The Dark Knight, various, After the Fire
After the Fire
Fandom: The Dark Knight
Pairings: Harvey/Bruce; Joker/Rachel; Joker/Harvey/Rachel; Joker & Batman
Written for various prompts at the porn battle.
Recovery
At first Harvey won’t speak. On the occasion that he’s awake he only cries from one eye and stares with the other, out the window, at the door, the ceiling. Never the mirror.
He doesn’t speak until Bruce visits and that’s only to shout invective at the man until the well-paid and very discreet nurses come in along with the big men in white coats and even when he’s so doped up a wet stain of drool forms on his pillow, the one eye, that familiar villain glare, fixes Bruce with blame.
Bruce stays away until he can’t and he finds a different Harvey altogether, docile with the nurses, pleasant to staff, joking a little about the predicament he’s in, remarking on the fragility of the political mind. Joking.
He speaks to Bruce like they are old friends and Bruce needs it so much, aches for forgiveness, needs it to be okay, that when Harvey touches his face he leans in gratefully for the kiss.
On his next visit he locks the door on a not-so-whim and after the kissing Harvey’s hand traces Bruce’s cock through slacks and Bruce pushes aside hospital gown to take Harvey into his mouth. It feels like amnesty, like absolution, the white behind his eyes when he comes and when Harvey comes for him and when Harvey kisses him with patience and understanding. And every week he comes back for this, sometimes more often when the need is too great. Not for release, for repentance.
And then Harvey is gone.
There’s a little blood on the sheets but not enough, and a note on construction paper, written in crayon that says, “Get your own, Wayne. This Pinocchio’s mine.”
He’s shaking when he washes his hands, his face, in the sink in the bathroom in the room in the asylum which he thinks should probably be his room and his sink, and in the mirror when it fogs from the steam is the word, “killer,” and he isn’t sure that he’s not the one who put it there.
After the Fire
When Joker escapes it’s like he was never locked up and he might as well be frolicking through a meadow of flowers for all that he seems to care about cops or even Batman. He enjoys seeing the city turn its back on the Batman. It’s a little weight off his shoulders but it will make it less satisfying when he clips the bat’s wings.
He all but skips into the Narrows and meets with the man he’s paid an awful lot for this, a man he can trust to be bought if nothing else. But there’s less satisfaction in killing him than there is in seeing what he’s been keeping.
She lies on a plain bed in a plain room with too-bright lights reflecting off of once-white sheets now discolored with filth and blood. She hadn’t been awake when he saw her last. He didn’t know what her mind was like, so it’s such a pleasure, such a great pleasure when she looks up at him without recognition or fear or distrust and asks him for help. Please. He touches the bandaging on her head and warm tears slip from her eyes when she closes them. He removes old bandages and inspects the burns, the barely there fuzz where what little hair can still grow makes the effort.
“I’ve got you, pumpkin,” he says. She seems grateful.
He bathes her, gives her a rubber ducky, and when she’s relaxed he slips his hand into the water and fondles her clit until her head rolls and she grips the sides of the bath and says simply, “oh”. When she opens her eyes it is with trust and lust and, he thinks, admiration, though it’s not something he’s likely to recognize. And then a strange thing happens.
She laughs at him.
And laughs.
And when she cries beneath it all he begins to laugh back.
He buys her clothes from a costume shop, a suit with a full cowl and head piece to keep her from being so self conscious or to keep the world from seeing the beauty he’s made, he’s not sure. He calls her Harley and she giggles, strutting, showing off her body in the black and red lycra. She giggles again, spinning to look at him and says “hah!”, and to his great delight she begins to dance about and as suddenly and easily as walking she is backflipping from one end of the room to the other while he claps for her, rises from his chair and embraces her from behind while she breathes frantically, giddily, turns to him, face in his neck and laughs. And laughs.
He holds her by the waist and the base of her skull, the bells on her costume tinkling in time to her high, desperate laugh, hot and wet and beautiful against his neck, and says simply, “Oh.”
