and realized it was candy. That old brand of gum that looked like cigarettes and puffed sugary smoke in the air. His hand got dirty with white powder. Of course they wouldn’t let an arsonist, mad scientist, and urban combat specialist around a pack of matches.

Joker blew sugar dust in his face and laughed. He held the cigarette between two fingers and taunted him. "Freaking loser, taking gum from an old joker," the clown prince spat. "You should be thankful for that Bat out there, he's keeping your naïve ass alive." His dark eyes gleamed blacker than night. His teeth were clenched tight and angry, despite the smile. "You should give him a big old kiss,” his voice was so thick and husky, it was almost a growl, “and hug."

The Joker stuck out his obscenely long pointed tongue around the end his cigarette, past poorly painted lips. His tongue was not red enough to match his lips. He swallowed the whole cigarette with a slight bulge to his throat, crude and pornographically obvious. “Or is that something that supermen can’t do either. Would it snap off his head? Would you squeeze his lungs out through his mouth?”

The Joker's voice rang through the room. His strange voice. Always so full of vibrancy and life and menace. Everything was an exciting joke, and despite the condescending nature, might have at one point been a joy, an exciting and funny joke.

Clark was reminded of Bruce all of a sudden, and by extension the Batman, trading quips over a dark rooftop as chaos and debris and bullets rained about them. His baritone voice low and sarcastic, rustling in his lower register, like a thundercloud, as the Joker tenor cackled with his voice tremulous, sharp, and vibrant, reaching high into the treble range and low into the bass. Like the crackle of pure lightning. Each voice worked together in a terrible rhythm.

Someone up there must find it amusing, what Batman and Joker said to each other as they battled. Superman didn’t.

"On the inside, one needs a hobby, and obsessing over the World's Finest Superheroes seems as good as any."

“No one else is giving me a hard time. And it is none of your business, as I told you before,” Superman said.

“Awfully sensitive. I’ll bet I was right about the Superman-shaped bruise on his ass right now. You must have really let him have it. Did he say something unflattering?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose... He calls the shots. It‘s only fair. I--” Clark realized he was talking about his relationship with Batman with a crazy stranger. One who tried to kill both of them and anyone else he wanted on a whim. He felt somehow rooked. What was going on?

Joker looked all the way through him, like he was a piece of gauze. His hate and anger burned, the light from his dark eyes like black flint, a dark focused laser.

The Joker took out another candy cigarette, with his teeth that nestled in his pocket.. His voice got so soft it was like another person. He got a far off look in his eyes as he stopped focusing on Clark, and started reminiscing. "I don’t know how I get myself into these things. Do you ever ask yourself why these things happen? When we first began our relationship, I knew Batman… was experienced. He had been around the block. Even if it had been before he... became Batman.... he was a person who lived and loved and fought recklessly. Always struggling, always driving them away from him. Always biting back.   I knew I wouldn’t be his one and only villain.” He smirked. “There have been so many. Cute names, cute gimmicks, my dearest enemies." He sighed, and then laughed through his nose. "Poison Ivy, Two-Face, the Killer Pharaoh. A man who is fat and awful called Penguin. What kind of villain is that? They all can’t wait to get at you, too. It would make them so happy to see you both dead. The triumph to their little criminal careers. The death of the World’s Finest."

Joker finally returned his attention to Superman. "But I don't have to stand up to you. How long are you going to tolerate it all? How long can a person like you be with a person like him and not resent it all? You resent him and you resent yourself. You’re trying to turn a predator into some ridiculous house pet?” he asked. “The Bat is mine."

Superman stared at the villain dumbfounded.

“Batman is mine.” Joker repeated.

"No,” Superman actually tried to argue. As if he was beginning to believe this insane drugged up clown had a point. And that point was so powerful they were going to have an argument. “I don't think he likes you like that way. He hates you," he said. “You are a terrible person.” He was actually trying to defend his position, instead of ignoring the creep.

Joker motioned him over to the bars, still a little weak from the injection. Superman stood stock-still. The Joker’s white bony fingers seemed stark in the shadow. Superman did not want to get trapped. He stared at the man.

“He doesn’t love you,” Superman said. “He loves me. He told me he loves me. So you have to-” Clark was cut off as he heard a startling steel thud.

The Joker’s shackled hands wrapped around the bars, and he lifted himself up right in Clark’s face. Once he stood, he let go of the bars and paced to the end of his chain, testing its length. At the same time he stared at Superman and began to stare. The Joker stroked his own cheek, the other hand hanging limply as its neighbor stroked his white skin. His finger stroked a short trail from the perverse dimple on his cheek and the vicious scar, over and over again, until a little red from those lips eked into the white. It turned the lead white paint into a mess with streaks of foul pink, like a blood infection. 
They stood staring at each other, sizing up the threat.

