"…with Neumann Corp. over in Metropolis," Jolene Anderson, the head of Wayne Pharmaceuticals, was saying. Bruce, who had been one-third listening and two-thirds watching the rain cut irregular patterns into the glass, abruptly found himself falling forward in his chair, so that the front legs smashed onto the floor. The carpet softened the blow, but it still made a bang, and everyone turned to stare. Bruce's new accountant — recently hired to replace Coleman Reese, who had quit after July, citing 'mental disturbances' and 'a need for a calmer environment' — jumped in his seat. His name was Todd; he was a slender nervous thing about Jude's age or perhaps a little younger with acne scarring along his jaw and a habit of twitching his leg as he sat. Bruce smiled apologetically at him and at Jolene, who narrowed her eyes, mouth tightening, before continuing: "Our joint ventures will bring us to a new era of — "
But Bruce had cut his eyes from her again, back to the rain, and the fog which smudged the tops of the buildings. Metropolis. Clark. Of course. He had those ridiculous glasses and Bruce had an ongoing bet with him as to their actual effectiveness. You literally, you walk around in a sweater and chinos and those glasses, and then you take them off and people are like, Who the fuck is that? How the fuck does that even work?
It just does, Clark had shrugged, and then, grinning: I'll give you twenty-five if you can ever get valid proof otherwise. That had been some months ago, and in the interim Bruce had kind of forgotten about it between various other goings-on. But if it worked for Clark —
He wouldn't get glasses, he decided, watching Jolene's hands fly over her laptop keyboard. That would be too close, and anyway he didn't want to be constantly pushing them up the bridge of his nose. But if he could get ahold of some colored contacts… change his irises… He'd have to buy them on his personal card, but it was fine. The note Jude had left him along with the phone had said their next meeting would be in four days. He'd go this afternoon.
"Mr. Wayne?" Jolene said, and Bruce realized everyone was looking at him. He cleared his throat.
"Sorry, what?"
She rubbed her temples. "I asked if you agree," she said.
Bruce adopted a sheepish, apologetic smile. "Oh, yes," he said.
He took the Mustang after lunch to a Halloween shop which sold costumes on the weirder side. There was a whole wall of Batman outfits in varying degrees of complexity; some of them looked remarkably close to his actual suit. Over the display was a massive yellow banner: WHERE HAS THE CAPED CRUSADER GONE? He frowned at it; he hadn't thought people would care where Batman was. It hadn't been that long since he'd gone out, taken Jude back to the Narrows in his car.
…Except, he realized, it had. It had been nearly two months. He'd been in the Joker's gang for almost a full month and he'd barely made any progress —
— No. No. He had the phone. He had the Joker's real name. He'd held a knife to someone's throat and he was here for a reason. It was fine, things were fine. He smiled at the store clerk who approached him.
"Can I help you, Mr. Wayne?" she asked, and then, looking a little flustered: "…Um, I mean, I recognized you from the, from People, so — "
"Yeah." Bruce put on a show of thinking. "Can I — do you sell contacts here? Non-prescription ones, I mean?"
"Oh, sure." She led him to the opposite wall, where there were an assortment of fake eyes and noses and other various facial reconstruction bits. "So the contacts are here — " pointing — "and you can just, like, pick whatever — " For a moment they both stood there, studying the line of boxes along the middle shelf. The contacts were arranged in rainbow order, but Bruce already knew which ones he wanted. He'd known from the moment they got close enough to see the colors.
"What kind of costume are you making?" the clerk asked. "I didn't think a company like yours would do a Halloween party."
Bruce shook his head. "We don't, normally," he said, which was true. "We have a lot of interns this year, though, and they kind of pushed us into agreeing," which was not. Still, it made the clerk smile, and she told Bruce to come find her if he needed any more assistance, and then she walked away. As soon as she was gone Bruce selected the box he wanted. There were two sets of white contacts — one set was totally white, giving the effect of blindness, but the other only covered the iris. The result, at least according to the picture on the box, was a pale white circle around the pupil approximately the color of skim milk. Bruce took the latter; then, as an afterthought, he also got a wig, and a Harry Potter wizard's hat, and some fake teeth covered in plastic blood. He brought it all to the cashier who rang each item up, looking bored.
"My niece is going as a witch for Halloween," Bruce explained. The cashier barely glanced at him:
"Uh-huh," she said, and then, "Do you need to have a prescription put in these," holding the contacts up.
"No," said Bruce. "She doesn't wear — "
"Okay, so the instructions for care are on the back," the cashier said, "and you need to have her buy a container to put them in, otherwise they'll dry out."
"Sure." Bruce bit the corner of his mouth. "Thanks."
"Total's thirty-two dollars," the cashier said.
