Ch20
The Joker insists on flying again. Bruce refuses at first, pointing out the man's injuries and finds no retaliation when Joker bites back about getting worse injuries from a certain little bat.
When they finally land inside a cave in the mountains it was already dusk. The Joker packed no food but at least Batman has the sense to store some meat.
"Y' know, Bats, when are we gonna find this scroll thing?" Joker piped up, uncomfortable about the silence. Batman finds that the Joker always tries to fill the silence in with something. Anything. He feels so curious about what made the Joker this way, so afraid-no, not afraid, but more like avoiding silence.
"Bats? Yo ho! Didja hear me bats?!" The Joker called again. He does not like being ignored, dammit!
"What happened to you?" Bruce says, and, despite the man's hatred of silence, he did not reply. "Nothing." The Joker grinds out an age later. "Nothing happened to me."
Batman leans forward. "Nothing could not make you what you are." He whispers. The Joker edges in as well. Outside, the wind howled.
"What if it is nothing that made me this way." He speaks in a soft tone different from his usual voice. He closes the space between him and Batman felt content to just be there until he realises that he was locking lips with a mass murderer. He jerks out of the kiss and pushes the Joker away from him.
"Aww, afraid of a wittle kiss, Batsy?" The Joker taunts, feeling angry that Batman pulled him out of their little moment. Batman can almost hear the hurt in his voice, and a stab of guilt twisted in his heart until he realises why he pulled away from this man.
"This can't go on." Batman stated. "What can't go on?" The Joker asked, calm and dangerous, brown-green eyes flashing. "This." Bruce made a hand motion in the space between them. "Us."
The Joker's eyes flashes again and he opens his mouth when Batman leans again, grabbing the front of the Joker's coat.
"What." He growls, his mind berating himself for the sudden loss of control.
"What is it that you want." He asks, his hands curled up into fists.
"I want you." Before Batman can say anything after he recovers from his shock, the Joker spoke up again. "And I want you to want me." Batman pushes the clown off him, and he laughs.
"Look at me, I'm even quoting song lyrics for this, how pathetic." He spits out the last word like a curse.
"Lies." Bruce says, looking the clown in his eyes. "You lie, you cheat and you should I trust anything you say?" He asks, words dripping venom.
"You shouldn't." The Joker speaks again after a long stretch of silence. "Don't speak me about anything then, Batman." The Joker shuffles around and lies down in a corner of the cave. Batman notes how long it has been since the Joker last said his name and not some nickname and feel a pang of loss which he quickly ignores. Silence fills the cave as they went to an uneasy sleep.
The weather is not any better the next morning. The sky appears dark with storm clouds hovering near the mountains and rain pelted them on all sides. A small rocky path between two mountains shows to be the only way out on foot.
"It leads to a cliff." Bruce states. "Well no shit, sherlock." The Joker snaps back, then retreats into silence.
They walk, bags on their backs and huddled uncomfortably together on the track, just wide enough for them to walk through without too much trouble but still slim enough for a possible fall.
The joint mountains split apart about a kilometre in the hike, leaving a large gap and an impossibly deep canyon. The cliffside plunged into a dark abyss. Batman moves closer to the Joker as they walked, telling himself that he is only doing this as he needs the man for this mission.
The Joker's wrists itched. A small glow appeared on the tattoos and was snuffed out in seconds in the cold. Batman opened his mouth, but did not say anything. They walked on.
Days pass with no sign of Batman and the Joker and Commissioner Gordon, and the media ran wild. People assumed that Bruce Wayne is off on another jaunt around the world.
But Batman is burdened with the brunt of the speculation. Everything from death to raunchy threesomes with the Joker and the commissioner was suggested. It didn't help them that the three disappeared at around the same time. The criminal world is still wary, wounds sore from when they were attacked some days ago by the mysterious new group.
It was when Jonathan Crane and Two Face wound up watching the news. The video on all stations changed instantly. A blue symbol of a snake circling the pupil of an eye appeared on the black screens.
A disembodied voice speaks up.
"Citizens of Gotham. You are chosen. This will be a new beginning, for Gotham, for America, and for the world. You must choose between us and the others. We will change the world, and the Voice shall be our leader. You will be a part in the movement towards a better tomorrow. Our tomorrow."
With that, the lights flickered on and the stations returned to normal. Gotham speculates and drives itself into a frenzy. The footage is uploaded to the internet minutes later.
"I'm surprised that the internet didn't implode." Crane says drily as they rewatched the footage.
"It's a lot more durable than you think." Dent replies in an equally dry voice.
The internet is full of speculations and conspiracy theorists, all wanting to know who the 'voice' is. Many people has claimed that they were the voice, and the phone lines connection to GCPD is bursting with crazy claims. With commissioner Gordon gone his step in officer and the team worked as hard as they could to trace the footage, but everything has come up as blanks.
A/N: Tell me what do you think of it so far! Bats and Joker's argument? The video? Who do you think the voice is? What should I write about next?