Slipping Into Entropy - Part 47
He got a halfhearted upturn of Bruce's mouth for the effort. "Well, that was better," Bruce replied. This wasn't going to be easy. He pulled his chair out and sat back down. "Alright......" Where to start. Bats. That seemed like a good place. "I found the cave system underneath the manor when my parents were still alive. Fell into it actually. When I was down there, the bats, they swarmed around me. Gave me nightmares for years afterward."
"Why?" Joker asked, watching Bruce curiously. "They can't actually hurt you. They're small enough to easily crush in one hand." While they were still alive... "What did your parents think about that?"
"I was pretty young at the time." Bruce's tone was softening. "And there were so many of them, all at once, coming out of the darkness." He shifted, trying to get more comfortable. "I hurt my arm in the fall. They fixed it up, and told me not to be afraid. No one ever went back down there. I didn't realize how far the caves went until I came back to Gotham years later."
"I suppose if you're not used to the dark it might be startling," Joker grudgingly admitted, not wanting to admit that he'd been more afraid of when light had come down into his childhood world than of the constant, comforting darkness. Darkness had meant that he was alone. "What made you think of the caves when you got back?"
"I'd forgotten about it mostly. One of the bats found its way into the Manor. Alfred mentioned they nested somewhere nearby, and I just.....remembered. So I went back down there, further than I'd been before, and it was perfect." Bruce was gradually easing up, but it was hard to let go of a certain amount of wariness.
"What did Jeeves say when you told him your mad dreams about running around in shady neighborhoods in a bat costume?" Joker asked, a flicker of a grin settling into place again. "He can't have just said 'Yes, Master, whatever you say', no matter how prim and proper he acts."
Bruce sighed softly. "He believed in my parents' work. It wasn't exactly a smooth transition, but.....he came to think of what I do as a continuation of it." Finally he sat back and stretched a little. "He's polite, but you know now he'll say what's on his mind, whether I like it or not. He did get to tell me what to do for a good portion of my life. Or he tried to."
"He'll say whatever he feels like, whether or not anyone likes it," Joker muttered in agreement, a muscle in his jaw twitching angrily. "He might be a little more tolerable if he had a sense of humor about things." The clown mulled things over in silence before another thought occurred. "...what about Lucy? He had to know what you were up to and where his toys were going."
"Lucius suspected something from the start, but he was happier working with me than the rest of the board at the time. That was sorted out later. He found out when I got hit with Crane's toxin. I was knocked out for days and Alfred had to bring him in. I'm glad he did."
"Ah, yes. I'd heard about that." Joker tilted his head slightly, looking at Bruce with interest. "...what did you see? What are you afraid of, now that you've conquered your fear of flying mice?"
"I saw bats. I still saw bats." Bruce thought about that. He may feel comfortable in their presence now, but he had also become one of the creatures. It was a symbol of himself, and Ducard had told him exactly what he thought about his power. He wasn't sure if he'd ever completely gotten past the fear of his own self. "But I got out. I could focus enough to do that."
"Interesting." He left it at that, but his mind still wandered. I wonder if that would still be the case now... "You became what you were afraid of, yet you were still afraid. Or are you afraid of yourself now that you've turned yourself into your childhood monster to frighten others?"
"That's a good question. Perhaps I was always afraid of myself?" Bruce raised an eyebrow inquiringly as if the Joker could tell him. That probably hit close to the truth though. Perhaps he'd simply taken a step closer to that symbolism in becoming "Bat"man.
"Why should you be afraid of yourself?" Joker laughed, looking at Bruce as if the idea was absurd. "Everyone else in the world may be out to stab each other in the back over scraps, but you can always be certain that you have your own best interests at heart."
"Do I?" Bruce replied honestly. "I've done things..... My own decisions have hurt me more than anyone else's could ever have." His voice suddenly became softer. "I asked my parents to leave, to walk out into that alley. To die." His eyes fell. "I couldn't have known, that's true, but it was still my own greedy wish that brought the world down over my head. I did things that drove Alfred and the rest of the staff out of the house, mad completely. I dove into the world of criminals when I couldn't stand them. I was going to kill the man who killed my parents. And if that doesn't convince you, then just look who I wound up inviting into my bed."
