Harley sat on the edge of his bed, legs crossed, prim even in her washed-out Arkham-issue jumpsuit. The grey against her skin made the peach and cream of her ankle flash, the only color in his black-themed, rough stone cell.
"You really did a number on Crane," she said nonchalantly. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, her nails cut close to the quick.
"He started it," Joker said, bored. He sprawled on the edge of his bed, arm over his face.
"He's my friend," Harley reminded him, as though that should make a difference.
"I'm truly sorry to hear that," Joker said, feigning sympathy. "It's tragic to have such lousy taste in friends."
Harley's breath drew in sharply. Her fingers pulled close to the edge of her sleeve, unraveling a pulled fiber at the edge. It hung, limp, like a spider's thread.
"You're not doing good right now, Joker," she said, her voice wavering. "I know that, and I'm trying to keep it in mind, but you're making it pretty damn hard."
Joker snorted. "Go f—" His words were smothered in the slam of Harley's hand hitting the edge of the bed with enough force to rock the creaking contraption.
"You're mad about Batman," she said. "Say it, Joker! Or are you such a coward you can't even admit it!"
Joker rolled over onto his back, his arm sliding back to rest above his forehead; he stared at the ceiling and laughed until it hurt, until he had to clutch his stomach and his breath would only barely wheeze through before being strangled.
"Fine," Harley said at last, with barely-hidden disdain. "Lie to yerself, what do I care? But don't expect me to come and pick up the pieces." She got up, the sudden lack of weight beside him disorienting, and he could hear the pad of her steps, the creak of his door being opened, and falling shut behind her.
/
And one time, Batman didn't come at all.
/
Jack was still lying on the floor, in water washed as pink as though the sharks had been in it, when Batman finally arrived; but by then, Jason was long gone. Jack's laughter had trailed away, salt streaking his cheeks, and now all he could do was heave breath after breath, feeling only a numbing tiredness, a disorientation that felt like grief. He sat up at the creak of heavy boots upon the basement stair, followed by Harley's familiar tread, and he composed himself, pulling on his persona as armor. He couldn't face the Bat otherwise, even if the Bat was just sad orphan Brucie under it all. He did it because it was the only thing he could do; the only way he could think to save even a margin of the disaster this night had become. Even so, his heart wasn't in it; he wished sickly that Batman would take that last step tonight, put him out of his misery for good; but he knew it was pointless. Not with Saint Harley around.
One look at the chair, covered in bloodstained ropes, was enough. The stillness in Batman's frame seemed taut, like whipcord before it snaps back; he picked up the end with one glove, held it in the palm of his hand. His face was turned away.
The next moment, when he turned toward Jack, crouching against the wall, was the worst: because for the very first time, what Jack saw in Batman's eyes was hatred.
He'd thought being left behind by Batman was the worst. Only now did he realize he'd have preferred anything, even Batman leaving him behind, to this.
"Where is he," Batman said. Quiet. Controlled. He walked over, his cape sweeping to rest behind him, hiding Harley from view.
"Gone," Jack said.
Batman's hands trembled. "Where is he," he repeated, and the desperation in his voice made Jack want to cover his ears.
"Gone," Jack said again. "You'll never find his body."
Batman pulled him up by the collar, searching his eyes for any hint of a lie, and Jack laughed, short and choked, before falling silent. Batman would never find a body because there wasn't a body to find. Come on, Great Detective, he thought, despite himself. Put the evidence together. Figure out what really happened. He stared back, a challenge in his own eyes, daring Batman to understand, to see him, like he always had.
The fist around his throat grew tighter. There was nothing in Batman's eyes but a wild loss, clouding over everything; he stared straight through Jack. Though there was earth all around them, coffin-deep, Jack thought he could see the moment Batman fell, free-wheeling without a grapple to save him, without anything, anyone.
It's for the best, Jack tried to tell himself. Without Robin, things can go back to normal. Without Robin, the gatekeepers won't get on us anymore, because Batman will come to heel like he always has. He won't know what else to do. The poor man doesn't know how to make a decision for himself.
