Bruce heard crying and frantic Portuguese as he stepped out of the elevator and onto the appropriate floor. He silently berated himself and further fisted the bags in his hands. He had purposefully left in the early morning as he knew the Joker's habit of sleeping in. The man, much like himself, was a bit of a night owl. Over the last few days Bruce had noticed the look of utter terror that would cross John's face every time he left the room. He obviously did not believe his promises to return, despite their sincerity. He figured that by leaving early enough he would arrive before John awoke and avoid tribulation entirely. He hoped he would completely obliterate any chance of seeing that abjectly broken look in John's eyes.
His thought immediately turned to what horrible things The Joker was doing to the unsuspecting nurse. His nostrils flared, his heart began to race, and the bags he had been holding so tightly fell to the floor. He raced toward the door, geared for battle as he came to it and pulled it open with such strength that he nearly ripped it off its hinges. The sight that greeted him was far from expected.
The joker sat up in his bed, his impossibly thin legs folded gracefully and his head buried in his knees.
"Ele não volta!" He cried miserably as the nurse looked at him warily from across the room.
"Ele sempre faz." She argued. While Bruce hadn't a clue what they were saying, it was obvious that they had probably had that exact conversation countless times. The impatience in her voice was palpable.
"Mas ele não vai a desta vez! Ninguém jamais me toleraria para muito tempo!" He argued as he shook his head against his knees. When the nurse looked up at Bruce he suddenly understood exactly what their conversation was about.
"O olhar, ele voltou outra vez. Como eu disse, ele sempre irá." She then pointed in his direction and John raised his head. In an instant he was sitting normally and his voice was perfectly even, despite the tears which still streamed down his face. Bruce then berated himself for being overly suspicious.
"Oi!" He said brightly and Bruce barely cocked his head to the side. "Como é?"
"Hello to you too." Bruce said with a little smile and John began speaking in an exuberant whirlwind of rapid fire Portuguese. The nurse then walked in front of him.
"He is telling you of his big morning." She said sardonically. Her accent was thick and she bit her lip as she fished for the proper English words. "He put his pillowcase on his head, as a hat…and had the cheerios for the first time. He almost got one stuck up his…" She sighed and gestured toward her nose. She shook her head in disbelief as she exited the room. John was still going on with the gusto of a child so Bruce sat beside his bed and waited for him to finish. Eventually his Portuguese petered out into full blown English and he collapsed against his bed, exhausted. He then rolled over onto his side to face Bruce.
"It was fun!" He whispered and Bruce chuckled. The simple wonder this caused John only served to worry Bruce more than before. He wondered exactly what the poor man's actual childhood must have been like. His thoughts turned darker and darker. Countless horrors damasked in blood played in the corners of his mind, only to be interrupted by the sound of a throat being cleared. He returned to his present to find John looking up at him nervously.
"Did I do something wrong?" He asked and Bruce did his best to regain a nonthreatening expression.
"I was just wondering how you learned to speak Portuguese." He said and John frowned.
"Is that bad?"
"No!" Bruce said emphatically. "I, myself, have always wanted to learn another language."
"Really? I learned some from listening to the nurses. They have long conversations when they think I'm asleep, all though only two of them will talk to me." He said sadly and Bruce reached out and placed a hand on his arm to lend him some comfort. John looked up and into his eyes.
"Where did you go this morning?" He asked quietly and all of the sudden the door opened and a nurse entered carrying the bags he had dropped. She left them at the door with only a brief, muddled explanation before exiting.
"She said that a doctor saw you drop them in the hall." John replied and Bruce grabbed the bags with a small grin. He artfully his worry. After seeing that John knew nothing of basic geography or even everyday things such as cigarettes, he wondered what other knowledge he had been deprived of. As there were no records which indicated that he had ever gone to school, Bruce doubted that he had received a basic education.
And while he was heartened by the ease with which John picked up Portuguese, and knew from personal experience that he was indeed deeply intelligent, he wondered if he could understand basic math, read, or even write his own name in English. He hoped that learning these things might help John mend psychologically-make him feel more like a person. He also hoped that if he was indeed capable of these simple things, then he would not be offended by his question.
"Can you read?"
John remained silent for a long while. His face paled and his eyes misted with memory. "A little." He said and Bruce slowly pulled one of the random English books he had been able to procure at the market place out of one of his bags.
"A book." John said flatly as he took the thing into his hands, upside down, and began to scour its pages. "You want to teach me to read?" He asked, one of his hands tangling thoughtfully in his quickly growing hair.
Bruce nodded. John thoughtfully nibbled on his lip before scooting over on the bed and holding out the book. When Bruce reached for it he pulled it back and shyly patted the bed beside him. Bruce was careful to maintain his distance as he stiffly sat on the bed, only to have John virtually stretch himself out on his lap as languorously as a cat. He couldn't help but relax into the light embrace as the smaller man rested his head against his chest.
"Read to me?" John asked.
Bruce obliged.