"Ah, but look how well that's turned out," Joker remarked, leaning forward to rest his head on one hand with a sultry look. "And don't give yourself all the credit. From what I hear, it was your parents that got the bright idea to dress like they were loaded, go to one of the most desperate neighborhoods, and then take a shortcut through an alley. Even the most brainless kid knows better than that. They might as well have have painted bullseyes on themselves and hung signs on their backs that read 'rich idiots'."
Bruce said nothing. The Joker could rationalize it all he wanted, even Bruce could rationalize it all he wanted, but he would always remember the sick, happy feeling in his gut knowing that his parents were leaving the theater just for him. His father had even covered for him. It said clearly that they loved him, and he was happy. But that feeling hadn't been worth their lives. His guilt was irrational, he knew that, but as long as he remembered that feeling, he couldn't make it go away. He couldn't even tell them. He would never gain their forgiveness.
Joker frowned at the man across from him, knowing the expression Bruce was falling into all too well. God dammit. I swear, Bat may be a greater masochist than I am... Wheeling his chair around with a displeased look on his face, he grabbed Bruce's chin once he got close enough, jerking his head sideways to face him. "Stop wading in guilt you create for yourself, Bat. It makes you miserable and being a martyr to self-inflicted pain will never change a thing," he hissed, then kissed him.
A tendril of shock whispered down Bruce's spine at the demand and the touch of lips. He shivered before he caught himself. Their kiss was slow, languid, but there was a forcefulness behind it. He kissed back, it was a good distraction. He was fighting a losing battle, searching for a key to a locked and boarded door. He knew it, but he couldn't stop himself either.
Pleased at having caught the man's attention, a sense of fierce possessiveness coiled in his chest. He'd promised himself he'd make Bat happy, one way or another, and that included wrenching him away from his self-pitying fits of angst. "You still need to learn how to live in the now, Bat. No regrets. No guilt. What's done can't be altered. There's just the present and the ever-shifting future."
Bruce pulled back enough to see the Joker's face. He looked slightly crazed, or drugged, when he was happy and had his mind set on a goal. "I can't see things the way you do. For me the past, present, and future all exist, all working together in tandem."
"So? You still can't change what's been done. Just what comes next." You take the past and use it as a weapon to beat the future. "What does it take to make a melancholy Bat happy and keep it from sulking?"
Bruce sighed. He ran a hand over his face. He didn't have a problem with this when there was no Joker around to nag at him for it. Funny, even when he hated the man, he used to nag at him. Ridiculous really. "You asked, I'm only telling you what I think," he replied with a half-hearted shrug and leaned back in his chair. Their knees rested together as they sat trying to figure the other out.
"And that's a start, but you didn't answer the other question," Joker countered, his mouth flickering into a snarl for a split second. Why is he always so difficult, always complicating everything, setting rules and limits? "What the hell would I have to do to get you to crack a smile and just be happy? Yeah, your parents are dead and you think it's all your fault. At least they didn't fuck you over before they went. Mine are dead, I know it's my fault, and do you see me crying about it?"
If that was designed to get Bruce to smile, it failed miserably. "You want me to be happy? Then stop asking me these questions expecting me to tell you what you want to hear. You won't get the answers you want. You'll get my answers and we've established from the start that our ideas on things are vastly different. It's bigger than my parents, it's always been; that's the point. You think I can ignore the world if I just try hard enough? I can't."
Joker gritted his teeth, different waves of emotion passing through his crazed eyes - frustration, anger, sorrow. "...you don't understand. I've tried so hard and it hurts to stop, like not breathing anymore, and you're still not happy," he rasped, leaning back in his wheelchair. "What more do you want from me?"
