Slipping Into Entropy - Part 3
Batman was instantly pulled forward, his thighs hit the windowsill hard and his free hand attempted to grab it as they went down. He got hold of it, but just barely and the dead weight of the Joker on the other end of his wrist nearly dislocated his shoulder. He felt the strain and groaned aloud. He wanted to tell the madman that he shouldn't be allowed to quote Shakespeare, but the cops chose that moment to come bursting into the room they'd previously been standing in.
He held on as tightly as possible, trying to force his cuffed hand free, but the Joker had cuffed them tightly. His wiggling on the other end of the chain wasn't helping at all. Bruce was losing his grip. If he could just get the cops over here....
"It's them! It's the both of them! Shoot, shoot!" They were panicking, and Bruce's hopes were dashed as the gunfire started. A few bullets narrowly missed his hand, and splinters of the windowsill dug into it deeply. The wood cracked, crumbled, and then they were falling.
From the Joker's face, you'd never know that the possibility of death was mere seconds away. He could have been on a ride at a theme park, eyes still closed, grin still plastered across his scarred features. His other hand dropped the useless gun, reaching out to grab the bicep of the hero's cuffed arm as if tugging him along to a messy end on the pavement below.
Bruce had to grab hold of the Joker as well. His free arm latched itself around the man's waist and released his wings into the air, holding them best as he could with the cuffed arm. If the Joker spun out too far then the cloth wings would never hold their distributed weight.
They fell forever. Bruce couldn't help being reminded of Rachel, and the last and only time he'd done this with another person. It made him incredibly uneasy to see the Joker's gleeful eyes staring back instead of her sweet, fearful ones. He could feel his own heart pounding, and tried to push his contempt for the man aside. He focused on slowing their descent, but when they landed, they landed hard on the turf, directly next to Batman's car.
Balance completely thrown as they landed, mind still buzzing like a child at how exciting the fall had been and how many neat toys the Bat had, he just barely registered the shouts and gunshots as his gaze fell on a familiar black shape. His hands unconsciously clenched, fingers itching to try all the levers and knobs and buttons he just knew had to be inside, but all he ended up doing was tightening his hold on armor-plated cloth. Damn, but he's got neat stuff. I gotta get me some of those.
Bruce tried to stand up as quickly as possible, which was no easy feat with the Joker clinging to him like he was.
"Get off of me," he growled in frustration. They were going to get shot at at any moment now, and police backup was arriving. He had a decision to make, and it was a very grim one. When the first bullets started flying - the cops above didn't even give a warning - Bruce gritted his teeth and made it, dragging the Joker, who couldn't seem to keep up though his life depended on it, into the hulking black tank with him. It wasn't an easy fit, the car was obviously not made for two people, not to mention that Batman wouldn't be able to push the machine to its limits either. There was no way he was going to be able to switch seating positions to become fully encased in the car while still attached to the Joker's arm. He did his best to hold onto the man, grabbing for his free arm and pulling all three of their appendages down into his lap while Bruce steered with his other arm, and the cops closed in around them.
Thrilled beyond belief when the black-clad man pulled him into the shiny new toy, he blew a kiss and waved to the policemen targeting them before getting shoved bodily into the tight little compartment. Grunting as the other man jumped in and winded him unintentionally, he was left silently cackling as he was left completely pressed against his companion's side, head tucked against his shoulder and hands shoved between his legs. It was like Christmas in July, except with a few more Jolly Fat Men (with guns) and much better presents than he'd ever received. "And to think I'd.... only ever thought to.... ask for a puppy and a BB gun..." he coughed, pinned tighter yet as they took off and turned a corner at impossible velocity.
Bruce didn't want to ask what the Joker was referring to. The man was obviously enjoying himself and Bruce was at his wit's end. He had to shake the police, who were now chasing them down the streets and gaining squad cars by the minute. The last thing he needed now was the man pressed between his side and the car's interior control panels going any crazier than he already was. Lucky for him, the Joker seemed to be in a very dazed and happy place at the moment. All Bruce wanted to do was get rid of him, but it was going to be hard to do at this point.
Driving with one hand, not being able to push the car's limits, he felt incredibly restricted. Taking conventional streets was not working at this point. There were simply too many cops. He needed to be able to jump, to use the nearest construction ramp and get onto some of the more structurally sound buildings.
"Get down," he growled at the Joker, hoping he would shut up and listen. This was going to be difficult.
"Ooo, commanding," he teased back, wriggling and trying to get a better look at his "captor's" face and failing. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't. What will you give me if I do? Or... I know, you're the forceful kind, aren't you? Always used to getting your way and taking what you want, mmm..." he trailed off in a hum, the fingers of one trapped hand uncurling to trace a line down his leg. I wonder if he'll get pissed. Eee hee...