Bruce felt his eyebrows lift, but he handed her his card — it was probably the hat. She put his purchases in a bag and handed it and the card back to him with a hollow, "Happy Halloween." Bruce nodded at her and walked out. After he was out of sight of the windows he stuffed the wig, the hat, and the teeth into a trashcan; the pointy end of the hat stuck out accusingly. Ignoring it he walked to his car, took his new contacts out, and sighed. It was just gone four, and he had a lot of work left to do.
By the time he got back to the penthouse it was after dark. He'd had to drive to four optometrists before he could find one that would give him contact solution and a case without a prescription. The doctor was on the outskirts of the Narrows and seemed for some reason to think Bruce was using this as a cover for drugs; when Bruce gave him a check for two thousand to keep his mouth shut he just grinned, and winked, and said, "Oh, don't worry, Mr. Wayne, I understand." Bruce wanted to say, no you don't, and what the fuck, but he just thanked him and left. Once he'd parked in his garage he went up in the elevator and entered his thumbprint in the door to his private quarters; he tried to sneak through the kitchen but of course Alfred was sitting at the island, drinking tea.
"Out late again, sir?"
Bruce cleared his throat. He tried not to let the heat rise to his face; he felt like a teenager again, trying to sneak in after staying out too late with Rachel. "I just — miss the city, that's all. I'm used to it at night so I go out — "
"You know," Alfred said carefully, "you could always just don the suit again, Master Wayne."
"I know," Bruce lied. "It's just — I want to give it some more time. That's all. I don't think Gotham's ready yet. If they really need me, of course I'll go. But I don't want to… it's just not time yet. That's all."
Alfred was giving him a look Bruce recognized all too well; it was the same look he gave him every time he said something stupid, or self-centered, or self-deprecating, or rude — it was a look Bruce got a lot, in other words. But all he said was, "Goodnight then, sir," and Bruce said:
"Yeah. Goodnight, Alfred," and he headed off to his room. In the bathroom he read the instructions off the back of the box; three hours and some very sore and bloodshot eyes later, he had figured out how to get the contacts to go in and come out with only a little difficulty, and he put them in their solution and in the case, and hid them away in his bedside table. He tried afterwards to work on some business stuff related to the Neumann Corp. merger Jolene had mentioned, but he discovered he couldn't concentrate, and by midnight he was in the gym, soaked in sweat, blasting Stefani again:
This shit is bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S!
Four days later, after three overly long meetings about solar energy and improved funding for road repair, Bruce slipped into his sweats — black — and his beanie — dark green — and popped in his contacts. He lost the left one briefly under his eyelid, which felt a little like he was driving a knife into his skull. Then he told Alfred he was going for a drive down the coast, and not to wait up, and he raced down to the garage and slid into his Mustang. His heart was pounding. By the time he arrived at the apartment and got to the right room the others had already assembled there: Cornell, Reznor, Kowalczyk, Weiland… and Jude. Jude Baker. Bruce still couldn't quite wrap his head around it, the surreality of the situation. Now when he looked at him there was no longer just that faint hint of familiarity but the feeling like rewatching a movie after finally recognizing that one actor. For a moment when Bruce stepped over the threshold no one turned and he took advantage of the moment to study Jude's profile. It was his first time seeing him since he'd learned the truth, and he saw it, like two images superimposed: it was Jude. It had always been him. For a moment he wasn't the Joker at all but that quiet, scrawny kid who had made Bruce laugh once when he'd stuck a grape up his nose, age seven, during one of Thomas' business partners' boring speeches about converting fossil fuel energy into hydroelectric. Something in the shape of his eyes, or the strange mouth…
Jude turned, briefly, perhaps feeling Bruce's gaze on him, and Bruce could see he was honestly surprised, though it flashed across his face so quickly he might have imagined it. But he knew he didn't imagine the slight chin tilt a moment later, nor the evident meaning behind it: approval. He didn't know what it meant that it made him feel relieved.
Cornell caught Jude's movement as he turned away again and glanced over his shoulder; his jaw dropped, and he said, "Fuck, Wayne, that's some freaky shit." He started to walk forward, glanced at Jude, seemed to think better of it, and just stood there, staring. "Are those implants?"
"Contacts," Bruce said.
Reznor looked at Bruce too, and raised his eyebrows. "Damn," he said. He sounded — impressed. They all looked impressed, actually, and Bruce had no idea what to do with the warmth that spread in his chest. He wondered what Jude had told them about Bruce picking a disguise; if he'd told them anything at all. He was glad it was working, he supposed. It meant he was one step closer to proper infiltration. He imagined himself in a month or two, at a press conference on GCN, laughing about the whole thing with Gordon: once I put on a mask of sorts, I knew I had them… He tried not to think of how very unlikely it was that it would happen that way; that even when Batman had been at his height, when the city had been grateful for his presence because the crime rate was lowering and nothing else, there had been no place for him on television, or in the GCPD. That Gordon wouldn't risk his career just to shake hands with a newly-reformed vigilante on live television.
