Permanence
We can't let this whole... situation get to us too deeply, we can't afford to get all caught up in those fluttery bat wings. But it's Brucie we tangled with, not our beloved Bats. Bats is so-so simple, so easy to work with, but Brucie is beyond confounding. I can't believe we told him about, about...
"No, no, that's over, that's past-passed, it's not real anymore."
Yes, not real. Nothing that happened before now is real and now is ever-changing forever and ever. Time isn't real, even though clocks are. We hate time most of all, sometimes... We had to do it, we had to take them away. If it wasn't us, it would've been God or whatever people are calling fate nowadays. We had to be fate, we had to take the control so as not to be controlled. If we couldn't do it to them, then we couldn't do it to anyone. Practice what you preach. We always hated hypocrites, couldn't be one too. There was no other way, no other way...
"No... No other way. None."
We did the right thing. Hah! There is no "right thing." There's only this or that or the other thing and their mother. Hah. There's only right now and here's this and there's that, so, what-do-we-do? We do what we did, what we do. What I did...
No-no-no, focus, focus... So, what do we do now? Is the question to ask. If we keep tangling with Brucie we run the risk of going backwards but if we leave him be, we may lose Bats as well and I don't know if I can do without either.
"WE, we, not 'I', never 'I'! That one isn't here anymore..."
Relax. A-hah, we'll just have to let what will happen be the way it is. For now, now... let's stop this infernal thinking.
It was all Bruce could think about, for days afterwards. He and the Joker were connected now in some intrinsic way that he could neither explain nor fully understand. The madman's convoluted philosophies had bloomed into comprehension like a dewy flower opening under the hot sun. A blood red flower.
He scoffed at the imagery, the romanticism of it. There wasn't-shouldn't be-anything romantic about this situation he and the Joker had found themselves in. When had their violent clashing become a tentative embrace? It had happened over time, minutes and hours stretching tautly over days and into weeks before settling almost comfortably between them in the past few months. If not comfortably, there was a definite sense of permanence now.
Permanence, he and the Joker. Bruce both feared and anticipated this future.