"I said get down!" Batman let go of the Joker's wrist, grabbed him by the back of the neck instead, and shoved. He began the jump sequence, the space inside the car moving, rearranging itself to pull him back down further into the car's underbelly. He just barely managed to get the Joker down far enough, squeezing into the space with him. There was absolutely no room here, and he was worried he wouldn't be able to pull this off. He needed both his hands, so he dragged the Joker's up above their heads as well while he grasped the steering column. Sweat was dripping into his eyes and pooling down his back. He could engage an army of men, but this was stressful. The car's motors revved underneath them; he could feel it through the entire vehicle, it rattled up his spine. They were ready to go. He sent the car flying over the construction ramp he was aiming for, and landed gracelessly atop the brownstone buildings across the street.
Suddenly finding himself roughly shoved into a different position, machinery clicking around the both of them and seemingly dragging him by both forcibly-pinned hands. The engine made everything buzz and hum around them, and for once a laugh wasn't forthcoming. Sandwiched between hard metal and a slightly softer body and in more than a compromising position, his green eyes took on a glazed, faraway look, although the mad, manic light still glowed within them. Each jump jolted his head against the car's underbody, dazing him even more.
Batman was more than preoccupied with staying atop the roofs to notice any minor discomfort the other man was having. It was luck alone that they didn't crash through any of the buildings and get stuck there until they were surrounded, but it was the perfect escape route. The drove for three minutes in one solid direction, then pulled to a halt atop a larger roof, backing up and shooting across it in the opposite direction. As Bruce hoped, they went unnoticed until it was too late. The cops hadn't been able to keep a close enough eye on them from the ground, and lost them, expecting them to continue heading north. Instead, much against Bruce's better judgment, they made their way as quickly as possible in the direction of Wayne Industries' warehouses.
After being brained repeatedly on the metal, Joker had nothing to concentrate on but what little he could see and what lot he could feel. His back side was starting to numb from the constant buzzing, but that wasn't commanding the majority of his attention. Unusually straightfaced, he quietly watched the flicker of computer screens on the sharply angled face above, his hands forcibly pivoted as the other man steered. He absently licked his lips.
Bruce's anxiety rose the nearer they came to the hideout. He did not want to be here, he did not want to take the Joker here, but seeing that the cops were after the both of them, the cops who currently circled Arkham Asylum, and nearly every street of Gotham, and seeing that he couldn't simply drop the man off at their doorstep and escape unscathed himself, he saw little choice. He needed to get these cuffs off, one way or another, before he could do much else, and they needed to be somewhere safe, away from the public for the public's sake, in the meantime. Still, he didn't feel right about it. He drove around the fenced in compound several times, as many as he could before he worried that they might be spotted, just so that the Joker wouldn't be able to judge their location by timing the distance from downtown Gotham. Eventually, he had to give in and pull the car up to the hidden lift in the gravel. As they descended into the ground, the car's insides rearranged itself again, bringing Batman and the Joker back to their original positions.
Even dazed and mad as he was, his mind was still recording every detail for later. It had always been that way - things were either tools and weapons that could be employed later, or little jeweled specks of memory that could be rewound and enjoyed later as many times as he wished. Back and muscles voicing their complaints to his brain as the car eased everything back to almost the way it was when they first entered the car, his sense of humor came back as the feeling of dream-reality slowly faded. When the car finally jolted to a halt at their unknown destination, he gave a fake swoon and a feminine sigh. "Oh, gee. My hero," he chuckled, placing a kiss on an unshielded cheek to see if he'd get a punch to the face.
He did. Rather, he got Batman's head rammed into his face, turned slightly so that the hardest part of his skull would hit the most vulnerable part of the Joker's, effectively knocking him unconscious. He checked the Joker's pulse, just under the line of white makeup meeting tan skin to make sure, and only then took a moment to breathe.
He climbed out of car, pulling the other man with him. The painted grin seemed even funnier looking to Bruce when it was spread out on an unconscious face. He gritted his teeth when a good deal of it smudged onto his shoulder. He almost had the Joker out of the car when something sharp cut into his stomach. He sucked in a pained breath and looked down to see a long, thin knife sticking through the material of the Joker's apron pocket. It had wedged itself between two of the armored plates Bruce wore. He pulled it out, it hadn't gone in far, a nick really, but now that he looked more closely, he saw evidence of more knives in that apron. There were spots of blood seeping through his clothing here and there, bright red against the starched white cotton. Bruce grimaced and laid him out on the floor, trying to remove the apron until he realized that it was stitched into the dress. Instead, he pulled out the loose knives, and one by one, pulled out the ones that had sliced into the madman's own flesh.
"Alfred," he called on the intercom, "I'm going to need you and your stitching needle down here, right away."
"Will do, sir," came the short, merry reply. Bruce didn't think even Alfred could keep that merry tone for long once he got down here. He had a feeling the butler was going to have his head for this.