For the first time in this conversation, Bruce took a mental step back and looked at the Joker. He was sulking, all but defeated. He wanted Bruce to be happy. He didn't know.....how Bruce was usually. "Joker," Bruce leaned forward. "I am happy." He raised a hand quick to cut off interruption. "You want me not to feel pain, regret, not to worry? That won't ever happen. But I never thought I would fight for you. Never thought you would be the one at my side. I never thought I would worry when you've been taken away. I never thought I would kill for you." That bit was hard to say. It took him a moment to recover. "You......make me....happy." This was even harder to say. "I....need you. Not to make me forget the world; I just....need you."
The words seemed to make the madman's facade slip a little, baring a core of raw pain and desperation that was buried amidst all the manic insanity and monstrous tendencies. His glaze slid sideways, refusing to look Bruce in the eye. "...I'm trying so hard." I don't know if I can stop myself for much longer.
"I can see that," Bruce said, still trying to catch his gaze. "I saw that the night you left. I was the one who broke....broke my own rule." Saying that and watching the pained expression on the other man's face pulled at Bruce's gut. He needed..... Swiftly he edged forward in his chair, leaning over to the Joker and slipping a hand across his face and into tendrils of green hair.
The smaller man leaned into the touch like a cat, a few stray drops of moisture escaping from the corners of his eyes. Joker reached out automatically and pulled himself forward, half-falling out of the chair and into Bruce's lap.
When he landed, Bruce dragged him up, moving his tangled legs into a straighter position and pulling the feather light man into him. His hands still ran through the Joker's hair, and Bruce pressed his nose into it and closed his eyes. He never, ever thought he would wind up like this. He couldn't decide if the way they were going was good or bad, but it was so hard not to want it.
The madman clung to Bruce and wept, aching. It wasn't so much physical as something internal; normal pain would never have affected him this way. There was a hole in him somewhere, something lacking that had never been filled or repaired to replace what was lost, and after so many years of killing for thrills it pulled at him. It was a siren song of addiction, one he hadn't realized he'd had.
Bruce held on, arms tight around quivering shoulders. He could feel wetness from the Joker's tears pool into his shirt. "Don't. It'll be alright." It seemed like the thing to say. He wasn't sure, so after that he stopped trying to talk and just wrapped his arms tighter.
Joker finally stilled and went quiet, opening his mouth to speak before thinking better of it. Can't tell him. Can't. He'll hate me and lock me away in the dark forever. The thought sent a shiver of fear through him, both at the possibility and the idea that Bruce could do that. Would he, after everything?
So close and yet Bruce didn't have a clue what was going through his head. It was clear that the Joker had become overwhelmed with emotion and though Bruce assumed he understood, he was a long way off from the specifics. He sighed quietly into the man's hair, finally loosening his hold enough to stroke his hands up and down the Joker's arms in a calming motion. Whatever had just gone through him, he hoped it was for the better. He hoped the man understood that Bruce was.....beginning to need him, his presence nearby.
Still filled with a quiet dread, Joker's mind was working like mad to try to figure a way out. If he broke his promise, Bruce would find out and he wouldn't be happy. If he told him... His shoulder shook with a silent laugh as he pondered. No way out, is there? "Maybe it would have been better if you had let me die, before. I don't think I can do it. I don't think I can stop..."
"Let you die?" Bruce pulled back, confusion written in bold scrawl across his face. With a hand on either side of that green mop of hair, he tried to force the Joker to look at him. "No....." It really pained him to say it. If he had let the Joker die, if he had not become so mentally, and now emotionally he reminded himself, enamored with him, he might not have killed Sal Maroni. He couldn't....let himself think like that. He couldn't hear it from the Joker. Talking about trading one life for another.....after he'd already taken one of them, for no more reason other than fury at the sight of what they'd done to the Joker. He'd done it and it was hard enough railing against himself; if the Joker started too..... In any other situation where the Joker agreed with him, one that didn't involve the madman's life, he might have been happy.