Joker spoke first. "There is nothing more I want in this life than to hurt him." The Joker came close. Inappropriately close. He could smell some kind of shaving cream or lotion that was usually alcoholic, and cheap but sweet. The muscles in the Joker’s face twitched and tensed in terrible erratic patterns. A short scan with his x-ray vision indicated extensive nerve damage in his face. It made it easy for Joker to appear to be smiling. Anyone with eyes could see tension in the back or the shoulders, but most tension was carried in the face. Superman sensed the muscles in his cheek and jaws were tense. They twitched. They must have hurt.

What did it feel like to never stop smiling?

"What can I do, though? Kill him. Tease that little bratty kid and throw him off a building. Get my dumb as fuck girlfriend to chase him around with a death ray or something," Joker said, his teeth gritting, maybe the only evidence that he wanted to frown, the only indication that he wanted to scream out in pain.

This was taking too long. Superman felt cold. He shook his head. "I’m really so sad for you, Joker," he tried to say blandly, with some sort of compassion for the man, but his voice was laced with irrational anger. He hated that the Joker was bragging about all the horrible things he did to Bruce. Ugh. He hated people who bragged. “You are so unlucky.” Clark tried to glare at him, but he found himself backing away from the bars. “Who would have thought it was so hard to be a tacky comedian mass murderer.”

"Shut up, Superman. You’re the one that really hurts him. You really wanna get that Bat? You get him in here." He awkwardly tried to point at his heart, but his hands were constrained by the shackles. “Where everything is still weak and young. He’s still like a baby in there. The carpet doesn’t match the drapes. He’s a mess on the inside. You just see his mind, or his body.” The shackles were too tight and he laughed at that, staring at his useless hands like a drunken man. Joker shambled and limped towards Superman as he tried to back away from the Joker, “You don’t see what’s going on in the heart.” Joker’s fingers were brushing against his cape. Superman stopped running.

"Now I wonder what super stunt you pulled on old Bats to get him to open that old rusty gearbox in his chest. He doesn't have a sense of humor. Maybe it was just an illusion of the physical intimacy.” He said those words so slow, Clark could feel them over his cheek, rife with heat and moisture. “You might think of him as a genius, but down at the heart of it... he is a bit of a brute." His human-colored tongue skated over his lips. "He’s a physical, urgent creature, begging to be tamed."

"He has a great sense of humor!" Clark barked at him. "He just thinks you are a freak.” He didn't want this man talking about Bruce. Clark was stepping away, perhaps in fear. "And he... he loves me. So you stop talking about him. Or I-"

"Really, then? I don't know how I will sleep." He cried a crocodile tear. He leaned into the bars. Stretched out his back, somehow catlike. “Knowing he doesn’t love me. Boo hoo hoo. How will I ever live without glory of his bountiless affection?” Bountiless wasn’t even a word.

"Is everything always a joke to you?" Superman’s voice was losing its angry edge, sounding more upset now; he wanted to leave this room forever.

"I like to laugh," Joker said. "It beats the alternative." His eyes seemed to shine white as they slipped around in the dark, the dark brown melting into the background. "Where is that big happy grin of yours, Mein Ubermensch? What, doesn’t the thought of going home to happy Fruitbat make your heart swell up with glee?” He gaped. “Is it because you know I am not bullshitting you and all of it is a damn lie?”

Joker leaned in as if to tell him a secret. Clark was transfixed, as Joker bent over to stare at him. "It won't make much of a difference if you are here or not. Here, there, in his Batcave, in his bed, no matter to me, no matter to him.” Joker‘s eyes gleamed. “He's still good old Bats. Angry, full of wrath and arrogance, vengeful, and with no sense of fun, no sense of style, no spirit of giving, no mercy, no heart. He will always be Batman first.”

Superman shook his head. "Batman is a good man. He risks himself more than anyone I have ever met for the good of us all. We are superheroes. It is our duty to put the needs of the many above our own needs. I understand that he needs to protect the weak. I know why he needs to protect himself. I can forgive that. Me and him, we’re new together. I don‘t expect everything at once. I--"

"Really? He will always be Batman first. There will never be a single moment in all your dreary personal history to come that will have more meaning to him than that, nothing would make him feel like I did. One night he will forget your anniversary and not come home because he is chasing me down in a cold alley. One day you’ll feel compelled to adopt ugly foreign children and he’ll tell you no, because he can’t keep them safe. I’m already the reason he decided never to physically procreate children of his own, and makes him fill his Batcave with little orphan waifs. He’ll never get a kitty cat or a puppy dog, fearing I’d poison them or kidnap them.”

