AN: Everybody remember The Joker Blogs on Youtube? Crane's in the latest one, and their actor is good. I about fainted when I saw him.
Thanks for reviews!
The wound the Joker had inflicted on Crane—right where his hairline began, from the temple to the cheekbone—wasn't particularly deep or bloody. It was similar to the Joker's own injury, like a friction burn deep enough to raise blood, caused by the impact of skin against cement. Batman didn't want a repeat of the incident with the Joker, however, so he was as thorough about cleaning it as he could be without applying painful force or provoking Crane into a heart attack. Easier said than done. He'd already looked about as calm as a frightened rabbit, and Batman's increase in proximity hadn't helped in the slightest.
He began to wonder if all the money he donated to Arkham wouldn't be better spent on hiring more competent doctors instead of tightening security. Certainly, it was hard to imagine the villains' progress getting any worse.
He was trying to put an adhesive bandage over the abrasion without getting it tangled in Crane's hair when the man shoved the Joker's hand away from his mouth again. "Batman?"
"Yes?"
Crane said something completely inaudible, while his face went the reddest Batman had ever seen human skin turn. The Joker, having apparently picked up on his words, giggled.
"What?"
"I've been down here for four days," Crane said, presumably repeating his earlier statement. "Without bathing."
The Joker giggled again, hard enough that he had to stop and breathe. "You are so anal, do ya know that?"
"Just because you're content to let yourself get filthy enough that forests could grow in the dirt under your nails, it doesn't mean we all are." He paused, scowling at his companion. "Thank God."
"You know being too clean can seriously screw up your immune system, right?"
"You know that letting your teeth rot like that can actually kill you, right?" Crane, for all his many, many problems, seemed to be on par with Alfred when it came to delivering sarcastic remarks in a perfectly flat voice. "I'd rather risk an overactive immune system than get the plague."
"Does that even exist anymore?"
"Yes."
Batman tuned out their bickering as he considered the request. Between his search for any clue that would lead him to the Joker's men and the chaos the clown had caused, he'd forgotten about things like hygiene. Crane didn't look too worse for wear—aside from the greasy feel and look of his hair and the stubble on his face—but the Joker was positively foul, reeking with the smells of infection, blood, sweat, and another bodily fluid that he never cared to contemplate again. Not in regards to the Joker. It had escaped his notice up until now as the Joker was always filthy, but now that he considered it, the man had been uncharacteristically clean at the time of his imprisonment.
Being covered in filth couldn't bode well for the injuries, or morale, at least as far as Crane was concerned. Bruce found himself wondering why he cared at all about the man's comfort level, but it was never a good idea to make a dangerous, unpredictable psychotic more unhappy than necessary. Even if he was medicated to the point of being about as harmful as a cereal box.
Still, it wasn't as if he could just bring them into one of the bathrooms of the mansion. And there wasn't any sort of shower in the caves, unless he wanted to let them jump into freezing cave water. Somehow he doubted that would go over well. Come to think of it, there wasn't even an emergency shower. He needed to remedy that.
While he was thinking it over, the arguing had stopped. He'd just become aware of the deafening silence in the room when Crane spoke, apparently taking his lack of an answer as a refusal. "Look, I'm not suggesting that you let me waltz into your master bath and use all your hot water, all right? I'd take a sponge and a bucket of hot water, at the moment. The water doesn't even have to be hot. You don't have to give me a towel, if you don't want to. Or even soap." He swallowed hard, and Bruce imagined that last one had pained him to say. "But if I don't do something, I'm going to lose my mind.
"It's not as if I have any chemicals. I can't do something deadly or incapacitating to your water supply, especially if you don't give me access to running water. And no, I cannot make fear toxin out of soap. The most harmful thing I could possibly do with it is get it in your eyes, and I'm not stupid enough to try that."
"That's debatable."
"Go to hell, Joker."
The Joker tsked, as if genuinely disappointed and hurt by the insult. "I bought him a pony," he said, turning to Batman. "And this is how he treats me in return."
"You did not buy it," Crane snapped, before straightening up. It seemed thoughts regarding hygiene had gone out of his head, for the moment. "Whatever happened to my horse, anyway?"
"Since the police couldn't find the actual owner—"
"I know where the guy's at!" the Joker said, raising his hand. "Or, most of him. It's been a while, I'm not sure where all the pieces went, anymore."
It was so typically Joker that Batman didn't have the energy to be visibly disgusted anymore. He went on. "Since the police couldn't find the owner, they gave the horse to his daughter, along with all his other belongings. She ended up auctioning him off."
"To whom?" Crane looked more concerned over the fate of the horse than he had about anything else since becoming Batman's captive, and that was saying something.
