AN: Sorry about the delay, school got in the way of things.

Thanks for the reviews!


Would it be so awful to let him starve?

It took less than a second for his conscience to respond. Yes. Yes, it would.

As important as his morals were, sometimes they were damn annoying. Even if they were the only thing keeping him from becoming as bad as the monsters he fought. He sighed, feeling a sense of irritation with himself for doing so. Batman was supposed be more than just a man, and displaying exasperation or fatigue in the suit, even when he was alone, felt almost like betraying the image he maintained. It made little sense, but then, there wasn't much sense in dressing like a bat to begin with. Not at first glance, anyway.

Holding back another sigh, he entered the security code to the other cell, braced himself and stepped inside.

"And here I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about little old me."

The Joker, currently facing away from him and attempting to untangle the disaster he'd made of his chains, tilted his head back to face him, eyes sparkling. He'd smeared his makeup at some point during the night, turning it back to the usual smudged mess, framed by tangled curls. He was pushing his tongue around inside his mouth again, judging from the movement of his cheeks, and the dress looked unsettlingly incongruous on his body.

It was a slap in the face to Rachel's memory, the dress. More than ever, he wished he didn't have a code against killing. This man had taken the woman who was going to wait for him, and now he had the audacity to defile Bruce's remembrance of her. He didn't deserve mercy. He deserved to be taken out and shot like the mad dog he was so fond of comparing himself to.

But tempting as it was, that wasn't his judgment to make. The failure on the behalf of the courts to realize the Joker was untreatable did not give him the right to take the law into his own hands. What he did was close enough to crossing a line as it was.

Though if the Joker kept winking at him like that, he wasn't sure he'd be able to hold back.

"You took my coat." He turned to face him now, chains clanking as he sucked on his scars from the inside, grimacing slightly.

"You're not getting it back."

"Not too tactful, are ya?" The Joker scowled again, attempting to pull his arms out of the knot he'd appeared to have made in the chains, somehow. "You've got a lotta restraints, you know that?" He ran his tongue over his lips at that statement, slowly.

Batman knew exactly what he was about to imply and didn't give him the satisfaction of a response.

"Bats." He rolled his eyes. "It take two to, uh, converse. We're never gonna get anywhere if you don't use your words."

He didn't give that an answer, either.

"Remember when I called ya a D? That was speculation, for the most part, an, uh, educated guess if you will. Circumstantial evidence, you might call it." Having managed to untangle himself, he lay back on the mattress, shifting as he lay down on the chains. "Ya tend to go a bit overboard with the restraints whenever you throw me into the Batmobile, but that could always be an obsession with protecting your car." He giggled, at whatever thoughts were running through his head, Batman supposed. "Guys tend to be that way, ya know, if they feel they're—how do I put this delicately—inadequate in other areas?" Another laugh. "I guess a guy running around fighting evil with his gazillion dollar toys would be, uh, compensating for something. Never struck me as the type, but—"

"Do you have a point?" He wasn't sure why he responded. Maybe to distract himself from the way his eye had begun twitching involuntarily. Or to keep him from snapping the clown's neck.

"My point is, you're absolutely a D. This proves it. I mean, you've got me more chained up than Marley's ghost." He shook his arms to demonstrate his point, metal clanging, and mouth opening as if to let out a ghastly wail. What actually came out was a fit of laughter, or at least the rasping, choked noise that passed for his laugh. Whatever had struck him as funny was apparently hilarious enough to warrant hysterics that left him tangled in the chains once more as he kicked around.

It also left the skirt of his dress just as tangled, and riding up. Batman averted his eyes at a speed fast enough to make his vision blur, and even that wasn't quick enough. There were very few times in his life he'd been repulsed to the point of nausea, and this had just taken the top spot. With a barely perceptible shake of his head, he set the tray down as close to the mattress as he could make himself get and was about to turn for the door when the Joker stopped, abruptly, and bolted back into a sitting position.

Batman watched as the Joker's widened eyes darted back and forth for a moment before narrowing and settling down again, tongue shifting furiously around in his mouth. He looked…well, strange was the only way to put it. As if he'd almost gagged. Maybe he'd choked on his own saliva. Certainly he'd been laughing hard enough to do so.

