My Heart in Chains

The first thing he noticed upon awakening was the cold. It was frigid in here, chilling his bones through the cracks in his armor. He shivered, alerting him to a rattling, clinking sound above him where chains bound his wrists above his head. He tried to maneuver his hands into a position that would more easily allow him to escape from his restraints – or at least, make him more comfortable – only to find that he couldn't even feel his hands anymore. The combined effects of the freezing temperature and the gravity that was pulling blood away from his hands rendered his digits useless. Without blood, his fingers would surely freeze to death, and upon realizing that fact he attempted even more vigorously to wrest his arms free from the chain. After a few minutes of jerking his arms about, though, he hung limp in defeat; escape was futile at the moment. He would just have to wait until he could summon more strength to get free.

In the meantime, he realized that he did not have a blindfold on of any sort; it had simply been too dark in the room to see anything initially. Now, however, as his eyes slowly adjusted to the blackness, he could scarcely make out black bricks that surrounded him on three sides – at least, the three sides of his prison he could see. Upon attempting to swivel his head around to catch a glimpse of the fourth wall behind him, it suddenly came to his attention that...

…he had no mask.

The realization struck him like a sniper's bullet, piercing his heart with a shock of pumping adrenaline. Whoever had kidnapped him knew. Knew who he was. Knew that Gotham's protector and Gotham's playboy were one and the same. This new fact drew up a hidden reserve of panicked strength, and he jerked once again against the chains that held his wrists in place on the ceiling. They still refused to budge. In frustration, he kicked out with his right foot into the air…

…only to feel the steel toe of his boot connect with someone's leg behind him.

He froze in place, shocked at what he had just felt. There was someone else here, too. Tentatively, he reached behind him with his foot again, this time more cautiously brushing the clothed calf muscle about a foot away. The fabric folded in a bunch around his heel as he drove it upward. Well, this was a new development, and hopefully a helpful one, at that. If this person was in the same state of imprisonment as he was, maybe they could help him escape, or at least give him some more information about the situation. That is, if they hadn't already frozen to death from the cold; who knew how long they had been hanging here in this secret underground vault (from the sparse rats and dripping water that now laced the edges of the walls, he surmised that they were indeed underground).

Suddenly, he heard a faint groan behind him. Apparently, the person with him was indeed alive, and had just woken up upon feeling someone kick their leg. He heard a clanking noise above him, signifying that the other person was indeed a fellow captive, bound in a similar fashion. The other person seemed to have noticed this too, and proceeded to writhe and struggle against the chains much as he had not moments before. From the grunts that issued from behind him, he was fairly certain that his companion was a man.

"I'm stuck too," he spoke quietly, though his voice came out as more of a croak after hours of lack of use.

The clanging behind him abruptly stopped as the other man was suddenly alerted to his presence. After a long moment's silence, he heard a cautious reply. "How long have you been here?"

The voice sent tremors rattling through his heart. It sounded so familiar, yet he couldn't place exactly where he had heard it before. Uneasily, he answered, "Not sure. I just woke up a few minutes ago." He heard a dejected sigh from the man behind him, knowing that he had hoped for more information. "How'd you get here?"

"No idea," came the disheartened response, causing his heart to fall lower with the growing impossibility of the situation. "You?"

"No clue," he answered, and both men fell silent for a long time, unknowingly pondering the same thing: how to escape. Casting his eyes about the dark room, he realized he had never had the chance to look behind him. Maybe the other would know. "What's in front of you?"

"A tunnel," the other captive replied, and he then realized that the voice behind him had seemed to echo faintly this entire time. "It stretches on for a while; I can't see where it leads. It's just black. What about in front of you?"

"Just a wall," he replied. "I think we're at one end of the tunnel." He heard another exasperated sigh behind him, and he unconsciously mimicked the motion back; they were both growing increasingly frustrated with this hopeless predicament. Casting about for some insight, he rolled his eyes up to the ceiling where their arms were bound – only to realize that they were both bound with the same chain, running through a simple metal loop attached to the ceiling with nothing more than basic screws. That, combined with the wall that lay a few yards away from him, started the gears turning in his head.

"I've got an idea," he announced quietly to his partner-in-chains.

He felt the man behind him shift with interest at his statement. "Shoot."

"I'm not sure if it'll work…" he began.

"It's better than nothing," the man answered back, flexing his biceps to keep them awake.

"…but since we're bound with the same chain, I think that if I can reach the wall in front of me, I can launch myself backwards towards you…"

"…and our combined weight will break the chain loose?" the man put in, finishing his train of thought.