"You don't understand, Bat. Like usual," he mused, a smile flickering for a moment at the thought. For someone who's supposedly so sharp, he seems to always miss the point... "I don't know if I can help myself for much longer. I've never really had any willpower to resist things. It will happen at some point, and I don't want it to break you."
Looking down at the Joker, Bruce realized he had been seeing the him in quite a different light than he had been seeing himself. "You miss it....?" A small chill trickled down his spine. "What do you need?"
Joker glanced nervously at Bruce before his eyes turned towards the floor; the sight of the madman actually showing anxiety raised the tension level in the room even higher. "I don't know if 'miss' is the right word. There's a certain feeling that only happens-... I'll tell you a story, Bat. Once upon a time there was a well-known drug fiend. He stopped appearing on the streets because he got stuck in a rehab shelter. Fell for one of the shelter nurses and all that sap, lived clean for 5 years or so. Then one day I found him dead in the gutter after a street vendor rattled a piece of crystal at him and he couldn't resist anymore."
They sat still for a while after the Joker's story. Bruce could tell it was meant to lighten things in a way, to look at it objectively, but an uncomfortable silence still spread out between them. The chill in his stomach had settled, but it wasn't getting any warmer. "Don't." Bruce said quietly.
Joker's smile was bitter, and he gave a dry, humorless chuckle as he turned dark eyes back towards Bruce; the monstrous, inhuman part of him, always so close to the surface but often hidden beneath innocent jokes and human, was raw and more apparent than ever. "I don't know if I can. I miss so much of it. I'm only trying so hard for you, but I don't want you hurt when I can't help it anymore."
Bruce could see everything they'd managed to gain, so painstakingly from the ground up, fall apart. Just like that. It was happening behind his eyes, deep inside his head, as he tried to read the pair across from him. The Joker had worked so hard to earn his trust and drive himself into Bruce's life. Bruce had railed against it every single step of the way. And now, after he nearly died, after Bruce had killed for him, he was finally giving the vigilante's most sincere reason for keeping the man away right back to Bruce. It shouldn't get to him this much. It shouldn't feel so bad. He knew it would happen. Days ago, a week ago, he could have handled it without emotion, with the strength he was used to. Now, with the man helpless in his house and needing him......it hurt. He tried to keep that in mind, tried to feel how he would have felt if the Joker had told him this earlier. "If that's the way you see it, then I'll just have to be there when you're offered your drugs. That's what I've done before and it's what I'll continue to do."
Breath leaving him in a sigh, curling around the bigger man and burrowing against his neck. There was no way to make him understand - Batman thought he could be everywhere he needed to be at the exact, right moment. No matter what, the day would come when he'd slide a knife into someone again, and all he could do was hope that everything didn't die with the poor sap on the wrong end of the blade. Drop of moisture escaped his eyes to trickle down Bruce's neck, not for those who would die, but for himself.
Now Bruce understood a little better why the other man was crying. He felt heavy inside, too. Lying his head to rest over the Joker's, he simply held him again, breathing in that scent, one that might have been repulsive if he hadn't been used to it, that simply said "Joker". Deep down he didn't know if this could ever be fixed, like most things, but he'd learned that the only way he could deal with it was to try. To fight as long and as hard as he could.
"I'm trying," he finally murmured, clinging to the other man's muscular form, grateful that he hadn't been pushed away yet. He didn't want to worry about what might happen should he finally kill again and Bruce cut him out of his life, so he didn't. He had a general idea of what would happen, anyways.
"I know," Bruce said back. He felt like he'd been slapped back to reality somewhat. This wasn't his fantastical world where the man formerly known as the Joker would lie brokenly by his side during the day while Bruce hid him from the cops and go out as Batman by night. This man wasn't just a "man", he was "the Joker" and he would always need more. That was why Bruce had hated him. His eyes screwed shut. That need, to kill, to destroy, to laugh at it all, was exactly why Bruce had hated him from the very beginning. He had forgotten. He let himself forget in favor of seeing the Joker, for just a few moments, as something else. He'd wanted to forget.