Joker leered at Clark obscenely; the edge of his tongue slipping in and out of his mouth as he spoke; his darkness and fine features were hypnotic and terrible. “One night, you two are going to be in bed. You’ll be trying so hard to please him, and that signal will go off in the night sky, because I felt like seeing him again. And he is going to leave you in that bed alone. Because what can you really do for him?”

Clark felt weak with anger. Joker lowered his voice for emphasis and whispered in his ear. “You know, when it rains and all his old injuries swell up, I’ll bet you’ve see the one on his knee, you know the one with the jagged scar on it, and you rub your hand over it and he just melts in relief. You know which one. It’s probably one of your go-to moves when you want to get him in the sack.”

How did Joker know? How did he know Bruce’s body so well? Clark was jealous and jilted and angry.

“That was me. I took one of those pretty swords. I find it so funny that he likes to pretend he’s Japanese when he’s nothing but a silly little WASP.” He chuckled to himself. “I had two swords. The long one and the short one. I took the big long steel. And I CUT him. I plunged it all the way through the leg and into his ankle until he was pinned on his knees to the ground. And I pulled the short one in and out, in and out, wherever I could touch.” The Joker opened his collar. “Is it hot in here?”

“You… are… just… crazy.” Superman tried to repeat the words again, hoping they would mean something. He slowly tried to control his strength, trying not to kill anyone or melt anyone.

Clark should have realized there was something unusual going on as the Joker opened his collar as he spoke. It was an awkward angle with the shackles but he managed somehow. Fingers toying with the buttons as he languished over the images of violence “He took this little cannon grappling thing and he was screaming,” the Joker tore off the third button,   “And pressed against my chest right here.” The Joker pointed to the scars on his chest. His chest was flesh colored compared to his hands. Except for a blast burn with five fiery points. There were burns and scars in the shape of hooks and batarangs in his flesh. Superman was repulsed and disgusted by the vivid eidetic memory of pain, how the Batman and the Joker remembered the pain that they could caused each other. He could hear Bruce’s voice telling the stupid stories behind each scar on his body and pretending he was interested in each one, each story worse to Clark than a wound of his own. Clark was furious at the terrible communication between Batman and all his enemies carved in his skin.

“You know, Batman gives as good as he gets. After that little date, we both couldn‘t get out of bed for more than a week.” Joker almost reached out to touch him before Clark backed away again.

“Shut up.” Clark’s fingers buckled the steel as he pressed against the bars and in an impotent gesture twisted the wall, like it was a silk curtain and not iron bars. “No more.” At each word his nails dug deeper into the cage. Having all of his insecurity and fear exposed caused every muscle in his body to tense up. He was so mad he didn’t even know whom he wanted to hurt. Bruce, the Joker, or himself. But he was going to try to--

Clark snapped to attention.

“Thank you for the assist, Ubermensch. But I think I can get out of this cell myself.” Joker kicked at the wall. The great steel frame fell off its hinges. “Christ, you’re a strong one. Now, I’m safer in here. What is wrong with you, jealous asshole?” He buttoned up his shirt one-handed. “After all, you’re the one he loves. You’re his raison’ d’etre. You’re the one he goes home with every night. He does say ‘I love you’ every single day?” The Joker gave him his brightest, cruelest smile. “You certainly are the luckiest guy I know.”

“He doesn’t have to,” Superman said. The steel gate hung crookedly on its hinges. He reached down to try to put the steel frame of the bars back, but it had come down crooked, hanging at an awkward angle. “I just-- I just know.”

Joker laughed at his expense. "I suppose that is cold comfort. Maybe it will make it all the more bearable that an ass like you will cry like a little jealous bitch when you have to watch him die one day. When I kill him. Has to happen one of these days. I‘m not getting any younger," Joker said. "I'll take care of him. It's gonna be me who takes him out of this life," he said. "Someone has to...."   And Joker's eyes locked in on Clark's eyes. They remained there. "Take care of him."

Clark froze completely, his expectations and mind in tatters as the Clown picked away at every fear and anxiety in his big swollen head. He wasn’t going to break the bars on the cage for Joker, and let the man run free.

“Nice try. You’re just lying,” Clark lied to himself, and to the Joker. “You’re just trying to get me mad. You didn’t mean any of it.”

Joker walked closer, one of his hands on Superman's uniform. "I’m so glad I’m not lying for once.” Joker smiled at him, his fingers tracing his destroyed cheek all the way down to one of the scars from Batman down his chest around his collarbone. The line he traced against his skin turned pink as the Joker rubbed it away.

The Joker looked up at Clark, his body thinner and smaller than Bruce’s. His nostrils flared; Clark stared him in the eyes. “Why don't you... give him something from me?" the Joker asked.

Clark stared at the Joker as he came close enough to grab him, with a new purpose in mind other than the psychological games. Almost faster then Clark could process it, the Joker grabbed him with his freed hand. Clark realized this too late.

