Oneshot fest 3: Batman

Disclaimer: Why so serious…about me owning Batman…'cause I don't…

Maybe Later

His blood was on his hands—the warm, metallic liquid flooded over his fingers like a grotesque glove, and he could barely stand the sight of it. On any other occasion, it would be welcome, the sign of a job well done, a mission accomplished, but not tonight. The further the fluid dripped down his palm, the more pronounced his regretful grimace became. The figure above whom he was standing laid still, droplets of crimson inching along the sides of his face.

"Shit," the Joker sighed. Somehow the act was as unsatisfying as shooting himself in the foot, which he had accidentally done before. Wasn't this supposed to be the pinnacle of his triumph, finally forcing his own scars upon the Batman, finally being in the dominant position to rip off that black mask once and for all?

He couldn't do it.

Batman almost looked helpless, unconsciously bleeding all over himself like that, and for once a helpless victim did not arouse the maniacal instincts within the clown. He felt close to normal for the first time in years. Licking the corner of his lips in thought, he gazed around furtively; their fight had taken them into an obscure alley, where no one dared venture, and the residents of the apartments high above them had flicked off their lights long ago. Nobody had seen, but nobody could help. Nobody would help.

"Options, options," he muttered to himself, tossing his head back and forth. He could just leave the Dark Knight where he was and scurry off to torment some more innocent bystanders, or he could help. "Help"—the word sounded foreign to his mind and weighed heavily on his tongue. Before that moment, the Joker had never before been aware that words could taste bad.

"Well, I'm not a doctor," he exclaimed. Geez, this was pathetically crazy even for him, arguing out loud against himself. And besides, he reasoned, what could he possibly use as stitches or bandages? Whatever was lying in the abandoned heaps of junk? That's sanitary.

The mere thought of using anything surrounding him to repair the Batman left the clown cringing. "There's only…" he sighed, "…one thing to do, I guess." Bending down and thinking how this went against every commandment in the Nutcase Bible, the Joker wrapped his arms around his adversary's torso and heaved. Not a second later he heard something pop in his back quite painfully.

"Think you've got enough armor, there, Batty?" he gasped, clutching his lower spine as best he could. "I could smack you with a mace and barely leave a bruise, I bet…" Again he was presented with an uncomfortable set of options. "Are those the only choices I have?" he lamented as he knelt down beside the impressive figure. Carefully he looked over the suit, making sure not to move his back too suddenly. "Nothing personal, Batman, nothing personal, God this is awkward…"

His gloved fingers slowly ran along the edges of the front breast plate until he felt the bump of the latch through the thin cloth. With a look behind him ensuring their isolation (lest some passersby yell the dreaded r-word), the Joker detached the piece of armor and tossed it aside, thanking chaos that the vigilante did, in fact, wear a shirt beneath the armor. If he didn't, there was no saying what the clown would have done, though fleeing was probably high on the list of possibilities.

"I hope you're light enough now," he muttered, "because there is nothing else on you that I'm going to take off, since that would be a little weird even for me. OK?" Tilting his head, he surveyed the silent form on the ground and sighed when no response met his ears. But more blood kept seeping from the masked face and pooling along the edges of said mask. "I'll take that as an 'OK, that's fine with me, Joker.'" Slowly he approached Batman again and secured his hold around the armorless chest, a ping of pain still present along his back.

"Lift with your knees."

Confused, the Joker scanned the dark alley until his eyes fell upon a small girl who was standing on a third-story apartment balcony. She couldn't have been more than nine years old.

"Little girl, don't you know that you shouldn't talk to strangers? And I'm as strange as they get," the Joker sighed with impatience laced in his speech.

"You're helping the Batman," she said simply.

"'Helping' is relative." From their long distance they took to staring at each other, though the girl's slight grin never relented. "And how do you know I'm helping him?"

"I watched."

"You watched?" he repeated. "You watched the…whole thing? What, is that a normal activity for a little girl nowadays? Gotham really is going downhill—"

"Lift with your knees." She seemed to be inching closer towards the door behind her. "You're going to throw out your back again otherwise." And then she was gone.

Weird—it was weird, and a little too much for the Joker to handle. Was he so unthreatening now that small children offered him unsolicited advice? What was this, a Lifetime original movie or something? If it was (and oh how the Joker hoped it was not), he would have to move to another metropolis to preserve his carefully cultivated reputation. That option was really not one at all—because he wouldn't leave Gotham. He had just gotten used to the place…and its people, its people who were going to be extremely ticked in the morning when the Batman was dead, its people who Batman embodied.

So the clown regularly killed a lot of these people. It was a love-hate relationship, one of those unhealthy ones regularly mentioned in newspaper advice columns. And frankly, the Joker did not want himself publicized in such an effeminate manner. How even more wrecking to the psyche—not that his wasn't already skewed or anything.

"And while I've been thinking, Batman's still bleeding," he sighed to no one, though he did check to see that the girl had really gone back inside. "Go play with dolls, and forget to tell your brother that the villain's saving the hero."

