Bruce POV
My eyes opened slowly, and immediately, I knew I had failed. The basement I had been scouting was now illuminated with a sick eerie glow, the yellow lights emanating from some light fixtures stuck to the walls above us. I had been a few yards behind Joker when he began his run, and I had never even made it out of the hallway. Everything had gone dark, and I still had the marks where the tazer had connected. Joker lie in a heap on the other side of the room, blood seeping slowly from a slice on his eyebrow. I guessed that he had been grabbed before he had even had a chance to exit the building. I'd hoped that he'd have a chance to escape, but unfortunately I had been too late to warn him.
I stared at his form for a few more minutes; he would awaken soon no doubt.
I sat in silence for a few more long moments, anger and frustration building inside me. I had told him to run, what had happened. And then his voice came hurtling toward my ears from across the room, a slow steady, "Oooouuuch." I looked up from my place in the floor, and our eyes connected. He began sputtering, wiping the blood from his eye agitated, "What the hell, Bats? What the fuck just happened?! Please, tell me, why we are sitting in another cell!"
"Be quiet Joker."
"No! I'm not going to quiet down! We're back in the very same place we just got away from! Because of YOU!" He bellowed. I sighed, rubbing a gloved hand across my face, trying to calm myself as I said in a flat tone, "How is this my fault Joker? I told you to run."
"I don't know, it just is!" After that he screamed in frustration, an earsplitting, goose bump inducing, heart wrenching thing that resounded throughout the entire roam, echoing about before it finally fell eerily silent, and we simply sat there looking at each other, Joker's face twisted in frustration and rage, my own blank as it mostly was, before I sighed and looked away. I knew I had failed again, and this time was worse than the last. I wished he would realize this. The file I had found in the desk...the bodies that lined this basement...I wished he knew that I understood how bad I'd screwed up. I took a deep breath, before casting my gaze to the floor and saying in a tentative, quiet voice, hoping that Joker's mood had shifted into one that would tolerate a little bit more, "We need to get out of here."
"No kidding!"
I sighed. I doubted his mood would shift anytime soon, so I stayed silent, looking around the room. When I had been in the basement, I had come face to face with Dollmaker, who immediately ordered his men to capture me. I had turned back to the darker part of the basement to hide in the darkness, but they had spotted me when I'd called for Joker to run. And he had, and he'd failed...just as I had. I knew what this abandoned sanitarium was used for. The blood and bodies had been previous patients. This was the main base of operations; the place they had been trapped in before had been a small extension. This was the main building.
I had also noted that Joker had been acting strange since they had arrived; well, stranger than usual anyway. He had been overly nervous and had asked me several strange questions through the course of our escapade through the building. It was then that something caught his eye. Behind Joker, sat an air vent. My eyes widened and I said to Joker, in an attempt to make him more agreeable, "I'm sorry for getting us caught again. It was my fault."
"No fucking duh, detective."
"But I think I have a way for us to escape." He suddenly looked up at me with interest, eying me suspiciously, his green gaze traveling up and down and deciding if he should even bother with me anymore. But in the end he gave in to himself, asking, "And what is that?"
"Behind you."
He turned around immediately, and he smiled when he caught sight of it, exclaiming, "Good eye, Bats!" He was immediately upon it, and I watched with interest as he did the same thing I always did. He grabbed the vent carefully with both hands and pulled, and I watched as it bent and came off the wall, the screws flying in all directions as he threw it to the side, gazing in real quick before looking back at me and saying, "You coming?"
"Yeah, right behind you," I answered.
He climbed in immediately, his tall body contorting as he crawled into the small space. I followed close behind, and in moments our bodies disappeared with it. Joker crawled slowly, and every so often he would stop his movements and I'd almost run into him, and he'd crack a joke about 'my head being up his ass literally', before he'd keep moving once again. After a few times of this I finally asked, "What are you doing, Joker?"
"I'm trying to escape, Bats."
'Well get moving!"
"I am."
I still couldn't help but notice how fast he'd stop sometimes, and the nervous way he was acting and moving. The same strange way he had been when we were actually in the sanitarium hallways and such...or when we were out by the fountain. He continued his crawl onwards and then suddenly he stopped, as if he sensed something I had not. "What is it?" I asked him, and after a moment he said, "We're in trouble." Before the entire wall to our left was ripped away. The vent was ripped roughly open, and I felt strong hands close around me and yank my body from the vent and out into the open. When my eyes adjusted to the lights, I realized we were out of the basement and back out onto the main floor, and in front of us, stood Dollmaker.
I watched as Joker was also roughly pulled from the vent by an ankle, as he had tried frantically crawling away when I had gotten grabbed...figures. He was pulled from it kicking and screaming, and the thugs that accompanied Dollmaker held him down and subdued him immediately. I looked up at Dollmakers aging face, disgusted by what had been going on here. The file said that they had been mixing body parts, to create a type of superhuman, and they intended to mix Joker and I together; which had made me want to thoroughly vomit.
"Dollmaker." Was all that crossed my lips.
"Hello, Batman." He turned his head slowly to Joker, "Joker. You've attempted to escape I see..." He shook his head, clucking his tongue, "Not a good move, I tell you sadly."
Joker squirmed and struggled in the thugs hands, growling and throwing his head back in an attempt to headbutt the thug. But he was simply restrained, and I winced as I watched the thug smack him in the head as Dollmaker continued, "I would urge you next time to stay where you are meant to stay." He then turned back to his thugs, "Take them back to where they belong, and make sure they do not escape again."
And with that I was roughly drug to my feet, and the guards took us back to the basement, all the while whispering in our ears about how bad our beating was going to be.