"That's the general idea, yes. Either the chain, or the fixture holding the chain. It's only held in place by a few screws."

There was a few seconds' silence as his comrade considered. Finally he answered, "Give it a shot."

"Alright," he said, beginning to walk forward. "All I need from you is to not pull down on the chain."

The going was shaky from the start – his legs were so dysfunctional from lack of use that it hurt to even move a few inches forward – but it only worsened when he reached the end of his chain. Then came the hard part: he had to pull the other man's weight off the ground to keep going. Hopefully, once he reached the wall – if he reached the wall – he could propel the force backwards and drag the fixture out of the ceiling so they could loop off the chains and find a way out of the tunnel. Hopefully.

The battle at the moment, however, was the first hurdle. And it was no picnic. He grunted and strained against the chain, feeling every last pound of the full-grown man behind him as he inched forward towards the wall. He heard his companion grunt with pain as his arms were nearly wrenched out of their sockets from the upward force of the chain. Both their arms screamed for release from the exertion, to send them back to their equilibrium of hanging from the ceiling again, but his mind held sway over his body, and he pressed on. Inch after inch, step after step, he crept forward as if treading through molasses. Behind him, the other man was now two feet off the ground, and the force of gravity on his body impeded their efforts considerably; several times he was jerked backward when his muscles slackened and attempted to rest, costing him precious centimeters of progress and forcing him to cover them all over again. The constant dipping and diving motion of his comrade couldn't be a pleasant experience, either. He hoped the man wasn't easily prone to motion sickness…

Finally he reached the wall. It had taken him a good half hour, and his arms felt as if they were torn in a thousand places and were about to fall from his body; bleeding from armless shoulder sockets seemed a pleasurable paradise compared to this. But he clung to the wall nevertheless, attempting to find the edges of bricks that stuck out from their neighbors, giving him micro-handholds to climb up – he had to get as high up on the wall as possible for this to work. They would only have one shot at this, he knew, and if it didn't work they would have to wait a long time to gather enough strength to try it again. And, judging by the drastically decreasing temperature of the air around them, by then it may be too late.

Once he had ascended a good four feet up the wall, he paused and panted for breath, closing his eyes in his exhaustion. He must have been hanging here for a good few days, for his endurance and strength to be this shot. He couldn't have eaten anything in at least a week then – his last few days as Batman had been so taxing that he hadn't had time to grab a bite to eat, so absorbed was he in tracking down any possible clue as to the current location of Mr. Freeze.

Mr. Freeze…

Of course. The cold of their environment, the blur of white that had shone before his eyes before giving way to that blackness that had lasted a lifetime…the freeze ray. A new model, he remembered from Freeze's threats to the populace of Gotham upon his latest escape from Arkham. A new model that would freeze the entire city in eternal winter unless he found him in time. Well, it seemed that he had gotten a firsthand taste of its power, and now who knows how many people had fallen to the same fate as he in the days of his captivity. He could only hope Gordon had things under control above ground…

He had to escape. He had to get out of here, to save his city.

With that new spark of resolve, he reached out to grab at the next brick, hefting himself up to the top of the wall. Finally, he was there. Swiveling his body around, he repositioned himself so he was facing the length of the chain, and the man at the other end who was hanging on the ceiling, and had been recently yanking at the bolted fixture holding the chain, trying to wrench it loose to no avail.

"Ready for this?" he asked, alerting his companion to his completed ascent of the wall.

"Go for it," came the grunted reply. "Just don't kill me while you're at it."

"I'll try not to," he answered dryly, but sincerely nonetheless. This innocent civilian was probably his only link to the outside world, and he had to get them both out of this tunnel into the warmth before he could focus on saving their city. With that thought in mind, he coiled his legs beneath him, tensing to pounce. He had to propel himself off the wall with just the right force so that when the chain simultaneously lowered the other man and yanked him forward, they would collide and their combined weight and velocity would pop the screws from the ceiling, freeing them from the chain. If it didn't work…no, it had to work. At the moment, there was no other option.

"One…" he started counting, preparing both of them for when he was to jump. The other man tensed in preparation.

"Two…"

He summoned all his strength into his legs, contracting muscle fibers with impatient energy. Breath whistled through his nostrils as he focused his eyes on his target.

"Three!"