Laughter is the Best Medicine
“I have something for you,” he says to Harvey when he steps through the door of Harvey’s hospital room dressed as a doctor, a shapely nurse by his side that Harvey doesn’t seem to recognize nor pay much mind. A shame, the Joker thinks. Can’t see the forest for the incinerated trees.
He’d left the nurse’s costume up to her this time. She wears it better. Only a little. She’s taken to villainy as wholeheartedly as she did the law. She excels at it. She lives for him.
Harvey still isn’t talking, only staring, even when Joker slaps his face, the clean half, happy to redden the perfect cheek and honestly a little disgusted by the other.
“You’re not paying attention, Mr. Dent,” Joker says, pulling Harley by the arm and into Harvey’s unwavering line of sight. “I’ve come to pay the Piper, so start blowing.”
She’s wearing a wig and some makeup to cover what facial scarring has yet to heal. It’s a good look for her. He only had to slit one throat on the way into the heavily-guarded hospital. But it struck a different picture than Harvey had in his album of memories of her and it took a little time for his eyes to shift, focus.
Waiting, arm in Joker’s grip, she seems unsure and Joker feels her shake. This isn’t like his Harley, this fear. He wonders if it’s the face, or the memory, or if this was a mistake. “Pumpkin,” he says to her, “what did I tell you about being nice to Uncle Harvey?”
Eyes on Joker now she smiles, laughs suddenly, and unbuttons the front of her dress.
“Good girl,” Joker says. He crawls onto Harvey’s bed and pulls her with him, positions her in front of him to straddle Harvey’s waist. He moves behind her, sound of a zipper. Harvey still only stares, wide-eyed and disbelieving and the first words he says, broken and quiet are, “look at me”, but she doesn’t and she won’t and after a while she closes her eyes.
“You can’t have her, Harvey, not yet,” Joker says, “we’ll save that for your comeback party. But for now we’ll pretend and you can touch if you want,” he takes Harvey’s hand and places it on her breast, looking down over her shoulder, both at the contact and at Harvey’s wild expression. The plan was to fuck her on top of him but plans are like personalities, ever changing, and when his pants are off he puts her hand over Harvey’s mouth and tells her not to let the noise out, and he sinks himself onto Harvey’s erection, takes in the muffled cry with more than a little satisfaction.
If Harvey’s never fucked a man his cock doesn’t know the difference and anyway Joker knows a trick or two. His own moves against her back, the smooth fabric of her dress, and he wonders if he could get her up onto it, but it seems like too much trouble because he’s going to come any second anyway, he’s sure of it. He feels her tremble against him, reaches to her cunt but she’s already helping herself. On her breast he finds Harvey’s hand where he placed it, and he fondles breast through hand. She’s laughing and he can feel her tears as they land on his fingers and when he cups his palm to catch them he comes, and Harvey after. Harvey’s been chanting “look at me” and Joker only now pays it any mind, leans forward, smiles down over her shoulder.
“She can’t see you, Phantom,” he says. “You’re not here.”
They visit him once more. Harvey stabs him with a pen before she can sedate him, but Joker only considers it Harvey’s funny idea of a greeting. After all, they're in this together now.
Two Sides to Every Story
When they find Harvey and the girl on the street outside of Wayne Enterprises, it can’t be kept out of the papers. Dent Plummets to Death with Unidentified Masked Woman. That’s news you can’t hide with any amount of money. That the woman is Rachel Dawes won’t be discovered for another day.
He finds Joker in a warehouse, drinking like he’s looking to drown above water. He’s sitting in an old stuffed armchair someone has obviously pulled from a dumpster.
“You killed them,” Batman says through Bruce’s lips and Bruce thinks ‘liar’.
“Wrong as always,” Joker says, “do you ever know what you’re talking about? Are you ever in on it, Bat? Mr. Man?”
He should tie him up, take him to the authorities, but he waits instead, stands out of reach, watches Joker’s head roll against the chairback.
“Tell me,” he says.
The Joker shrugs with some effort. “I’m Jesus,” he says. “I brought her back!” He laughs but it subsides and he’s languishing again. “But he was a non-believer and he wanted to save her soul.”
“Make sense, Joker, or I break my own rules.”