It was true. But things would never be the same; and Jack knew it. He knew it, because Batman didn't look away, didn't pace the room looking for clues. Didn't study the bucket and mop, didn't follow the trail of blood up the stairs, didn't take note of Joker's missing coat, didn't see the suitcase still thrown open on the bed half-full of money, didn't notice the smudge of blood against the doorjamb where Jason had leant and the scuffs his shoes had left in the hall as he stood, and shuffled, and turned, didn't leave the house and walk down the shadowed street, didn't look for Jason at all. He believed Harley. Even looking in Jack's eyes.
He believed Harley.
Just ask me, Joker thought. Ask me the right question. Ask me if he's dead. Ask me if I killed him. I swear I won't lie to you; pinky-promise.
But Batman didn't ask.
Finally, Harley came. Got between them, pressed her small hands against the Bat's chest, looked up and pleaded, her words a dull drone amid a rushing wave. They were pulled back to Arkham together, were taken into separate cells, and Jack's door was locked.
Outside, on the roof opposite, Batman stood long into the night, silent, still. He didn't crouch to blend in with the gargoyles and standing chimneys. He stood like a reproach, like the question he hadn't dared to ask. And on his bed, Jack sat, knees to his chest, looking away.
/
When, a month later, he was finally allowed out of his cell; the world, gray and washed out and cold with oncoming winter, was different.
"It was just a joke," Jack explained, clenching his fingers across his clasped hands until only the red bite of his nails on skin made color in the chalkboard-white.
The gatekeepers had been happy enough with his "solution" to their problem. He'd not been reprimanded, apart from the solitary confinement, for show. Joker, of course, was immune to the effects of solitary. Everyone knew that. Nothing stopped the madman, nothing stopped his whirring brain and his constant cheer. Put him in the Arctic for a year and he'd be fine, probably. A month was nothing.
So Jack made it be nothing. He knew only too well what showing weakness lead to. The only way to keep any high ground was to pretend nothing hurt at all.
In the corner of the cafeteria, frost was snaking its way across the single panes of old glass, chilling the enormous room. Most of the inmates were congregated together on the side closest to the kitchen, and the warmth; their natural fear of the cold overturning their fear of socializing packed together seven or eight to a table.
On the far end of the windowed stretch, Fries was sitting by himself, as he always did; he was looking out the window, his face serene, his expression shuttered.
Across from him, Tetch was humming and reciting snatches of Lewis Carroll under his breath. Jack didn't think he was listening at all—the old man hadn't said a word throughout the whole story of Robin's death (minus the fact that he'd had a good reason for wanting the kid gone, one that an open-minded person might even call public-spirited, at least for his fellow villains—and the fact that Robin wasn't, in fact, dead) but on hearing it was just a joke, he looked up.
"You shouldn't make jokes if it makes you so unhappy," he said clearly.
"Don't quote Through the Looking-Glass at me," Jack said.
Jervis paused for a moment, meditatively. He twirled his spoon, round and round, in his porridge. "You think you're so smart," he said at last. "Smarter than the rest of us, don't you, Joker? You take such pride in being above the common rabble of loonies. Well I say this. We're all mad here. You must be, or you wouldn't have come here. Take good advice when you get it, young man, even if it's in the form of a quotation. You think knowing everyone else's problems means you can judge them. You know, you might have much fewer enemies, and many more friends willing to help you, if you only took a kind gesture when if was offered, instead of spitting it back in everyone's face. Consider it."
Tetch picked up his bowl and walked quickly away, leaving Jack gaping after him, not sure if he'd really heard the usually timid Hatter speaking in such a way—to him, of all people!
It was suddenly very cold by the windows. The short sleeves that were all that Arkham provided didn't cover the goose-pimples on his chilled arms. His gruel looked like Gotham snow—lumpy and gray and run over by a car.
Being publically known as the man who murdered Robin sucked.
.
.
.