He sprang from the wall with all his might, feeling the jerk of the released tension of the chain drag him forward, dropping the other man to the ground at the same rate. It all happened in a blur, yet with perfect clarity, as he willed himself to fly faster, to reach the other person in time, to make this work, oh please sweet Jesus make this work…

They collided in the air, swinging like a pendulum away from the wall, flinging them both into the tunnel. The chain resisted mightily against their wrists as it reached the end of its length, and they both cried out in pain as the links dug cruelly into their flesh, until they heard a ping! ping! ping! bang! behind them as the screws were popped out from the ceiling, and the fixture flew free from its anchored spot, ricocheting through the air and whacking him in the back of the head.

Now that was a little detail he had overlooked.

They smashed together on the ground, panting heavily from the event. Their whole bodies ached terribly from where they had hit the concrete floor of their prison, and their wrists were heavily bruised and bleeding from the savage bite of the chain, and he could feel a lump growing on the back of his head from where the fixture had hit him, but…they were free.

He rolled off the other man and landed on his back, making him wince at the impact. His arms shouted hallelujah from the release from the uncomfortable upward position they had been forced into before, but his shoulder and back muscles seemed ready to hand in their resignation letters and leave him altogether for another, less demanding body. But they would get over it. He always recovered, and always got back up to fight the next battle.

After looping the chain off his wrists, he scrambled to his feet, leaning against the wall for support – after the days of inactivity followed by the sudden burst of exertion, his legs were little more prepared to handle walking than those of an infant's. His fellow freed his own wrists from the chain and shakily lifted himself to a standing position as well. For a few minutes they just stood there together in victorious silence, save for panting heavily in the frozen air. Finally, he eased himself slowly to his full height and prepared to regain enough strength to play the hero and find a way out of the tunnel for both of them.

"…Batsy?"

The question came meekly from his companion with the shock equivalent to that of morning air after leaping out of bed. His insides seemed to jolt into a simmering red-hot dread as the nickname – and the voice of the person who had uttered it – registered in his memory. The man had obviously noticed his Batsuit, and now knew that his fellow escapee was indeed the Batman.

But only one person had ever called him by that nickname.

No…it couldn't be…

He slowly turned with widened blue eyes to confirm his suspicions…

Please don't let it be true, not him…

He directed his eyes toward his companion only to find the still form of his arch-nemesis, fully decked out in his trademark suit, staring at him with curious green eyes that met his own full force.

His sluggish brain decided at that moment to remind him that he still wasn't wearing his mask.

Right then, he normally would have been overtaken with shame and self-hatred for foolishly letting his identity slip to his worst enemy, then he would have turned that hatred around to direct itself at the madman, letting a violent storm of emotion overtake him as he beat the clown with all his strength and nerve. Thus would have ignited a rash struggle between the two as he found a way to re-chain the (most likely hysterically laughing) lunatic with the discarded chain and then he would have proceeded to drag the man behind him while he searched for the exit, during which search the murderer would squirm and taunt him behind his back and further distract him from the task at hand.

Except for one glaring detail that threw him completely (and almost literally) off balance.

The Joker was also missing his mask.

Replacing the gaudy white, glaring red, and daunting black of the face paint he usually bedecked his profile with, peachy skin surfaced instead. A trace amount of stubble lined his chin, and Bruce knew that the same probably held true for himself as well, considering the time they had both spent trapped in here. His eyes, now freed from their dark cages of charcoal, seemed to give off a kind of…softer glow. More subdued, more…natural, almost. Still unnervingly bright with their sparks of madness, just…lessened to a degree. Almost relaxed. The scars still stuck out strikingly on his face, but stripped of their angry red coating, their natural pink coloring seemed to tame them considerably. The bridge of his nose betrayed a spattering of freckles, making his onlooker nearly do a flip-flop in his stomach at the revelation. Freckles? It seemed too innocent, too…normal for him. Maybe that was why he kept them covered all the time, the unmasked knight thought.

Even his hair had been scrubbed clean of all traces of algae-green, leaving ragged golden locks in its wake. They were by no means beautiful – he looked like he sheared his hair off in hunks himself with one of his knives to keep it at a length he wanted – but seemed to frame his face in a way that strangely suited him.

The billionaire felt as if he were looking at a mismatched picture. From the shoulders down, it looked completely Joker, just as he always looked. The suit, the physique, the blade just barely concealed in the toe of his right shoe…it was all the same. But from the neck up, it was a stranger's face. Such a normal image didn't belong with the rest of the body. It just didn't add up. How could there be a man underneath the monster, it just didn't fit…

From his expression, he could tell that the Joker was thinking the exact same thoughts about him, for he too was seeing his enemy's mortal face for the first time. He felt the laser-bright focus of the emerald eyes rake his visage intently, scrutinizing every little detail, every feature that seemed so familiar, yet so alien. Seeing the brown hair that normally hid beneath the cowl certainly did a number on him – his gaze lingered on it for quite some time, as if trying to make the puzzle pieces fit together in his mind. Narrowing his eyes quizzically, he tore them from the hair and lowered them to the blue eyes that now gazed questions into his own. The question that they now wordlessly begged each other to answer.