For awhile longer, then, the bodies would stay confined to his dreams until the blood spilt over into reality. He couldn't even be certain that animals would slake the thirst for what had been such a big part of his life; there was so much more tied into it than simply snuffing out a life.
Eventually, sensing the Joker calm somewhat while spending time with his thoughts, Bruce shifted and lifted him back into his own chair. "I'm going to give Lucius a call, and spend the day here," he said. "You can help me down in the lair." All those toys and trinkets the man had grown starry eyed over and had never gotten to touch Bruce wanted to show him now. It was an incongruous idea, but he wanted to build something, and he wanted the Joker to help. Maybe it'd take their minds off things.
"...help you with what?" Somehow, Joker wasn't so certain he'd like what sort of 'help' Bruce had in mind. He was fully expecting getting another morality lesson while the man made him watch sad, sappy videotapes of How Innocent Society Is Affected By Crime, all under the pretext of cleaning and organizing his files or somesuch. If he was to be a target for joining the Batscouts again after his quiet confession, Bat was going to get a piece of his mind.
"Come down with me. I want to build something." Bruce needed to take his mind somewhere else. Anywhere else, and he needed the Joker to be there. They needed to work together, to find some sort of coexistence, some peace of mind. He stood, almost hovering by the other man's side.
Still giving him a suspicious look, Joker's hands drifted down to the wheel handles, turning to face Bruce. "What sort of thing did you have in mind?" Searching his damaged memories, the clown couldn't remember a single thing he'd made with a practical use that hadn't been a trap or weapon of some kind. Somehow he didn't think Bruce would be that keen on his gadgets being lethal.
The vigilante's expression softened. "Something you can make use of once you get your legs back. Mine was smashed not long ago. A grappling gun." It was true, he needed a new one. He'd been meaning to sit down and piece together another, but....with the way things had been going lately.... It may not be the Joker's favorite toy in the box, but Bruce had a feeling that he might appreciate it someday.
"Hoping that I'll follow you over the rooftops again?" the madman teased, a flicker of a smile returning to his face now that he knew he wasn't going to be forced into helping make stun gas or the like. It might not be weaponry, but tools for breaking and entering and sneaking about? That, he could handle.
"Maybe." The light hope in Bruce's face didn't falter, but inside he was somewhere far away. Reality told him it was nothing more than a pipe dream. They made their way down to the depths of Bruce's hotel. The trip was familiar by now. Bruce stood over the Joker's shoulder, never having thought before that he would be used to descending here with the green haired maniac next to him. It felt....comfortable now. But he still felt tumultuous inside. He knew that it was because of the Joker's confession.
It still felt odd to him to trust Bat as much as he did, as much as he allowed himself to. The mad whirlwind of sex and attraction was one thing, just another level added to the games they played when they first met. Joker didn't know why he'd even admitted his bloodlust so openly to the self-styled hero. Nothing had come of it yet, but he knew that didn't necessarily mean that there would be no repercussions.
The elevator jolted to a halt at the bottom, the metal screen retreating. Rolling out into the lair, Joker wondered whether he'd spot devices he'd missed before in earlier rushed investigations of Batman's belongings.
The lights switched on section by section, a faint hum of electricity encircling the room. The place was....a mess. No one had been keeping it together lately, and it was showing badly. Alfred had taken to staying mostly away now that the Joker had taken up residence in it, and Bruce just didn't have the time to pick up. Not when....he was rushing out in fear of losing..... With a mental sigh, he intentionally derailed that train of thought. Picking up a few papers and ratchets off the floor, he set them back in a toolbox. He pulled out a desk and a chair, and dragged over a set of supplies. There were a few cannibalized guns already lying around the place, so when he found two that were of a decent size, he brought them over to the table and dropped them next to the set of supplies. "Alright," he said, motioning the Joker over.
Moving closer to the pieces littering the table, the clown tilted his head as he took in all the components and tools they had to work with. There was nothing there he hadn't seen yet, but things could still prove interesting. "...so, what are we supposed to do with all this?"
