AN: Sorry about the delay, I got this wonderful (and crazy—so far he's tried to eat his collar, tail, and feet) kitten yesterday, and as you'd imagine, he occupied my time. I'm only writing now because he's sleeping. This is what he looks like, if you're curious: http:// i158. photobucket. com/ albums/ t92/ Lauralot /100_0698. jpg

"Every time I look at you, I don't understand" is a line from Jesus Christ Superstar. In the 60s Batman show, Bats and Robin got into the cave by sliding down poles that led to it, and in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Willy Wonka opens a door by playing musical notes on a miniature keyboard thing.

Thanks for the reviews!


Batman was just disappearing around the corner when the Joker stepped out of the room. He could have caught Bats in the hall had he opened the door faster, and had whatever conversation they were going to have out here, but he hadn't. He'd taken his time in opening the door on purpose, to ensure that it wouldn't make a sound and betray his presence. He didn't want to talk here. The Joker had underestimated the whole home field advantage thing before, and it wasn't a mistake he was about to make again. They'd speak in a location of his choosing, wherever that would be. He still had no idea what they were going to talk about, but whatever it was, it wouldn't be in the middle of the Bat-mansion.

He took off behind Bats, at the quickest pace he could while still being silent. Contrary to what the average Gotham citizen might think, the Joker was capable of being quiet. Dangerously so. True, it was his preference to make his plans as loud and attention-grabbing as possible, both to attract the Bat and to allow lesser mortals the thrill of witnessing his actions. Not that they deserved it, but then, what was the point of doing something if it didn't get some sort of reaction? There was no end to a successful heist or murder or such like a shaken news anchor talking about the tragedy.

But there were times, such as now, when it paid to be silent, and when the Joker put his mind to it, he was as good at that as anything else he put his mind to. Which was frighteningly good. He knew Batsy couldn't hear him; hell, he probably wouldn't hear him even if he'd been as hyper aware as Jonny's old meds had made him. The Joker stepped around the corner just in time to see Bats turn again, and followed, quiet as before.

He wasn't sure how long they carried on in that manner, only that Bats was none the wiser and remained none the wiser all the way to the parlor—or living room or sitting room or music room or whatever the hell it was called—that housed the piano, the one where Batman hadn't even been impressed by the Joker's musical abilities. Of course, nothing impressed Batsy. He really was a complete bastard.

Except for the part where he gave the Joker's life meaning and was the only other Technicolor person in a world of black and white and occasionally sepia and the only thing that had ever truly challenged the Joker. The immovable object to the Joker's unstoppable force. Even now, years after the night when he'd said that to Bats, after the exhilarating fall and the joy in discovering that Batsy really wasn't going to break his rule, that remained the most apt description of the two he'd ever used.

So then why, if they were so perfect and made for each other, did being here hurt so much?

He watched, hiding behind the doorframe, as Bats pressed three keys on the piano, and the bookshelf opened. And despite the wrenching feeling that he couldn't shake, even after that apology, despite the memories of all the hell he'd been put through in his time here, the Joker still had to clamp a hand over his mouth to stifle his giggles. He's got a secret door. He's actually got a secret door. A secret door behind a bookshelf. Christ on a bike. It shouldn't have been that funny, but oh how it was. It was like something out of a Scooby Doo cartoon. Logically, of course the door would be hidden, but the Joker had never been much for logic. And besides, the laughs had been so few as of late that he'd take anything he could get.

Batman stepped inside, and the Joker strained forward to watch the man's body descend, before the door closed and blocked the view. An elevator, then. Damn. He'd been hoping for some sort of fireman's pole, or something. It would be just ridiculous enough.

At least, he reflected, stepping into the room, he didn't open it by pulling down some secret lever. That would be irredeemably hilarious. Probably Bats had thought that the piano key would be harder to discover—and the Joker couldn't quit giggling at 'piano key,' either; who was Batsy trying to be, Willy Wonka?—but unfortunately by him, the Joker could play by ear, and he'd heard those notes just fine.

He waited until he felt a reasonable amount of time had passed—elevators made noise, after all, and he didn't want to raise it with Bats still in earshot, before striking the keys, unable to hold back the laughter. He did manage to control himself by the time the door opened, sobering at the thought that somehow, he had to work this mess out, and on his own terms, while still on the Batman's ground.


It was a bad sign when life as Batman was becoming relatively simpler than life as Bruce.