Joker smiles. “Did you know she was a gymnast? In school? Did you know that?” He stands and sways, rights himself and walks toward Bruce. “Did you go to school with her, Bat? Did you date, I wonder? Did you know the intimate secrets of her heart? Did you ever take her to a dance, fuck her under the bleachers, keep her panties in your pocket and sniff them during math quizzes?”
Bruce swings and makes contact with Joker’s jaw easily. Joker stumbles, picks himself up. Laughs. Laughs. “Or was it Harvey you fondled urgently in secret, in shame. Is that why you hide behind your mask? Poor queer Batman, so misunderstood!” He’s hysterical when he drops to his knees, gropes at Batman’s thighs and nuzzles the codpiece. Batman doesn’t waver; Bruce doesn’t know why he doesn’t. By the time Joker’s calm again he’s trying in earnest to find a zipper or something like it.
“Help me out here, Bats. It’s not everyday you’re going to have a psychopath offering to suck you off.”
Batman looks down at him, pulls the man’s head back by the hair. “Tell me,” he says again.
Joker smiles up at him, eyes closed. “He had to have her. He had to have her. And she wasn’t there anymore. So he took what was left.” When he opens his eyes again he laughs and licks his lips and lets the smile fade entirely. He reaches into his vest and Batman jerks his head but the Joker pulls away a cloth, bloody, soaked, and dark.
“Last wish, Bats,” he says, so serious, breathing loud and heavy, “I always wanted to go out fucking or fighting or laughing.”
When he lets go Joker all but falls forward onto him. There’s a wet sound and a black pool forms at his feet. He considers releasing the codpiece, but before he can Joker sits back onto his haunches, then slumps further, head nodding. He kneels to Joker’s level, lifts the scarred face to look at him. He has to hold the man steady to kiss him, and when Joker kisses back he tastes blood and Bruce draws away quickly. Joker smiles, eyes blind, says something so quiet Bruce might have missed it without the bat ears, then slips from his hands and sprawls on the floor.
Batman stands, blood on his boots. When he steps back dark footprints follow him, chase him.
“When I’m with you,” Joker had said, “I can’t tell which one of us is the villain.”
Fandom: The Dark Knight
Pairings: Harvey/Bruce; Joker/Rachel; Joker/Harvey/Rachel; Joker & Batman
Written for various prompts at the porn battle.
Recovery
At first Harvey won’t speak. On the occasion that he’s awake he only cries from one eye and stares with the other, out the window, at the door, the ceiling. Never the mirror.
He doesn’t speak until Bruce visits and that’s only to shout invective at the man until the well-paid and very discreet nurses come in along with the big men in white coats and even when he’s so doped up a wet stain of drool forms on his pillow, the one eye, that familiar villain glare, fixes Bruce with blame.
Bruce stays away until he can’t and he finds a different Harvey altogether, docile with the nurses, pleasant to staff, joking a little about the predicament he’s in, remarking on the fragility of the political mind. Joking.
He speaks to Bruce like they are old friends and Bruce needs it so much, aches for forgiveness, needs it to be okay, that when Harvey touches his face he leans in gratefully for the kiss.
On his next visit he locks the door on a not-so-whim and after the kissing Harvey’s hand traces Bruce’s cock through slacks and Bruce pushes aside hospital gown to take Harvey into his mouth. It feels like amnesty, like absolution, the white behind his eyes when he comes and when Harvey comes for him and when Harvey kisses him with patience and understanding. And every week he comes back for this, sometimes more often when the need is too great. Not for release, for repentance.
And then Harvey is gone.
There’s a little blood on the sheets but not enough, and a note on construction paper, written in crayon that says, “Get your own, Wayne. This Pinocchio’s mine.”
He’s shaking when he washes his hands, his face, in the sink in the bathroom in the room in the asylum which he thinks should probably be his room and his sink, and in the mirror when it fogs from the steam is the word, “killer,” and he isn’t sure that he’s not the one who put it there.
After the Fire
When Joker escapes it’s like he was never locked up and he might as well be frolicking through a meadow of flowers for all that he seems to care about cops or even Batman. He enjoys seeing the city turn its back on the Batman. It’s a little weight off his shoulders but it will make it less satisfying when he clips the bat’s wings.