Bruce took a seat on one side, picking up one of the guns. "Well, basically, we build something out of nothing." He picked through the materials until he found a couple cogs, and laid out some nuts and bolts. "Make the reel first. It's got to be solid, sturdy. Otherwise it'll catch on itself and tangle." After laying out another set of similar pieces for the Joker, he began to to put his own together slowly. It had been a while, and he was sort of improvising, but they did have all the right tools for it to work.
Green eyes trained on Bruce's hands as he picked up pieces and fitted them together, Joker mirrored the other man's actions. He knew all about taking things apart, breaking things down, and even knew enough basics to have made his own destructive devices from time to time, but he'd never made anything as complex as this. Bombs were relatively simple compared to building a grappling gun out of mismatched spare parts.
They worked together quietly for a while. Whenever the Joker would look over, Bruce would show him what he was doing, or occasionally point out a section where a new part needed to go, and it was quite clear that the madman could catch on quickly. It was....almost peaceful, and it did a lot to lessen Bruce's discomfort. It still lingered in his thoughts, but working like this toward some small goal made him.....calm.
Catch on quickly he did, to the point where the madman seemed to try to predict how the next steps would logically go, occasionally necessitating Bruce to intervene and point out which pieces were wrong. Joker's expression of curious, childlike focus and interest seemed somehow familiar, and it finally dawned on Bruce where he'd seen it before. It hadn't happened for such a prolonged period of time, but in brief flashes whenever the clown had run across something new and tried to puzzle out what made it tick. It had happened both with objects and with certain unusual people.
It was Joker testing and figuring out the world. It was disconnected, and everything was just another interesting gear or spring to him. It was likely that this was how he'd learned to interact with the world outside his subterranean prison once he'd escaped.
In small bits, one by one atop another, it came together. Perhaps not the world itself, just a tool, but even if it was only a glimpse of what the Joker could do, Bruce still soaked it in. What this man could have been didn't cross Bruce's mind so much as what he could have done. He could have seen that world differently, very differently.
The clown was obviously uneducated in the normal sense of the word, never having endured the paths of learning that most members of society trod before entering adulthood. What he did have was a keen intellect, even if twisted and mad, and an eye for detail and information, taking pieces of things alien to him and figuring out how to manipulate them to his advantage.
The underground lair was filled with only the small sounds of ratchets clacking and cranking. When they eventually came to a a finish they had two medium sized guns. A large hook that could loosen or retract wound into the casing of each gun. They both needed to be cleaned and polished up a bit, but they were functional. Bruce may have kept his mouth in check, but he couldn't keep his eyes from smiling across the table at the Joker.
Having figured out how the mechanism fired the hook long distances, Joker barely noticed the odd looks Bruce gave him, his mind tinkering with another idea. If you can make your own guns, you can make them able to fire anything. Anything you want... More importantly, you could make weapons no one else had seen before, ones they wouldn't know how to combat.
It was fortunate that Bruce couldn't know what was going through his mind. He tossed a towel across the table after wiping away the remaining oil. The weight of the new tool felt good in his hand. It felt good to see another finished in the Joker's hand. He looked happy at having a new toy, like some sort of idea was dawning on him. Bruce thought maybe he hadn't gotten the chance to do this very much on his own.
"Do you always make your own gear like this? The small things Fox doesn't do for you?" Joker questioned, still turning the gun over in his hand as he tried to remember all the other components he'd seen floating around the cave. He already was starting to form plans - when to sneak down and experiment with what was available, how to hide the end results from the other man... He'd get mad.
Bruce nodded. "Only what Fox doesn't do." He did have a pretty extensive shop down here. "Things break, they need to be fixed. Fox takes care of most of the tech, but yes, the small things I usually put together here. Safer that way. "
"So if something breaks, you've got nobody to kick but yourself, is that it?" the madman laughed, filing that piece of information away. So he should have plenty of materials lying around here. Enough that he shouldn't notice a few missing here and there... "What else do you make?"