"Me. I'm boarding him in a stable. A reputable one," he added, before Crane could ask. He took out another alcohol wipe, began attending to the Joker's many injuries. "And I'll get you soap and water as soon as you're back in separate cells."
Crane didn't thank him, and Batman hadn't expected him to. Crane nodded instead, and began inching away from the Joker, who was clearly enjoying having his wounds cleaned. He moved about half a foot before the Joker grabbed onto his wrist to keep him there.
"Do we have any buckets, Alfred?" he asked, leaning in the doorway of the surveillance room.
"May I ask what for, sir?" He glanced at Bruce before returning his attention to the security monitors. Bruce wondered, as he had so many times in the past few days, how his butler could spend hour after hour in here and still keep the mansion looking spotless. It made no sense; though that didn't stop him from feeling grateful about it.
"Washing. I, uh, forget about that, what with everything else going on." It should have been his last concern, considering the chaos his life had become in last two hours or so, but he couldn't help but feel guilt over that.
"Ah. Well, I hadn't." Alfred stood, with a final look at the security monitors. "I'll get the water and other things; you get the clothes."
"Clothes?" It didn't surprise him in the slightest that Alfred had thought of this where he had not, or that he hadn't mentioned it to him. Alfred tended to sit back unless his opinion was asked for, or so strong that he couldn't contain it. He imagined it might be frustrating to someone not used to the man, but Bruce enjoyed having the freedom to make his own mistakes. There'd be no Batman otherwise, after all.
"I'd assume their clothing is as dirty as they are by this point, sir. I thought you might give them something of yours until what they have is washed?" Off Bruce's expression, he added, "We can burn them once their things are cleaned if it bothers you that much, Master Wayne."
He couldn't help but smile at that. "Like you did with the Joker's dress?"
"Precisely, sir."
He reflected, as he made his way upstairs to his closet, that he was really going to have to look up their clothing sizes in the Arkham files and buy them a few things, if they were going to be here for long. He didn't want to put forth the effort, not for two enemies, but nor did he want them in his clothes. The Joker was like a living virus; infecting and corrupting everything he touched, even inanimate fabric.
And he wasn't sure he had anything small enough to fit Crane.
His clothes from his college years, he supposed, were the best bet. He'd only been an inch or so shorter then, but far thinner. He'd been toned before going to the League of Shadows, but much less. As luck would have it, a few of his things from that time had survived the fire that had consumed the mansion, though not many.
He returned downstairs to find Alfred in the kitchen, filling a bucket with steaming water. On the floor beside him sat another few buckets, a stack of towels that looked brand new, washcloths, two bars of soap, and a tarp.
Bruce nudged the last of the items with his foot. "What's this for?"
"To keep water from getting all over the floor, sir. I thought that would be an unnecessary safety hazard."
In more ways than one. "And this?" There were two small plastic cups alongside the towels, filled with a cream that was white and, as he discovered upon picking it up, foul-smelling.
"Facial depilatory. I didn't think you'd trust them with razors. Just don't let them eat it."
"Wouldn't dream of it." Cracking one of the few smiles that had graced his face since this mess began, he took the handle of a bucket in either hand, and began his first trip to the elevator.
He got the Band-Aid on my hair. Jonathan brushed his fingers against the end of the butterfly bandage, annoyed. He wanted to pull it off and redo it, but he might reopen the wound by trying, and he'd prefer not to have another scar. And it might not stick the second time. Still. How could the man run and fight so gracefully in all that armor, but be unable to put a bandage on correctly?
Life made no sense.
The Batman had taken the Joker back to his own cell after bandaging his wounds. He'd removed the gauze and tape already on the man's face—soaked through with blood after their fight—to reveal a bleeding, oozing, infected wound. Jonathan didn't know what had caused it, and he felt he could go a long time without knowing. Yet another reason to keep the bandage on; he didn't anything remotely like that to happen to him.
That didn't make the damn thing any less annoying.
Oh, get over it. You have no sense of priority at all, do you?
You know, for the one companion who's meant to understand me better than anyone else, you're a jerk.
No, I'm honest. Having a fit over your hair being a bit out of place when you're a captive of the goddamn Batman and completely at both his and the Joker's mercy is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
All right, so he had a point there. You don't have to be so blunt about it.
Yes, I do. Trust me, for a psychiatrist, you really don't pick up on little things.
There was no point in arguing further. It would just put him on bad terms with the only person here that he didn't completely want to eviscerate. What do you think the Joker's planning?
Something that involves either using you as bait or a shield.
That's optimistic.