He all but skips into the Narrows and meets with the man he’s paid an awful lot for this, a man he can trust to be bought if nothing else. But there’s less satisfaction in killing him than there is in seeing what he’s been keeping.
She lies on a plain bed in a plain room with too-bright lights reflecting off of once-white sheets now discolored with filth and blood. She hadn’t been awake when he saw her last. He didn’t know what her mind was like, so it’s such a pleasure, such a great pleasure when she looks up at him without recognition or fear or distrust and asks him for help. Please. He touches the bandaging on her head and warm tears slip from her eyes when she closes them. He removes old bandages and inspects the burns, the barely there fuzz where what little hair can still grow makes the effort.
“I’ve got you, pumpkin,” he says. She seems grateful.
He bathes her, gives her a rubber ducky, and when she’s relaxed he slips his hand into the water and fondles her clit until her head rolls and she grips the sides of the bath and says simply, “oh”. When she opens her eyes it is with trust and lust and, he thinks, admiration, though it’s not something he’s likely to recognize. And then a strange thing happens.
She laughs at him.
And laughs.
And when she cries beneath it all he begins to laugh back.
He buys her clothes from a costume shop, a suit with a full cowl and head piece to keep her from being so self conscious or to keep the world from seeing the beauty he’s made, he’s not sure. He calls her Harley and she giggles, strutting, showing off her body in the black and red lycra. She giggles again, spinning to look at him and says “hah!”, and to his great delight she begins to dance about and as suddenly and easily as walking she is backflipping from one end of the room to the other while he claps for her, rises from his chair and embraces her from behind while she breathes frantically, giddily, turns to him, face in his neck and laughs. And laughs.
He holds her by the waist and the base of her skull, the bells on her costume tinkling in time to her high, desperate laugh, hot and wet and beautiful against his neck, and says simply, “Oh.”
Laughter is the Best Medicine
“I have something for you,” he says to Harvey when he steps through the door of Harvey’s hospital room dressed as a doctor, a shapely nurse by his side that Harvey doesn’t seem to recognize nor pay much mind. A shame, the Joker thinks. Can’t see the forest for the incinerated trees.
He’d left the nurse’s costume up to her this time. She wears it better. Only a little. She’s taken to villainy as wholeheartedly as she did the law. She excels at it. She lives for him.
Harvey still isn’t talking, only staring, even when Joker slaps his face, the clean half, happy to redden the perfect cheek and honestly a little disgusted by the other.
“You’re not paying attention, Mr. Dent,” Joker says, pulling Harley by the arm and into Harvey’s unwavering line of sight. “I’ve come to pay the Piper, so start blowing.”
She’s wearing a wig and some makeup to cover what facial scarring has yet to heal. It’s a good look for her. He only had to slit one throat on the way into the heavily-guarded hospital. But it struck a different picture than Harvey had in his album of memories of her and it took a little time for his eyes to shift, focus.
Waiting, arm in Joker’s grip, she seems unsure and Joker feels her shake. This isn’t like his Harley, this fear. He wonders if it’s the face, or the memory, or if this was a mistake. “Pumpkin,” he says to her, “what did I tell you about being nice to Uncle Harvey?”
Eyes on Joker now she smiles, laughs suddenly, and unbuttons the front of her dress.
“Good girl,” Joker says. He crawls onto Harvey’s bed and pulls her with him, positions her in front of him to straddle Harvey’s waist. He moves behind her, sound of a zipper. Harvey still only stares, wide-eyed and disbelieving and the first words he says, broken and quiet are, “look at me”, but she doesn’t and she won’t and after a while she closes her eyes.
“You can’t have her, Harvey, not yet,” Joker says, “we’ll save that for your comeback party. But for now we’ll pretend and you can touch if you want,” he takes Harvey’s hand and places it on her breast, looking down over her shoulder, both at the contact and at Harvey’s wild expression. The plan was to fuck her on top of him but plans are like personalities, ever changing, and when his pants are off he puts her hand over Harvey’s mouth and tells her not to let the noise out, and he sinks himself onto Harvey’s erection, takes in the muffled cry with more than a little satisfaction.