Not that Bruce Wayne didn't have his own set of struggles before: appearing as a rich playboy with a nightlife when he had anything but and couldn't afford to drink before patrolling, arranging dates with beautiful women that he knew wouldn't and couldn't continue—and many of those women didn't know that, or refused to accept it—running his company on the absolute minimum amount of sleep day after day. If it wasn't for Lucius, Wayne Enterprises would have fallen completely apart, and if it wasn't for Alfred, Bruce would have fallen completely apart.

Still, Bruce Wayne didn't find himself on the wrong end of a gun nine times out of ten, have dogs set loose on him, or have to deal with madmen intent on destroying him. At least, not until recently. Batman put up with that sort of thing on a nightly basis, and it was a rare night to find him not bloody or bruised under the Kevlar. He'd be hard pressed to make an argument that Batman didn't have the more difficult job.

But Batman, at least, only had three driving factors. Stop evil. Protect Gotham. Don't kill. Bruce had all the humanity that his symbol of an alter ego lacked, and it made keeping the villains here that much harder. Batman had no problem beating the Joker into submission, and while Bruce was the same person—Batman wouldn't even exist without Bruce's decision—somehow, punching someone senseless weighed harder on the mind without the Kevlar and mask. It was taking his work home with him, in the worst possible way.

He ran over his options as he latched the armor plates together. Ideally, both rogues needed to be returned to Arkham—and preferably medicated into incoherency—but that left his secret as open as it could get. The Joker might not tell, given his violent reaction to himself knowing the truth, but he could never be sure of the clown's motivations. And Crane, once he regained most of his mind, Bruce could easily imagine telling, if only out of spite.

There was the possibility of blackmail. It wasn't ideal, but he'd resorted to it before, or at least provided a way for others to, such as Rachel in regards to Judge Faden. But what did he have to intimidate the villains with? Both were outlaws, stripped of their possession and dignity and confined to Arkham. What leverage did he have in this situation?

Unable to hold back a sigh, he pulled his gloves on, resolving to put the whole thing out of his mind until after tonight. Ignoring the problem didn't make it go away, but it certainly lowered his blood pressure. He reached for his cape, lying out on the stone table along with his belt and weaponry, only to find it tugged out of his grasp the moment his fingers closed around it. Stunned, he looked up, to find the Joker holding his cape, expression unreadable.

"What are you doing down here?"

The Joker only raised the cape, waving it back and forth, a smirk on his face that didn't fully reach his eyes. "Finders keepers."

And then he ran.

In theory, Bruce should have been able to catch him in an instant. This was his cave, after all, and he was the one who knew the uneven, slick floor by heart, to the point where he could walk it without falter even when half-blind from fatigue or a black eye or remnants of pepper spray from a misunderstanding citizen he'd been trying to save. In theory, the whole mess would have ended right here.

That, however, was only theory. In practice, he stood there gaping in confusion for one second too long and in that second, the Joker gained too much of a lead. Through his bewilderment, Bruce realized as he ran how ridiculous this was. The Joker was stunning uncoordinated on level ground, let alone a cave. He was fast, yes, and lean, but he shouldn't be able to zigzag around like some sort of depraved gazelle the way he was doing now.

Illogical or not, the Joker reached the elevator before him, managing to close the gate and activate the machine just as Bruce arrived, still waving the cape. His smile seemed more genuine now. Cursing, Bruce reached for his grappling gun, only to find it absent. He hadn't put the utility belt on before the Joker appeared.

He had no recourse but to wait, then. While the Joker got upstairs and accomplished whatever evil he'd set out to make. Bruce had no idea what evil could be done with his cape, of all things, but he knew that whatever it was, he wouldn't like it.

Yes, Bruce, as of late, had the harder life after all.


The Joker stood beside the piano and considered his options. He still had no idea what he wanted to say, or where. Well, an idea of where. He wanted to be outside more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. The Joker had never felt more trapped than in these past few days, and while he knew that had less to do with being inside and more to do with Bats and Jonny fucking with his mind, he wanted out.

He glanced down at the cape in his hand, tore the hem loose. He hadn't planned on using it for any purpose when he grabbed it, beyond getting Batsy's attention. But there was no reason it couldn't serve a purpose now.

Remembering that Batman was surely on his way up at this very moment, the Joker made a small tear toward the bottom of the cape, taking a few threads in his hand and pulling them lose. He half-ran out of the room, letting the threads fall behind him. More Hansel and Gretel than breathless chase now, but at least Bats would know where he'd gone.