"I suppose that's true," Bruce chuckled lightly. He shrugged. "Whatever I need." There were sheets of metal in one corner waiting to be cut down into batarangs. A couple times he had to use a modified version of riot gas to get out of a sticky situation. "I can show you some if you want. Usually it's whatever needs to be made quickly."
"I'd be interested in seeing more." It took some effort to dampen down his expression to hide his enthusiasm. Despite his earlier explorations, he still hadn't seen nearly all the cave had to offer, much less how Bruce went about stocking his cache of toys and weapons.
"Alright." Bruce rose, leaving his gun on the table. There was no specific place for the things he made as opposed to the ones he didn't make, so they would have to do a bit of searching. He found a small locker and took out one of the gas grenades. "I'd thought about using riot gas for a while, but it....could also be modified to make something more like a smoke screen instead. Comes in handy. And this....." he pulled another large gun, one that looked more like a super-soaker, out of the locker, "fires an adhesive foam. Crowd control." Next to the gun, he laid down a very small device. "This one Lucius made, but it works almost better than the smoke screen." He pressed a button and waited for a moment. Bats from the neighboring rooms far down the halls soon came filtering and then pouring into the main lair. "Sonic bat-call," he said over the sound of dozens of little beating wings.
Joker at this point had shrunk further down in his chair, flailing at the little black forms darting all around them with a look of distaste. "What, so you use that when you want to stroke your ego? 'I'm the biggest bat in the whole bunch, look at me'? Not everyone has your fear of flying rats, you know."
"No," Bruce laughed before he turned it off. "but they sure do interrupt a squadron of police officers coming to get you when they've got you cornered and surrounded in a building with no exits." The winged creatures settled, most disappearing back into the darker tunnels, a few still lingering above their heads, unsure of how to get out of the vast , grey room.
Watching the dark shapes flitting about, searching for a perch to roost again, Joker pouted. "Somehow I have the feeling you'll tell me that making once of those for henchmen just isn't possible," he whined, longingly imagining a device to make all of his insane, frightened followers turn up on cue. It would have been marvelous.
Bruce's brows rose. "No. Not possible." That put his enthusiasm off a bit. "Unless you start employing teens and children, the men who work for you probably wouldn't even be able to hear normal high frequency calls. And they certainly wouldn't be driven to follow its source." He put the foam gun and emitter back into the closet.
Teens and children. There's an idea. Shrugging, he watched Bruce pack the equipment away again. "I wasn't being serious, Bat. You're just lucky to have picked a mascot that's so easily manipulated.
As he watched at the Joker, Bruce wasn't exactly sure how to take that. "Guess so...." Something seemed off. "Does that apply to me as well then?" His tone wasn't harsh yet, he was curious, and the Joker's statement was very odd.
His gaze flickering back up to Bruce's wary eyes, Joker paused. "Sometimes, in some situations. You respond too quickly to some things, and stubbornly refuse to for others. You also have the added benefit of having a brain larger than a peanut," the man pointed out with a giggle, wondering if this was all about bruised egos.
"Don't try to manipulate me," Bruce said. He crossed the room to the Joker's side, leaning his weight onto the table, wanting to touch the other man. "It won't end well." He reached out, stroking a hand over the Joker's face.
Joker watched him stride closer to tower over him, fear briefly passing through his eyes before he realized that Bruce just wanted to touch him. "You know I care about what happens to you. If I didn't, we never would have reached even this far. I've had plenty of opportunities to abuse your trust."
"That's true." Bruce leaned in to kiss the smaller man. It was meant to be relatively chaste, but his lips lingered longer than he planned them to. "Hmm," he sighed when they broke apart.
Joker wrapped his arms around Bruce's neck, keeping him from straying too far. "Don't think you're ever going to turn me into a chaste little choirboy, Bat, but I'm not going to blow up your house the second you turn your back, either."
"You'd never get your hands on all these gadgets that way," Bruce replied with a nip to the Joker's bottom lip. In spite of his words he was smiling softly. The Joker may be who he was, but he wasn't going to be able to go out destroying anything for some time.