Taking her advice, he lifted with his knees and reveled in the silence echoing from his torso. Only then did he realize just how weak his arms were—they were fit for lugging around machine guns and sacks of money, but not fully-grown human males. Just before the quivering limbs collapsed from exertion, the Joker slung the body over his shoulder like the firemen did when they showed up at his arson scenes.

A few shoulder-aching seconds later, he arrived at the end of the alley and regarded the dismal surroundings—an earlier sprinkling of rain had forced the city dust into muck, and steam curled in even foggier wisps in the humid atmosphere. Everything was black and brown and gray, dismal, drab, and bleeding. The city was bleeding onto the back of the Joker's heel and its blood type was Batman's.

And it occurred to him: how was he supposed to get to a hospital in time when he could barely make it to street? And actually setting foot on the hospital's premises: that part alone was bound to be tricky after the incident last year. Futile, futile, futile—every wailing siren or squealing set of brakes resonated with the word and it made the Joker's eye twitch. "It's not futile," he muttered.

"Of course it's not!"

Whipping around far faster with the dead weight body than physics would have deemed safe, he peered back up into the frame of the fire escape. "Stalker!" he hissed to the girl, who was swinging her legs complacently on a lower step with a smile. "You're nine years old and you're already a stalker!"

"My age doesn't matter." Even in the dank lighting, the clown could catch a glimpse of her rolling her eyes.

"Tell that to an arrested pedophile."

"It matters that you save the Batman. Take a taxi."

There were so many problems with that idea that the Joker doubted her young, naïve mind could possibly process them. Gotham's most-wanted criminal, stepping with victim in tow into a city-licensed vehicle? That wasn't reality—that did not even deserve to purport to be reality. That was some police lieutenant's daydream when the mind wanders during that final bite of a turkey sandwich at lunch.

Without warning, Batman gave a struggled groan entwined with his injury; the sound was nauseating. "Look," the Joker said quickly. "You're a distracting little girl. If I do what you say, will you leave me alone?"

"Depends." And then she was gone, climbing on the lattice of the metalwork. Hopefully, he thought to himself, this would be the last time that they parted.

In the short time that they conversed, the mist had cleared just enough to extend visibility a few more yards to the opposite curb. And there, on that grimy curb, was a yellow cab beneath the veil of smog. It was convenient to the point of absurdity, but the Joker had learned long ago that absurdity was not something to question, only something with which to comply. And comply he did, slogging across the cracked asphalt with the dying Dark Knight, much to the horror of the driver.

All the poor man managed was a soundless gaping as he struggled to stuff the soda bottle back into the cup holder, realizing too late that, if he had been smarter, he should have reached for the door lock instead. The fear shone in his eyes like torches that flickered wildly when he recognized the mass over the clown's shoulders.

For once, the fear left the Joker without an adrenaline high. "Hey," he said, tapping a knuckle against the passenger-side window. "I have need of your services." Eyeing the man suggestively, he jerked his thumb at Batman in hopes that one fear would free him from the paralysis of another. But he remained frozen in the old leather seat. "You are not being very bright." The painted face, smeared by the elements, approached the glass. Carefully the black eyes shifted from side to side and, quite casually, he stepped back and kicked the pane in with a dull crunch. Where there had once been a perfect sheen was a hole just large enough for a decent—albeit threatening—conversation.

"Now…" the clown said quietly, licking his lips. Maybe the window-kicking was not, in retrospect, the wisest choice, seeing as the cabbie had begun to quake and cower into a little ball. He was a scrawny man, probably a newcomer to the city in search of a job to feed his family; underneath the fear in his eyes there was a sense of constant, perpetual worry about something, just something, for it was all too vague to make a judgment. Maybe the Joker should have left the window as it was, but there was nothing to do about it now. "Now see…" he started again. "The Batman is going to die if you don't agree to work with me. And that…" He paused to gaze around, above the taxi, sighing, before turning back to the man. "That would just make me crazier…" Though he had tried to prevent it, the last word came out a guttural grumble and caused a visible flinch.

"Please," he added. He didn't often stoop down that low, and he hoped the driver would realize that, perhaps stop shivering and speed off to the hospital. Time for the impossible—"I'm not going to hurt you."

For once, the man peeked up from his pseudo-fetal position. "Y-you serious?"

"I'm always serious," he sighed; in one motion, he heaved the back door open and slid in, dragging Batman along. "That's why they call me the Joker." Their eyes met in the rearview mirror. "What are you looking at? Drive to the hospital!"

"It's just—"

"I know my joke didn't make much sense."

"No…" With a click and a lurch, the old taxi shifted into drive and began to accelerate down the road. "It's just…his face. What happened to the Batman's face?"

"No questions." And, for the first time since he commenced this little journey, the clown examined his dirty work: the masked head was lolled to one side, toward him, and the entire exposed region of his skin around the mouth was crimson and scarlet, maroon in some places where the blood was already dry and starting to flake. It was sickening, grotesque, and the glance of its maker could hardly be removed. Every bump, every jostle from the road—and there were many—forced the clown's eyes back at the severed sides of cheek on the Dark Knight's face. He sunk a bit in his seat, squeaking against the leather, and looked out the window at the blurred buildings. What was he expecting to see? The knowing stare and tiny grin of that stalker girl? In a way, he almost hoped. Maybe she could tell him where to go—being "good," it was such a foreign territory to traverse, even for a night.

