Title: Put Down Your Arms (And Wrap Them Both Around Me)
Author:
Challenge: Round 19 Team Knight
Prompt: Red
Word Count: 2175
Beta:
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nolan-verse, character death, mentioned Bruce/Selina, implied Bruce/Joker gen or pre-slash
Summary:It takes vital seconds for Bruce to realize that he is not alone in his room.
Disclaimer: This work is based on characters and concepts created and owned by DC Comics, Warner Bros. and other entities and corporations. No money is being made and no copyright and/or trademark infringement is intended.
A/N: The title of this fic comes from Boulders by New Found Glory.
It takes Bruce vital seconds to realize that he is not alone in his room. He could blame it on the oxycodone that blurs the edges of his consciousness, causing him to ignore the niggling feeling that something is wrong. He could blame it on the sleeplessness that plagues his nights, making him neglect to notice the opened balcony door. Or he could blame his recent conversation with Selina, when he once again failed to confide in her, for taking the last few steps inside the room, reflexively shutting the bedroom door behind him.
All of these things contribute to Bruce's critical inattention but the real reason is far deeper and more insidious.
Bruce just doesn't care anymore.
That's why, when he finally notices the figure slouching against the wall, he doesn't even check his progress towards the dresser. Instead, he continues unknotting his tie, pulling it off with a whisper of silk against linen, and throwing it over a chair. He's started on his cufflinks before the figure finally speaks.
"Heeeeeya, Brucie. Haven't seen ya in a while."
Bruce deliberately sets the cufflinks down on the dresser—gold with jet insets, his grandfather's—before turning.
"I try to avoid Arkham when possible."
The Joker pushes off from the wall and began to approach at an angle, slow and deliberate.
Predatory.
Bruce feels his heart begin to pound, adrenaline humming through his blood. It is an immediate response, and it cuts through the painkillers and the apathy that have shrouded Bruce for months. His body recognizes its adversary and responds accordingly.
"You shouldn't," Joker says. "It's full of the most interesting people. But that's-ah-not what I meant." He pauses and Bruce turns more fully toward him in response, his whole body on high alert.
"I mean you haven't been acting right. Foooor quite. Some. Time. You've been, uh…erratic."
Bruce feels himself go cold. If the Joker has noticed it means it is becoming more obvious. It means he is already beginning to become unable to fulfill his role as Batman.
Bruce hates what's happening to him, hates the depair that seems to leech away a little more of his will every day, leaving him dry and empty. Each moment he struggles against it is like a little death, a dress rehearsal for what's coming. Bruce tries. He immerses himself in work, in fighting for Gotham, in quelling his own rising doubts and fears.
They remain, regardless. Bruce is powerless against the rising tide of them, just as he's powerless to stop what's crashing toward him.
Just one more failure that can be laid at his door.
Bruce feels him shoulders slump. "I don't want to talk about it."
Suddenly, Joker has crossed the distance between them and is right in front of him, hands bunched in the fabric of Bruce's shirt, his breath hot on Bruce's face. Bruce feels a faint flash of anger stir at the clown's closeness, but the effort to push him away is too much.
"Then findsomeone to talk to about it," Joker snaps. He releases Bruce and steps back.
"Maybe that girlfriend of yours," He says sullenly. "Whatever. But, uh- you go on like this; you're gonna get yourself killed."
Bruce laughs bitterly. "It doesn't matter."
He sinks down on the bed. The Joker's eyes glitter in the semi-darkness, watching, assessing. Like always, Bruce wants to counter that regard with something of his own: a punch, a demand to get out of his house, a set of cuffs, a trip back to Arkham.
Before, he's always answers Joker in kind; muscle for muscle, riposte for riposte, pain for pain. But something about Joker's cautious concern tears down Bruce's own defensiveness, making him reach for the honest answer instead of the easy one.
"I'm dying," he says flatly. It is the first time he's said it to anyone. "I have a brain tumor. Inoperable. The doctors say I have less than a year."
Bruce doesn't know why he tells him. He hasn't even told Selina yet. Only Alfred knows and that is because he'd been the one to open the envelope and see the test results. Bruce doesn't want anyone to know, can't stand the thought of their tender concern or worse, their pity. Maybe that's why he tells Joker. Joker is many things but pitying is not among them.
Bruce doesn't know what he expects Joker to say. Something cutting and sarcastic, maybe; something that will fill Bruce with the old rage, the old urge to fight. Anything to shake him out of his despair.
Do it, he thinks. Give it to me. Make it really hurt. Let me hate you again.
Let me feel anything again.