Why haven't you shown this to me before?

He suddenly felt a magnetic pull inexplicably drawing him closer to the man whose presence he had gravitated around for the past two years. All that existed to him now was the madman's bare face, the face that didn't fit him, yet fit him so perfectly he wondered why he hadn't been able to place it with him just moments before. The clown also wandered almost dream-like towards him, lightly pushing himself off the wall as he gradually crept closer. They both felt a flittering of a thought at the edges of their minds, whispering urgently that this is your worst enemy, but they brushed it aside casually without stopping their progress towards each other.

In the middle of the tunnel's width, they met each other, and almost instinctively raised their hands up to cup each others' face, able to understand the strange miracle before them even more closely. Green eyes were inches away from blue, and drawing nearer with each passing second…

…until at long last, the distance closed between them, as lips met unpainted lips, joined together in the heat of the moment that had finally come true for them. Their eyes closed gently then, and they gathered each other in their arms, hugging the other close against the cold, letting the stirring heat overtake their bodies and warm their insides.

His nemesis then leaned closer against his body, and he felt his jelly legs give way. He fell to the floor, the Joker on top of him, who proceeded to cover him in even more desperate kisses as he hissed in breath sharply from the impact and from the stirring sensation in his belly.

"Joker…" he whispered pleadingly against his enemy's lips, as the purple gloved hands began to roam between them, grasping at the gaps in his armor, attempting to pry them apart and off his body. He rose with his torso to sit up and make the Joker's efforts easier, maybe help him along, when the man on top of him grabbed his shoulders and forced him back against the brick wall, asserting control. His cowl-less head slammed painfully into the wall, striking the newly-formed lump poking through his hair, and everything went black.

xxx

When he awoke, he was lying in his bed wearing nothing but his sleep pants, safe in Wayne Manor once again. Blinking the harsh sunlight from his eyes, he pressed a hand to his temple in an effort to clear the pounding headache issuing from the back of his head. Feeling behind him, he gingerly fingered the considerably shrunken lump on the back of his head, making him wince with the twinge of pain it produced. He sighed, then looked about the room. It looked the same as always, warm and safe. His haven. Home. And most of all, it was warm. It seemed Mr. Freeze hadn't frozen the entire city after all.

Turning to his nightstand, he found a glass of water left for him by Alfred, along with a breakfast tray off to the side. As hungry as he was, he didn't feel he was strong enough to reach for the food; the water would have to do. As his hand brushed the condensation-speckled glass, his eyes also fell on the TV remote next to it. Reaching to the side, he grabbed it and turned on the news before grasping the water glass, hoping to get some answers as to what had exactly happened while he was unconscious.

"…and it appears that Mr. Freeze has, once again, been thwarted by police, though there appears to have been no involvement by the Batman at all this time," spoke a young journalist in her early twenties. "However, many claim to have seen an equally notorious criminal, the Joker, in among the fray as police took down the iceman."

Bruce nearly choked on the water he had just swallowed as he caught a fuzzy glimpse of purple streak by in the background of the police shootout, carrying something black in its arms.

A squeak of laughter sounded to his left.

Alarmed, he spun round to the source of the sound, making him dizzy and lightheaded as his vision blurred. With a groan he shut his eyes and lowered his head, attempting to make the sensation end…

…when he felt wet lips press to his forehead.

He snapped his eyes open again, but there was no one in sight. The room remained untouched, save for a window that was slightly more ajar than he remembered.

Sighing, he shook his head. Stop imagining things, he chided himself, it's not what you're pretending it to be. It was all probably just a dream.

It was then he noticed the Joker card resting on the nightstand that had not been there twenty seconds ago.

Warily, he reached over and picked it up. Scrawled messily in what appeared to be red lipstick was a message. To him, however, it seemed more like a command, or a threat. And most importantly – which seemed to both unnerve and excite him the most – a promise of what was to come.

Get well soon.

Stop looking at me like that, I swear I'll have my sequel to Singles Awareness Day up soon, it's in the works! I was working on it this weekend, but life got in the way. Ah well, it's getting there. :)