What's worse than ten dead babies nailed to a tree? One dead baby nailed to ten trees.
And with that, Gotham's police force scoured Central Park.
How do you make a dead baby float? Take your foot off its head.
Then they dredged the bay.
What do you call a dead baby with no arms and no legs hanging on your wall? Art.
Searched all the museums and galleries.
What's the difference between a Cadillac and a pile of dead babies? I don't have a Cadillac in my garage.
That's what finally got Batman to come running.
Oh sure, with no dead babies by that point, Gotham PD was pretty sure The Joker was just...joking. But "pretty sure" wouldn't save them from public crucifixion if there had been a dead baby and they hadn't investigated.
So each threat/joke had to be taken seriously.
And Batman was pissed.
Relieved of course, that so far he hadn't seen a dead baby at the location scribbled on the back of the last note.
But there was no sign of The Joker, and he was still pissed.
"You wanted me here?! Here I am."
Nothing.
"Show yourself!"
Zip.
"JOKER!"
Nada.
"Then I'm leaving."
"So soon?"
Batman didn't even bother to whirl around and demand to know how The Joker had gotten behind him—him!
He was the night!
"Explain yourself."
The Joker walked around Batman's side, fingers linked and arms stretched out behind his back, his steps comically large.
"Wellllll..." The clown drawled, his posture the very picture of childish innocence. "I wanted to ask you something, and I don't exact..ly have your ah...number as it were...soooooo..."
"What?!" Batman growled, resisting the urge to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose like an exasperated parent.
The Joker dropped the innocent pretense and scurried over to a section of the room that was blocked off by a dingy curtain.
"Will you..."
He paused and licked his lips.
"Be my..."
He grabbed a side of the curtain.
"Baby?"
The Joker threw back the curtain to reveal a tiny folding table with two lawn chairs, a single candle, and a box of gas station wine.
Batman laughed.
The Joker nearly had a seizure from rage. Batman had never, ever, ever laughed at one of his jokes, and now, the one time, the ONE FUCKING TIME he was trying to be serious, the winged rodent laughed at him.
Normally, the irony of the Batman laughing while he shook with rage would have been enough to start him off on his own hysterics, but not today.
No, not today of all days.
Batman finally stopped laughing, a noise that actually sounded more like he was having his own seizure.
"Am I hallucinating?"
The Joker wanted nothing more than to shriek at him that it was their anniversaryand maybe even stab him a bit for forgetting, except there was something he wanted more than even that.
"No, you're not." Joker said, his voice normal for once.
"Then you have got to be shitting me."
That nearly set The Joker off, but he noticed just in time that Batman didn't even seem to be addressing him, necessarily. It was hard to see under the cowl, but it almost seemed as if his eyes were raised heavenward, and he was addressing the universe in general.
"Not joking, Batman."
That got the Batman's attention, and his eyes dropped back down to the clown's face. He didn't say anything for several moments, clearly waiting for The Joker's voice to go back to its "normal" insane tone as he screeched out some sort of punchline.
But The Joker didn't say anything either, and the two men just stared at each other, the candle flickering awkwardly behind the curtain.
Batman opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, cleared his throat, then shook his head.
"I always wondered if you were just acting. Playing up the whole insanity thing in case you were ever caught, but now I know." He looked The Joker in the eye. "You really are crazy."
"Crazy about you."
But it wasn't said with any particular, maniacal enthusiasm. In fact, The Joker had forced it out through gritted teeth.
"You're serious."
It wasn't a question, but the Batman was clearly waiting for The Joker to deny it, which he didn't.
"Then I'm leaving." Batman said, already turning toward the door.
"Fine!" Joker snapped at his back.
He collapsed heavily into one of the lawn chairs and ripped the bottle of wine out of its box.
"You aren't..." Batman paused at the door. "...really going to kill any babies, are you?"
"No! GOD, just leave!" Joker shouted, tearing at the foil around the cork.
When he glanced up again a few seconds later, Batman was gone.
A/N: So I'm not sure how MUCH of a plot I can promise, but I would really like to keep this storyline going because I've always loved these too together.
Also, no promises on the order of the prompts. I may change or switch them at will, to better fit whatever plotline I piece together.
Finally, I chose to update this story instead of my Avengers/Batman crossover fic. I may put up a chapter two for that story later, but I've had tests this week (yeah, college student) so sacrifices had to be made, and so I only updated the more popular of my two stories.
PS: All reviews are answered by The Joker. He's a real fucking nice guy like that.