Bruce was reminded, as he followed the Joker's trail, of exactly how much he hated the clown. If he was going to break out or make a murder attempt or whatever, he ought to do it, and not drag things out. But then again, asking the Joker to do something simply was like asking a fish to breathe on land. He followed the thread, running, and pausing at each corner in case the Joker had set up an ambush.

He hadn't. What he had done, as Bruce discovered when the trail came to an end, was go to the balcony of the second floor built to over look the back yard, and stand on top of the railing, one balancing act away from falling two stories to the grass below. "Get down."

The Joker, who, not content to risk his safety by merely standing, was actually pacing on the railing, stopped suddenly, turning to face him. "I'm not a dog." Then he seemed to think about it. "Well, I am, but not like that. You can't bark orders at me and expect me to follow them. Don't treat me like an animal."

"Then stop acting like one."

"Doing it again." What remained of the cape was in his hands, twisting round and round as he somehow stayed upright. "You're so—so like everybody else, do you know that? But not, at the same time. Every time I look at you, I don't understand. How you can be so complete-making, but so…black and white."

Wonderful. He was making even less sense than usually, and one bad distribution of his weight away from serious injury. The fall shouldn't kill him from that height, but knowing the Joker, he'd probably land on his neck just to be obstinate. Even if he didn't, he could easily break a leg or an arm, and that'd be two captives in need of medical attention. "If you don't get down, you're going to fall."

"And bounce back. I always do. Have ya noticed? Jonny did. I think he was jealous. Scarecrows don't bounce."

Either the Joker had completely lost it, or he was doing a flawless job of pretending to. Bruce couldn't tell, and either way, he was stuck keeping the man from hurting himself, because of that rule he sometimes hated so much despite its necessity. "Do you want to break your leg?"

"If you'd sign the cast. You don't care, anyway. You've never cared about anything, beyond your precious city." His fists clenched around the cape, and for a moment, Bruce thought he was about to throw it. He wondered if he could move forward without sending the Joker over the edge. "I guess you'd have to not care, since I care so much. You wouldn't care if you didn't need me to make your, uh, calls would you? You wouldn't be here."

Something about the falter in his voice gave Bruce pause. "Are there even any explosives, Joker?"

"Don't remember." He stared up at the sky, stalking back and forth like a caged animal. Which, in a way, he was. This was the least restrained, physically, that he'd been since coming here, but it was obvious that he was still confined. "How did we get here?"

"You took my cape and ran."

He gave a very un-Jokerlike laugh. "Ha ha, Bats. I mean, this." He gestured outwards, very nearly losing his balance. Bruce stepped forward, but the clown steadied himself before he could get any closer. "You. Me. The Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime. Batman. The Joker. Bruce Wayne and…whoever this was." He ran his hands down the front of his coat, quickly bringing them back out for balance. "In the same house. Without masks or paint or anything between us. This—this should have been so much fun. I don't think it was. Do you?"

"I think that if you want to talk, you need to get off of the railing."

"Which way?"

"Joker—"

"No, really. That's what it takes, isn't it, to get your attention? Suffering?" He looked to the darkened yard below, eyes gauging something. "That's why Jonny gets all the cuddling and the stuffed animals and fun. Is that what it takes to make you acknowledge what we have? You need a princess to sweep off her feet."

"You're unbelievable." He was jealous of Jonathan Crane? Jealous of the man that had to be drugged for an indefinite period of time to keep from tearing himself apart? Revolting. Of course, that's what everything about the Joker was. "Crane—"

"I know, I know." For the first time since seeing the clown cry, there was an expression he'd never seen on the Joker's face. "Believe me. I don't wanna know. But it doesn't change things. How do people stand this, Bats?"

"Sympathy?"

"Any of it. All of it." He brought his hands to his temples, cape brushing against his face, rubbing as if to force his thoughts out. "Your stupid mansion—lair—cave—thing, it brings it all out and makes it all…fuzzy. And the thing about static is that it hurts. You wouldn't think so, would you? I mean, it looks like snow, and everyone likes snow. I used to play it in. I think. But this…I actually care, maybe. What the hell did you do?"

"I didn't do anything." He'd been trying to move forward during the rant, grab the Joker when he was unaware and put him back on solid ground, but he was forced to halt as the Joker turned to face him, expression accusing. "This is what people feel. You're human, as much as you try to deny that. Being here might have brought it out, but it was always under the surface."