Whatever had happened, the moment was over almost as swiftly as it had begun. With a shrug of his shoulders, he smirked and resumed trying to untangle himself. "Yeah, definitely a D. With some B thrown in. I can't lie down this way," he added, just when Batman thought he might have finally shut up.

Wishful thinking. As if the Joker would ever do that.

"You just did."

"It didn't feel good." His smirk faded, and Batman wondered if pain from lying on the chains had been the cause of his bizarre change in behavior. It didn't fit; he always seemed to enjoy being hurt. "I mean, pain's one thing when it's powerful and hard and coming from a man in Kevlar slamming your head into, uh, reinforced glass, but when it's just lying on an uneven surface? That's beneath me."

"You're as low as it gets."

"Nice, Batsy, real nice." He tried unwrapping the leg chains from each other and only succeeded in getting his arms caught as well. "Look, you're the one who agreed to bring me back here in the first place, lover, so—"

"Do not ever call me that." He knew it was stupid, letting the Joker get under his skin. Stupid and dangerous, but that knowledge didn't change the fact that his blood seemed to be boiling in his veins and his vision had gone red. It was infuriating, how easily this madman could push him over the edge.

"Or you'll what?" In sharp contrast to Batman's growing rage, the Joker looked calm as ever. Amused, really, and relaxed, despite the fact that he'd managed to twist himself up so badly by now he was actually dangling a centimeter or so off the mattress. "Wanna hit me, honey? 'Cause we both know that won't do a bit of good…at least, not for your blood pressure." He tilted his head back so it was resting on the mattress once again, eyes closed and expression content. "I, on the other hand, have been itching for the uh, excitement of another fight, so if you wanna get nasty, go right ahead."

"What do you want, Joker?" He wasn't sure, as happened so often around the clown, why he said it. There wasn't so much as a fraction of a chance that the Joker would give him a straight answer. He supposed it was to alter the conversation, since there was no chance of getting the man to ever truly shut up, short of cutting out his vocal cords, and they both knew it. Not that altering the conversation topic would make him any less irritating.

"I wanna spend time with you," the clown said simply, with an attempt to pull himself free that only ended up tugging him up on the chains, and then back down to his previous dangling position, like a yo-yo. "Is that so wrong?"

"Yes."

The Joker let his head tilt towards Batman again so the vigilante could see that he was rolling his eyes. "Nice. I haven't blown anyone up—yet, anyway—and I'm not planning to," he added, seeing the Batman's expression change at that. "Not unless ya don't gimme back my phone, and I haven't done anything more evil than walking down a street—"

"You broke out of Arkham and killed two guards in the process. Not to mention all of your other crimes."

"But people like that don't matter, Batsy. You and I, we're the only ones in the world that do. Well, and sometimes other people if they're, uh, entertaining at the moment, but not the way that you and I do."

"You're insane." He didn't know if the Joker said things like that because he honestly believed them, or out of some perverse need for attention. And he didn't want to know. Helpful as it may be to fully understand a mind like the Joker's when it came to apprehending him, the idea was revolting. And unsafe. The mere act of understanding what went on in the clown's head was like opening a door for the madness to leak into his own.

The Joker attempted to shrug while dangling in the air, an act that sent him crashing back onto the mattress. "You call it madness, but I call it love." He rolled onto his stomach, chewing on his scars again. "That's from, uh, Byas. Don Byas."

"I don't care." He was surprised, slightly, that the Joker knew of the man, but it wasn't as if a quote was going to change his views on the clown's obvious mental instability.

"Rude much?" The corners of his mouth turned down, though the hurt didn't reach his eyes. "Here I go, trying to explain myself to you, and ya just make no effort. No effort at all. Look, besides the guards you care about, God knows why, I haven't hurt anybody this time, have I?"

"You think wiring bombs into a building wouldn't hurt people?"

"I haven't detonated those. What makes you think the bombs are around people, anyway?" The mockery of a frown vanished from his face, replaced by a grin that would have looked mischievous on anyone else. On him, it looked demonic. "There's lots you can ruin without actually hurting anyone. Like art museums, or research centers when they're closed, or—"

"Destruction of valuable or necessary property is—"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. You sound like a damn Boy Scout manual, do ya know that?" He smacked his lips. "I mean, if you put have as much energy into stopping crime as you do into your little, uh, soliloquies, I bet Gotham would have a zero percent crime rate. Back to my point, though. I hadn't done anything wrong, and the bombs are only collateral to make sure I don't get carted back off to the nuthouse. Really, Batsy, as far as my schemes go, this is mild."