The silence stretches out between them, long enough that Bruce finally raises his eyes to Joker's face. Something strange is happening to the clown. In the low light Bruce can just see the way his face is crumpling in on itself like a piece of paper, forehead wrinkling, eyes squeezed shut, mouth opening wide to emit a loud mirthless laugh. His body doubles over on itself, his head moving back and forth, his entire body shaking as the laughter pours out of him. His voice is high and brittle and unhinged—getting louder and higher by the second. It is distorting and changing until it is no longer recognizably human. It seeps into Bruce's brain and fills it with shards of sound that go on and on and on.
"Stop it," Bruce says feebly, trying to block the sound out. He squeezes his eyes shut but he can still hear the laughter, horrible and sickening. He has to stop it, before it drives them both mad. He launches himself at Joker, tackling him to the floor. He hears Joker's head hit the carpet with a thump, his teeth clacking painfully together but the laughter does not stop.
"Stop it!" Bruce shouts into his face, shaking him, desperate to end the sound. "STOP IT!"
"NO!" Joker suddenly screams back at him. His hands clutch at Bruce's arms with brutal strength. "NONONONONONO! You can't leave me! I won't let you!"
The laughter has been replaced by sobs and snarls, the incoherent sounds of a wounded animal. Tears are leaking from the corners of Joker's eyes, smearing the black and white makeup together. He thrashes against Bruce but his hands clutch Bruce closer. Bruce just holds on, one fist buried in Joker's hair and the other gripping his forearm tightly. Finally, his struggling ceases and he buries his face in Bruce's shoulder, his chest heaving with emotion.
It takes Bruce a long moment to realize what they are doing—lying side by side on the carpet, practically wrapped around each other as Joker cries into his shoulder. And the fact is that Bruce feels the absurd need to apologize to Joker, to tell him that he's sorry he's leaving and that he doesn't want to, would never, if he had the choice.
Eventually, Joker's breathing calms. Bruce doesn't move away. Joker doesn't either. It is like they have reached a strange stalemate, both too tired and too defeated to do anything but lie tangled together and grieve.
Joker's hoarse voice breaks the silence.
"Tell me," he demands.
So Bruce does. He tells Joker about how he found out and about how devastated he was. He tells him how powerless he feels against the daily indignities that his body heaps on him, about the memory loss and the numbness in his limbs and the pain. He tells him how scared he is to lose his ability to be Batman, how humiliating it is to be killed like this.
"I always thought it would be you and me, at the end," he says. Joker's hands tighten in the back of his shirt. "I can't stand the thought of dying in some hospital bed surrounded by nurses. It seems so...futile."
Bruce feels Joker's nod. He lapses into silence. He can feel Joker's breath teasing the skin of his neck, can feel Joker's hands petting soothing circles into his back. It's…comforting. Which is strange and incomprehensible and wrong. Bruce knows he ought to end this weird détente. He should incapacitate the clown and turn him over to the police. Or at least he should pull away from the madman, rather than give in to the easy consolation of Joker's touch.
Bruce is just gathered himself to pull away when Joker moves first, untangling himself and rolling to his feet in one graceful gesture. He leans down and helps Bruce up.
Joker is standing very close, and Bruce chances a shy glance into his face. There are still tears on his cheeks and his makeup is in ruins. Joker doesn't seem to care about any of that, though. He doesn't apologize or act awkward. Instead, he smoothes his hands down the front of Bruce's shirt, his head cocked to the side and then he nods, as if coming to a decision.
He reaches into a pocket and, with a flourish, pulls out a playing card. He holds it up in front of Bruce's face, turning it over with a flick of his wrist so Bruce can see, first the black decal of the Joker on one side, then the red lattice-work pattern on the other. Joker twists his wrist and the card has suddenly disappeared from his hand.
Bruce catches his eye, raises a questioning eyebrow.
"Check your pocket," Joker says teasingly, gesturing to Bruce's shirt pocket where, sure enough, the Joker card now resides. Bruce feels a faint smile pull at the corners of his mouth. Joker grabs Bruce's hand where it still rests against his heart, his thumb pressing against Bruce's lifeline, warm and strong. His face is uncharacteristically sober.
"When it's time, you put that somewhere I can find it. I'll make sure you uh- go down fighting."
Their eyes meet. The truth is stark between them.
After a long moment, Bruce nods. He pulls his hand from Joker's grasp and straightens steps back. He turns towards the lights of Gotham, bright through the picture window and he reminds himself what he fights for, what he lives for.
He does not hear the Joker leave, does not even know how long he has been standing there but still he murmurs, "Thank you," to the still darkness.