Prompt: Hold the Line.
Thanks to Kathy for the beta!
Choice of Evils
"Why Batsie! I never knew you cared!"
"Grab on." The vigilante shifted the thin titanium cable three inches to the left, so that it brushed the white-gloved hand.
Joker removed one hand from the concrete windowsill and raised his shoulder in an amused shrug. "Sure, whatever ya say, Bats! Far be it from moi to talk you out of saving my neck." He took hold of the line, eyes dancing. "Hoist 'er up!" He crowed. The line began to move. "Faster! Faster! Mush! Mush!"
The upward motion stopped.
Joker glanced up. "Giddyap? Kutrash? S'il ver plate?"
The line began ascending once more.
"That's it!" He chortled. "I thought that might be the magic word, hee-hee-hee!"
This time, there was a growl from above, followed by "shut… up."
"Ooh! Sorry, Batsie. My bad. I thought you liked infield chatter. Or is THAT why you ditched the first little birdie?"
The cable stopped again.
Joker sighed. "Silver plate."
The line was still.
"Hellooooo?"
Silence.
"Well if you're going to sulk, I don't think I want to hang around." With that, he let go of the cable and plummeted.
"JOKER!" Batman launched a second grapnel line, knowing that he was moving too slowly. The buildings were too close together, there was too much wind… too many excuses…
"HAHAHAHAHA!" Joker rose higher, wearing a contraption that seemed to marry a parachute with a propeller blade. "Admit it, Bats. I gotcha! I gotcha good, this time!" He hovered several feet out of reach.
Batman pulled up the first line and prepared to cast it.
"Sorry, Bats," Joker tutted. "You already had your shot and you blew it. Besides, that thingy-do you have on the end looks really sharp. Might even tear my 'chute… and me eighty stories up." He shook his head sorrowfully. "Can't have that on your conscience now, can you? Life's tough."
The cowled crusader said nothing, but his jaw clenched visibly.
"Adios, Bat-Buckaroo! Sayonara, Capibara!"
The propellers whirled louder as Joker spun about and sailed off.
Batman threw the line. The grapnel whistled as it arced through the air. It looped itself twice about Joker's ankles, then went taut. Even though he'd braced himself, the weight of criminal and contraption nearly wrenched his arms out of their sockets. Grunting, Batman backed up, dragging Joker down to the rooftop.
As soon as the Clown Prince was over the roof, he unfastened his harness, dropped, and rolled the last six feet to the concrete surface. He tried to get to his feet, but fell flat, his legs still tangled in the cable. An instant later, Batman was upon him.
"Police will be here in a minute," Batman snarled in his ear. His knees pressed into Joker's upper arms, pinning him to the ground.
Joker twisted his neck, trying to look up into the vigilante's face. "You should've let me fall, Bats. One boomerang-bat could've knocked out the propeller. You'd probably get a ticker tape parade and bimbos swooning in your arms, for your trouble." He sighed mock-sorrowfully. "Now… I'll be out before you know it, and the fun will start all over again."
"I don't kill, Joker."
Joker made a rude noise. "Sure, you do. You've killed hundreds, thousands even, over the last few years. Plus, you've crippled the commissioner's daughter, shot your first bird, took a crowbar to the next… And of course we mustn't forget Pettit… Oh, and Gordon's wife, what was her name again? Can't recall. Guess I'll have to swing by the cemetery and check that headstone some time." He chuckled. "Don't you get it, Batsie? Every time you get a chance to kill me and you don't, there's a little bit of you in everything I do after that point."
"No. You're wrong. I am not responsible for your actions."
Joker laughed. "I'm insane, Bat-boob! Neither am I!"
The police chose that moment to burst onto the rooftop. They quickly took Joker in hand.
"Aren't you going to bring the Bat, too?" Joker demanded. "He's almost as guilty as I am!"
Batman walked up to Joker and looked levelly into his eyes. "We are nothing alike."
"Attaboy, Bats! Keep sticking to that line!" Joker grinned. "We both know the truth."
It would have been easy to dismiss his diatribe as the ravings of a madman. Three weeks later, though, the Joker escaped from Arkham Asylum, again. Before his recapture, he detonated a Smilex bomb on a school bus. Sixteen middle-school children lost their lives, as did the driver. And for many nights, their faces, like Joker's words, haunted Batman's dreams.