That's honest. And why does he care how many pills you have left, anyway?
Maybe he wants to overdose on them so he'll be taken to a hospital? It'd be easier to escape from.
Scarecrow didn't offer his thoughts in reply, as the door opened and Batman came in, buckets and other supplies in hand. He set most of them on the floor, still holding a tarp and a few items of clothing, which he handed to Crane.
"What's this?" He unfolded the long-sleeved T-shirt on top of the stack and examined it. It was a garish shade of orange, reading 'Princeton' across the chest in black lettering. He recalled, from the many news reports chronicling Bruce Wayne's return to Arkham, that he had attended Princeton before dropping out.
"I thought you'd want your clothes washed," the Batman said, spreading the tarp out of the floor. "So I brought you those in the mean time."
So he was wearing Bruce Wayne's hand-me-downs. He felt whatever remained of his dignity dissolve. "I can't exactly change with the chains on." He was struck with the sudden realization that this little experience would involve changing in front of the Batman. This time it felt as if part of his soul had dissolved.
And this after you made such a big deal about having access to water.
Shut up. Are you saying you want him gawking at us?
Scarecrow sighed. Would you like me to take control?
Right, as if you'd do things properly.
Well, that's nice. All these years and you don't trust me to wash your body. I live with you, genius, I know your obsessive standards for cleanliness.
And ignore them. I'll do this, thank you very much.
The Batman pulled a key from somewhere on his belt and undid the cuffs, handing Crane a plastic cup full of some sort of lotion which, upon catching the odor, he realized was a depilatory. "Use that first."
"Why?" He eyed it cautiously, amazed that the Bat would allow him access to any sort of chemical.
"Because I have to watch you when you're using that."
Implying that he wouldn't be watching the rest of the time? Thank God for small favors. He nodded, spread it across his face. The scent didn't bother him—this was the method of hair removal used at Arkham, so he'd had time to adjust to it during his many incarcerations. He'd come to prefer it, actually, given that it didn't have to be done as often as shaving and as such was better suited to a life on the run from the GPD. He waited until five minutes had passed, counting the seconds to be sure. Captivity had an effect on one's sense of time, he knew. After the fifth minute had passed, he put leaned over one of the buckets, put his hands in the water—very warm but not painfully so—and brought it to his face, wiping the cream away.
The Batman watched until all traces of it were gone from his face and hands, then turned his back. For a moment Crane wondered why he bothered to stay down here if he wasn't going to supervise, and then remembered, as he slid his shirt over his head, that he was unchained. Looking the other way or not, he still didn't feel comfortable fully exposed, and decided to leave the pants on until he was done with the upper half of his body.
It wasn't until he was drying his hair—the Band-Aid having thankfully come off of its own accord during the washing—that he realized he felt human for the first time in days. And it wasn't until he'd put on that hideous orange shirt—he had to roll back the sleeves three times to use his hands—and taken off his pants that Scarecrow spoke up again.
You do know that he's getting all of this on camera, right?
He very nearly choked on his own saliva, and began scrubbing his body as quickly as he possibly could while still being thorough, pulling the Batman's jeans on the second he'd dried off. The jeans, he hated even more than the shirt, if that was possible. He didn't wear jeans to begin with, and these were both too wide and too long. Of course there was no belt.
He moved off of the tarp and back onto the mattress, unsure of how to get the Batman's attention. He settled for clearing his throat. The Bat turned, and he didn't quite know what the look on the man's face was, but he knew that he did not like it.
He looked so young.
It was a stupid observation, given that unlike the Joker, Jonathan Crane had never obscured his age with makeup, but his youth had never been more pronounced than when he was sitting on the mattress, staring at Batman with large, apprehensive, and hateful eyes. He looked like a child dressing up in his older brother's clothes, and it struck Bruce that he'd only been twenty-nine when he was the administrator of Arkham Asylum. Once again, as with the Joker, he felt a sense of wasted potential. How did someone so brilliant and talented managed to completely ruin his life so early on?
Not that there was time to reflect on that. Helpless as he looked, Crane was still a dangerous psychotic, and being around him unrestrained for any length of time was asking for trouble. Besides, the Joker still needed to have water brought to him, to ensure that his wounds were really cleaned. He crossed the cell, snapped the cuffs back into place. The bandage over his head wound had come off, so Batman put another one over the injury, managing not to get it in his hair this time.
He had nothing to say to the man—nothing he could think of, anyway—and Crane apparently felt the same, so he folded the tarp, gathered everything together, and made his way outside of the cell.
AN: Cillian Murphy was twenty-nine when he filmed Batman Begins. I'm assuming his character was the same age.