The Joker was no longer shackled.

Both white hands came right through the bars, white fingers against his face. The Joker's lips pressed against his. Clark inhaled him without realizing it, as the mad clown stepped into the kiss, grabbing him by his hair.  Clark closed his eyes, as the Joker’s flashing tongue tried to work past the defenses of Clark’s mouth. Clark couldn’t breathe. The broken steel creaked as he tried to pull away, without ripping his head off like a daisy head from its stem. The Joker broke away first.

Because the bastard was tackled to the wall. Batman had Joker’s arm pinned quickly, but Joker kicked him. The Batman shouted. Even with his hands in broken shackles, the clown still could grapple with Batman. He kicked at his stomach and face. The fight went quickly; all the orderlies rushed in, from escorting Arnie. All they saw was a blur of rainbow colors and black on the floor, too chaotic for mortals to touch. Panicked, Clark ripped through the bars, tossing them to the ground, trying to protect Bruce. “Stop.”

The Joker used the jagged end of the shiv to cut Batman’s cheek. The flurry ended as expected. Batman held the clown in a chokehold, sleeper hold. “I got this, Superman. Don’t you worry. The Joker is under control. That explosion was just a cover so he could get out of his cell. He’s making a go at an escape.”

"Well, Bats. I was just handing your dear fiancé your wedding present," he said. “I hope you don’t hold it against me that it is so late. It’s so gauche that I forgot.” He tried to break free from his hold. “Why didn’t you tell me you eloped? I could have been your maid of honor if you had done a big church wedding like your Papa had wanted.”

"Thanks for the courtesy. There is no one else I would have wanted to call dead last." Batman revealed nothing in his face. The orderlies took control. They put him an arm lock and held him in place.

Despite the Joker being immobilized and under control, Batman wasn’t done with him. The titans stood face to face. Batman was close enough to smell his sugary gum. They were too close.

Joker fake sniffled. “Uh-oh, Daddy’s home,” Joker said. “I’m shaking in my boots. If he doesn‘t want to play, take him out of the ring. You brought him into my world, Batman.”

“You should pick on someone your own size, Joker. You really are pathetic. Miss talking to people? It must get so lonely with no one to torment. No one to belittle. Just you and yourself.” The hollow glint that covered his eyes in the cowl disguised something darker then normal, but Batman had his usual expression of cold focus.

Joker made an attempt to kick him in the groin.

“You seem very dense today, Joker. He is mine. Do not fuck with him. Or do we have to go over this again?” Batman said coldly.

Joker pretended not to hear him. “Soupie just has to develop a sense of humor. Don’t worry, he might be a little dim but he’ll get the hang of it. Fabulous kisser.”

“That is not what you are supposed to say, Joker.“ Batman shook his head. Then like a lightning bolt he backhanded the mental patient. “Repeat after me. I will not fuck around with Superman.”

“I will not fuck--”

Batman punched him in the stomach. He inspected the shiv he had wrestled from the Joker. It was so sharp it cut away at his rubber gloves. Batman looked as if he got pricked.

Batman held the shattered metal to the Clown’s throat.

“--Around with Superman. I will not FUCK around with Superman,” the Joker repeated. The clown coughed as the punch knocked out his wind and a little blood from where he bit his cheek. Batman disengaged.

“We’re getting too old for this shit.” Batman rubbed his shoulder, where he had tackled the clown. He turned away from the Joker, looking over his shoulder. “Stop being a pain in the ass.”

Joker tried to catch his breath. "All those days working on the best shiv I made in my life. Using nothing but the edge of the zipper on my mattress and a USB drive, and the first person I see is a Man of Steel," he said from the floor. “He bends the whole blade with his skin.”

Batman inspected the shiv, and now the damaged glove, and possibly his cut skin. Clark couldn’t see over there and was too rattled to use his powers. It took a few seconds to catch his bearing. It’s fine. Clark used his normal sight. Batman didn’t prick his finger all the way through. The blade of the shiv was twisted and bent but it would have killed anyone else.

"Look at how funny that thing looks now..." And the Joker burst into laughter.

Clark was too stunned to speak. He watched Batman move away from the Joker. His whole body was stiff armed and light-footed in his jackboots, like a cat on the prowl. He kept his eyes on Joker the whole time.

Batman looked into Joker's eyes, didn't blink, didn't look away. Predator to Predator, on some common ground. "Isn't that funny?" Joker's laugh descended into wild chaos.

Clark shivered everywhere. Batman didn't look at him; his eyes had other things to look at. "If you want to join us in the real world there is some damage control to deal with, Superman." Batman didn't look at him. “That must have been some kiss there.” Batman joked to his partner.

Batman was still looking at Joker. He even turned his head to look back as they left the room.

Clark had never felt so alone in his life as he walked out of that room.
Next part