If Harvey’s never fucked a man his cock doesn’t know the difference and anyway Joker knows a trick or two. His own moves against her back, the smooth fabric of her dress, and he wonders if he could get her up onto it, but it seems like too much trouble because he’s going to come any second anyway, he’s sure of it. He feels her tremble against him, reaches to her cunt but she’s already helping herself. On her breast he finds Harvey’s hand where he placed it, and he fondles breast through hand. She’s laughing and he can feel her tears as they land on his fingers and when he cups his palm to catch them he comes, and Harvey after. Harvey’s been chanting “look at me” and Joker only now pays it any mind, leans forward, smiles down over her shoulder.
“She can’t see you, Phantom,” he says. “You’re not here.”
They visit him once more. Harvey stabs him with a pen before she can sedate him, but Joker only considers it Harvey’s funny idea of a greeting. After all, they're in this together now.
Two Sides to Every Story
When they find Harvey and the girl on the street outside of Wayne Enterprises, it can’t be kept out of the papers. Dent Plummets to Death with Unidentified Masked Woman. That’s news you can’t hide with any amount of money. That the woman is Rachel Dawes won’t be discovered for another day.
He finds Joker in a warehouse, drinking like he’s looking to drown above water. He’s sitting in an old stuffed armchair someone has obviously pulled from a dumpster.
“You killed them,” Batman says through Bruce’s lips and Bruce thinks ‘liar’.
“Wrong as always,” Joker says, “do you ever know what you’re talking about? Are you ever in on it, Bat? Mr. Man?”
He should tie him up, take him to the authorities, but he waits instead, stands out of reach, watches Joker’s head roll against the chairback.
“Tell me,” he says.
The Joker shrugs with some effort. “I’m Jesus,” he says. “I brought her back!” He laughs but it subsides and he’s languishing again. “But he was a non-believer and he wanted to save her soul.”
“Make sense, Joker, or I break my own rules.”
Joker smiles. “Did you know she was a gymnast? In school? Did you know that?” He stands and sways, rights himself and walks toward Bruce. “Did you go to school with her, Bat? Did you date, I wonder? Did you know the intimate secrets of her heart? Did you ever take her to a dance, fuck her under the bleachers, keep her panties in your pocket and sniff them during math quizzes?”
Bruce swings and makes contact with Joker’s jaw easily. Joker stumbles, picks himself up. Laughs. Laughs. “Or was it Harvey you fondled urgently in secret, in shame. Is that why you hide behind your mask? Poor queer Batman, so misunderstood!” He’s hysterical when he drops to his knees, gropes at Batman’s thighs and nuzzles the codpiece. Batman doesn’t waver; Bruce doesn’t know why he doesn’t. By the time Joker’s calm again he’s trying in earnest to find a zipper or something like it.
“Help me out here, Bats. It’s not everyday you’re going to have a psychopath offering to suck you off.”
Batman looks down at him, pulls the man’s head back by the hair. “Tell me,” he says again.
Joker smiles up at him, eyes closed. “He had to have her. He had to have her. And she wasn’t there anymore. So he took what was left.” When he opens his eyes again he laughs and licks his lips and lets the smile fade entirely. He reaches into his vest and Batman jerks his head but the Joker pulls away a cloth, bloody, soaked, and dark.
“Last wish, Bats,” he says, so serious, breathing loud and heavy, “I always wanted to go out fucking or fighting or laughing.”
When he lets go Joker all but falls forward onto him. There’s a wet sound and a black pool forms at his feet. He considers releasing the codpiece, but before he can Joker sits back onto his haunches, then slumps further, head nodding. He kneels to Joker’s level, lifts the scarred face to look at him. He has to hold the man steady to kiss him, and when Joker kisses back he tastes blood and Bruce draws away quickly. Joker smiles, eyes blind, says something so quiet Bruce might have missed it without the bat ears, then slips from his hands and sprawls on the floor.
Batman stands, blood on his boots. When he steps back dark footprints follow him, chase him.
“When I’m with you,” Joker had said, “I can’t tell which one of us is the villain.”