"Well, put it back," the Joker snapped. "I didn't ask for this."

"No one asks for it. But you can't fight it forever." Against his better judgment and prior experience, Bruce felt what pity. The same pity one felt for vermin dying in a trap, but pity nonetheless. "You've tried. Look how that turned out. You can't deny your humanity, Joker."

"I can try."

"And end up on balconies."

"I'm not afraid of heights," he said, with a wry smile. "Or falling. This…this I can't do. Nobody can."

"Yes, they can. They do. Otherwise we wouldn't be here, because everyone would have fallen by now." Good God, this was surreal. If someone had told him just two weeks ago that he'd end up trying to talk the Joker down from what seemed to be a suicide attempt, he'd have laughed in their faces. It didn't help that far too much of him wanted the clown to off himself.

"But those are just people." He waved a hand dismissively, struggled to stay upright. Bruce took another step forward on instinct. "They haven't seen colors. They don't know. We're not like that."

"Yes, we are. We're human. We're symbols, but we're the same underneath."

He shook his head again, smile going sad, as if Bruce was the one who had it all wrong. "I'm dead underneath, Bats. We've talked about this."

"You're not dead. You're…hiding. Come down from there and you won't have to hide."

"Why do you act like you care, Batman? If I broke my neck, your hands would be clean. Hell, they'd call it community service."

"Because that's not what I want, all right?" He ignored the part of himself that did, and went on. "That's not what I fight for. Look, just get down. You don't have to hide like this. You don't have to be alone." Without thinking about it, he extended his hand, stopping it in front of the Joker.

The Joker stared, as if he'd never seen someone reach out before. He looked almost afraid, though not the panicked way he had before dissociated. More like a child about to get a shot. Bruce had never seen the Joker look that way and while he was still figuring out how to react to that, the Joker spoke, his voice so faint Bruce could barely here it over the crickets in the yard. "Do you mean it?"

"Yes." He struggled to keep the exasperation from his voice. And the astonishment from his expression, when the Joker brought his own hand forward, shaking, and held Bruce's, so tightly he could feel it through the Kevlar. He half-jumped, half-stepped down, wrenching his hand free and throwing his arms around Bruce in a rib-crushing hug the instant his feet were on the floor.

And before Bruce could react to that, the Joker pulled back and leaned in again, bringing his lips to Bruce's. Immediately, he brought his hands up to push the clown away, but it proved unnecessary, as the Joker shoved him back after a second of contact. Well, considerably longer than a second, but still faster than Bruce could react through the shock He licked his lips, giving Bruce a grin that did reach his eyes, and the light in them was anything but mad or unsure. "Thanks, Batsy. As parting gifts go, that one was swell."

He realized what the Joker was going to do the second before he did it. "Don't—"

"Not that your concern isn't deeply touching, love, but the thing is? I like being me." The Joker turned, vaulting over the railing and Bruce ran forward, fingers grasping to close on the coat, but they didn't close fast enough and hit only empty air as the Joker fell forward, laughing all the while.


The fall lasted forever and only a fraction of a second, the sensation the closest he'd ever come to flying. It reminded him of that night in the skyscraper, when for those few glorious seconds, the Joker had truly believed Bats would let him die, and he was fine with that, as long as it was his Bat doing it. He was free now, and nothing was ever going to pin him again.

He'd make sure of that.

Like a cat, he managed to land on his feet, which hurt rather a lot more than he'd hoped it would. He was fairly sure he felt one or two cracks, but the burn was wonderful and the first spark of joy he'd had in these past few days, so he welcomed it. Besides, nothing was sticking out through the skin, so he took that to mean he could get up and run, ignoring the fire in his legs as he did. He wasn't about to let Bats get him again so soon, after all.


There was no trace of the Joker.

There should have been, but somehow, Bruce wasn't surprised to find there was not, even after searching for over two hours. By the time he'd gotten outside, the man was gone, any hint of his direction masked by darkness. He'd probably planned it that way.

Hell, he'd probably planned all of this. Bruce found himself wondering exactly how much had been truth and how much a lie, before asking himself what difference it made at all. The Joker had played him, as he played so many others, and Bruce, being a willing victim, had no one to blame but himself.

So, much as he'd been planning to do before his cape was stolen, he put the whole thing out of his mind until morning and went to bed.