Right. And he'd just been off to volunteer at a soup kitchen after rescuing a kitten from a tree before he'd run into Crane. "And you were doing what, before I caught you?"

"Heading to the Palisades," the Joker said, brushing his fingers through his hair.

It was like a slap in the face, and Bruce had to force himself not to visibly react. Does he—no, he can't know. It's only a coincidence. Just because the Joker had been headed toward the part of Gotham housing Wayne Manor, the part they were in now, didn't mean he knew. How could he? And subtlety had never been one of the clown's strong points; if he knew, he'd tell. He'd have used that as the threat to get in here in the first place. He could have been heading to the Palisades for any number of reasons. It was where Gotham's richest lived, after all.

And the way the Joker was tilting his head at him now, expression confused, was the icing on the cake. He couldn't know. Batman felt himself relax, and hoped he hadn't done so visibly. "What's up with you, Bats?"

"What business did you have in the Palisades?"

"That's for me to know and for you to take these chains off to find out," the Joker said, singsong.

"Not a chance."

"Then you'll never know." He shrugged, frowning. "I have to sleep sitting up this way, ya know."

"Good."

"Jerk. I'm gonna need my phone again, right at noon." He glanced at his wrist, as though there was a watch there. "Unless—"

"I'll bring it." Sensing the conversation wasn't going to yield any hints to the location of the bombs, or achieve anything other than making him angrier, he turned for the door.

"Tell Jonny I said hello, would you?" the Joker called as he made his way out.

He didn't respond, slamming the door behind him. He pulled off the cowl, immediately feeling more human again, more open to express the anger and anxiety racing through him. The Batsuit gave a feel of power, a sense of duty when he had it on that kept him in line where he otherwise may have faltered, but the responsibility, the need to be more than just a man was draining.

He made his way to the elevator, hoping with all his heart that Alfred wasn't home yet. He did not have the energy to explain all this.


The moment the door was closed, the Joker slipped his fingers into his mouth, feeling them close around the slender pieces of metal inside.

Bats had never checked the mouth, in all of their encounters together. Joker wasn't sure if this was because he'd never hidden weapons there, or Batman hadn't thought of it, or because his breath was just that foul. Whatever the reason, that made it the perfect place for hiding his way out.

Paperclips. Paperclips straightened out and pushed against the inside of the teeth in his lower jaw, like braces wire in reverse. The Joker wasn't sure if he'd ever had braces. His teeth seemed straight enough to have had them, but when he tried to remember whether or not they'd actually been there, he couldn't recall. Like so many aspects of his life prior to donning the makeup, there was nothing but white noise where there should have been memories, with occasional flashes of a clear picture in the static.

Sometimes he wondered if he should be upset about this. But he didn't particularly want to remember, so he didn't dwell on it.

Anyway, the paperclips. Two of them, two slender, now curved wires that he pulled out of his mouth, keeping his head down so whatever security cameras Batsy surely had hidden in the room wouldn't pick it up. He'd almost lost one, in his giggling fit on the floor, when it had slid loose and he'd nearly choked. He'd had to push it back fast with his tongue, as he'd been doing all morning. Must have knocked them loose in his sleep somehow.

People said paperclips couldn't be used as lock picks. They could, though they were a crude method. The Joker was willing to employ crude methods if it meant avoiding detection. He had patience, and he had all the time in the world. He didn't even want to break out at the moment anyway. He was just sick of having the stuff in his mouth, scraping against his tongue. He waited a minute or so, then flopped back onto his stomach, ignoring the way the chains pushed into him as he let one hand drop down to the side of his mattress, shoving the wires underneath, keeping his hand over them the entire time, in case of cameras.

He didn't want to break out yet. But when he did, he'd be ready.


AN: I don't actually plan to explore the Joker's past. I thought I should bring that up because this chapter (and future ones) may make it seem like I'm going to.

Marley's ghost is from A Christmas Carol.