"How true," he murmured, leaning back while pulling Bruce even closer. "I guess I'll just have to keep on seducing you until I have the passcodes for everything, hmm?"
"Good luck," Bruce deadpanned, but he went with the Joker's hands anyway. His hands braced on the chair's arms holding himself up, but he hovered inches away from the other man. He wasn't really meeting the Joker's eyes, but the novelty of closeness hung in the air between them still.
"Why such a serious face, Bat?" Joker whispered, trying to turn Bruce's head and make him meet his gaze. "Are you that afraid that you've caught a tiger by the tail that you can't control or let go?"
"Don't flatter yourself," Bruce whispered back, finally looking at the Joker. He'd meant it to come out lighter than it actually did. He sensed another layer hiding underneath his own statement. Oh how the Joker so liked playing the demon.... And here Bruce was, with the madman down in his lair of secrets, just trying not to think about it.
"Is it flattery if it's true?" the madman laughed, giving Bruce a crooked smile for a moment. "Gotham's underworld has quite a view of us, you know. If you're its corrupted Michael, I'm its cross between Azrael and Beezlebub. Are you worried that you can't pull me up, or that I'll pull you down?"
It was the same old discussion. And it was going to drive Bruce mad. He leaned back a few inches, eyes looking the Joker up and down, biting his tongue with hands clenching over cool metal to keep from throttling the man. "So now we're angels, I see." He took a breath. "I only worry that we'll be locked this way. Forever. All the while wanting more."
"...what more do you want, Bat?" he asked, tilting his head in question. "Neither of us are capable of being those wholesome neighbors behind a white picket fence and we both know it. If such creatures even exist."
Bruce shook his head slowly. "So you go to another extreme instead. Compare yourself an angel." He sighed. So close, so far..... It was maddening. There wasn't much he could do, only butting his head against a wall that remained solid. It was strange how they could agree with one another, and take completely different positions.
"Hey, not all of those are pure and spotless saints. Fall down far enough and you get a complimentary pitchfork, according to the rumors. They never were human to begin with, either." Truth be told, that probably was one of the reasons he had no empathy for others - he couldn't connect to them. He knew how humanity worked, but he didn't consider himself a part of it.
Bruce was about to throw up his hands, but he feared that they would latch onto the Joker's neck. So wholesome people didn't exist. Fire, brimstone, and pitchfork-wielding demons didn't exist either. He didn't know when he had gotten so disillusioned with this conversation, but he was ready to tell it to go to hell. The Joker might have liked to think that he belonged there, but he didn't.
Frustrated eyes landed on the table at their side, and Bruce snatched a wayward index card and a marker, scribbling quickly over it. He drew a line down the middle, and filled one half in black. He held it up to the Joker.
"There is black, and there is white. There is wrong, and there is right."
Joker's eyes glanced over the card, then up to Bruce's face. A forced smile slid into place. The smaller man was quite obviously humoring him and believed none of it. Even if it might be true to some degree, I already know the side I was born on.
It fell as Bruce straightened up to stand again. He wanted the Joker to see that they both existed, but this looked like another stalemate. "I'm going to give Lucius that call," he said breaking the silence.
"Don't get all moody because I can't see and agree with your wonderful vision of the world, Bat. There are some things you just can't change. You can't make me a Mother Theresa no matter how hard you try."
"I'm not asking you to be Mother Theresa, Joker," Bruce replied. "I'm just, going to call in." He left the green haired man for the conglomeration of monitors half the room away. Pace swift and purposeful, he made it there in no time, even managed not to mutter to himself on the way. In spite of it all, he knew their world hadn't changed very much.
Watching him go, Joker contented himself with exploring the portions of the lair he'd just been shown, noting small details for later. There were some things that would never be altered - Bruce would always have a temper and a world view that was irreconcileable with reality. There were other things that could be taken care of, however. Perhaps it would be possible to reach a balance between them even now, despite their obvious clashes.