"Did—did you do that t-to him?"

"No questions."

"Well—" One raise of his eyebrows and the Joker silenced him.

The silence was ongoing, save for the groans of the engine and the hero, and the clown found himself squirming at every possible moment. Surely in a city the size of Gotham there had to be some sort of competent medical facility nearby, or perhaps the driver understood the severity, the absolute need to have the best doctors. How long Batman had before he succumbed to shock could only be represented by a fearful shrug.

"We're here."

From the corner of his eye, the Joker sensed the fluorescent aura emanating from the emergency room window but stared for a moment at the driver, careful to hide his face from anyone meandering past the idling vehicle. "I…don't have any money." There was no response, no change in facial expression. "I can, uh…have someone send it to you—"

"Don't let the Batman die tonight." Without another word, he clicked the all-unlock and fiddled with a loose panel on the dashboard. Although the clown knew the terse conversation was over, he sat in the seat for a second afterwards just to collect whatever had been jumbled in his labyrinth of a mind.

It was an awkward maneuver outside the taxi, keeping to the shadows away from the citizens, hiding amid a leafy plant to observe the sensitivity of the automatic sliding doors. Every so often he peered back at the curb, where the taxi still remained, a distracting blot of yellow upon his strained concentration.

Unceremoniously, the Joker leaped from his cover and into that blinding square of light, rolling the Dark Knight onto the mud-stained mat and running, running as fast as his scrawny legs could manage. This was what he was accustomed to—the wind in his hair, coat flapping along noisily, a toothy grin of victory aimed toward the sky with a cackle bubbling in his gut, and in the distance the panicked peals of screams as the reality set in, and even further, beyond that, the clanking of a rickety old taxi whose driver believed he'd just witnessed the hand of God.

XXX

A month passed when Gotham City was without its hero. Some wondered whether the bizarre happenings at the hospital were enough to drive him away from his self-proclaimed duties, but those knew few details. They didn't know the extent. They only knew that a chance had come and gone when his identity could have been revealed to the world and some idealist physicians had adamantly refused. But still, that failed to change his absence.

Bored, the Joker found himself standing on the edge of a condemned brick apartment building beneath the black, inky night, machine gun strapped to his back. He tried to imagine what to do with his time, something that would at least pretend to be worthwhile. Once each antic went unchallenged, he too had decided to drop off the face of the Earth. Who knew floating absently in space was so dull?

There was a flutter, and though the sound was slight, the clown jumped as he turned to the source.

The Batman.

"Joker," he said in his growling tone.

He didn't immediately reply, instead squinting through the uneven orange lighting from below. After a moment, Batman shifted his head and all became excruciatingly clear. "Um…Batman." The vigilante barely spared him a glance. "Not to sound blunt, but…what do you want?"

"Gordon told me your activity has been low since…" he grumbled, pacing and staring at everything but him in a most unusual fashion. "What did you do?"

"Uh…" Pulling at the gun's strap across his chest, he shifted his weight to his other foot. "Robbed a bank. Threatened some people…"

While he had been muttering, the black eyes had fallen to his shoes, forced down by the tension gripping and choking the air around them.

"Why'd you save me?"

He looked back up and found Batman's face only a foot and a half from his own, and almost asked what he was smiling about. Barely healed, the thick paths of the blade ran in violent, throbbing hues of orange and pink, contradicting his determined scowl. Forever the cheap façade of happy, despite the pain and grief of everyday life in the dreadful metropolis—they knew why they were smiling, but they also knew why they frowned.

The Joker searched for words and found too many, all eventually slipping through his fingers as his mouth stumbled to make a coherent sentence: far too many reasons to sift through, not one at all correct. Stepping toward the ladder to the fire escape and pursing his lips, he merely shook his head—it felt like the right thing to do—in hopes that the Dark Knight would understand what he did not. Quite possibly he did, for as the clown clambered down the rungs, no attempt was made to stop him.

As he slunk through the streets below, the Joker's mind wandered to alternatives. Maybe one day they could give each other a night of amnesty. Maybe one day they could regard the other without menace. Maybe one day—and he laughed cynically at the thought—they could erase the barrier of masks and paint and look at each other as human beings with identities that did not include an article, with some semblance of normalcy that appeared impossible to achieve, with the reality that everyone else lived in. They could only play these deadly games for so long, and maybe that really was what this city needed.

He approached a familiar alley and examined the windows of the apartments; silhouettes drifted by the windows like ghosts. There he waited, hoped, but not for long. With the gun pulling guiltily on his shoulder, he turned away.

"Maybe later," he muttered. For once, the agent of chaos would have an early night.

XXX

You wouldn't believe how long this had been sitting unfinished on my computer.

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