That in fact, it would be nearly impossible to explain what he'd done here without revealing both of his identities.
He shoved the thoughts down. They were starting to stare at him. To deflect attention he walked all the way into the room — and stopped short. Their latest victim was in a chair against the opposite wall, bound and blindfolded and clearly knocked out, but even with his face half covered by cloth it was impossible not to recognize the head of the psychiatric unit at Gotham General. Charles Ainsworth. Jude was looking at him, too; his hand kept tensing against the back of one of the tables.
Cornell's eyes shifted between Bruce and Ainsworth. "What?" he said, and then, frowning: "Don't tell me you're gaining a conscience now, Wayne — "
"No," Bruce said. "No, I just — I know him."
Cornell rolled his eyes. Okay, so he definitely hadn't gotten all the way there yet.
"You knew Alice Richmond, too, and that didn't exactly stop you from helping me terrorize her in the back of a Kinko's — "
"Yeah, but — I work with him." Bruce folded his arms. "He's the head of the psych unit at Gotham General."
Reznor raised an eyebrow. "So?"
"Wayne Enterprises is funding part of the rebuilding," Bruce said. "And we're both on the board of directors at Arkham, and — "
"Are you." That was Jude; his voice was quiet, and cold, and full of a strange tension Bruce couldn't read. He turned to look at him. His hand was still tightly clasped against the edge of the table. He was staring at Ainsworth with so much hate in his face and Bruce wondered —
"I am, yeah," he said. "I fund parts of the hospital. I've kept the psychiatric units going for some years now, and — " He bit his lower lip. "I mean, is that an, is there a problem, or something?"
Jude stared at him for a long time, long enough Bruce began to feel uneasy. But at last he said only, "No, Wayne. There's no issue. Just do your job here. Unless you're more interested in keeping your professional relationship with Ainsworth intact, in which case — "
"No," Bruce said, at last partially understanding the challenge. "No, I — I mean we've never sat down and had coffee together or anything. He's just, you know — he was at that fundraiser at my house, the one, uh, the one you crashed. He knows what I look like."
Jude sort of smiled. It wasn't pleasant. "Then this is a perfect opportunity to see if your little disguise works or not," he said, before gesturing with his knife. "He's waking up."
Weiland slunk over to Ainsworth's chair, where indeed he was shifting against the restraints, and put his own knife to his throat. "Evening, Chuck," he said, and Ainsworth jumped.
"Where am I?"
"Aw, Chuck, don't be boring," Weiland said. "What a generic, boring question. Don't you think, boss?"
Jude didn't answer. He was walking towards Ainsworth's chair in that way he had, a little tilted, each step slamming into the floor, challenging the air, barely contained violence. He had his knife still out in one gloved hand and when he reached Ainsworth he put the other hand on his shoulder and cut the blindfold off. The edge of the blade nicked his temple and Ainsworth yelped, squirming away. His eyes found Jude and his mouth dropped open.
"Hello, doctor," Jude said. His voice was blistering. "You have anything you wanna tell us?"
"I — no, I don't think — " He was looking frantically from face to face; when he saw Bruce there was a moment, Bruce's heart stalling out, where he thought it wouldn't work, but then to his relief Ainsworth only shrank back further in his chair, eyebrows drawing together. Bruce sighed; he was out twenty-five dollars. Congratulations, Clark.
"C'mon," Jude murmured. Weiland had withdrawn so Jude could press his knife to his quivering pulse instead. Bruce could see he was enjoying himself; he could also see a tight strain to his shoulders that wasn't usually present, as though he was holding himself back from doing even more. "You're telling me you don't remember our little deal?"
Ainsworth swallowed. "No, no, it's just — I paid off my last debts last month. I'm clean." He flexed his fingers, evidently trying to hold his hands up in surrender. "I don't do that shit anymore."
"Interesting," Jude murmured, "since last week one of our sources saw you in Trenton closing a deal with Harper."
Ainsworth's face paled. Bruce could see him making a valiant effort to think his way around whatever corner Jude had just painted him into. "Your source must have me confused with someone else," he said, finally. "I swear, I haven't touched drugs in at least two months. I don't run anything anymore; you're going to have to — "
Jude laughed once, harsh, high. "Are you telling me what to do?" His voice had a dangerous edge to it, the lilting nasal pitch splitting and spreading and turning sharper. His knife dug into the flesh of Ainsworth's neck, and Ainsworth closed his eyes. "You're in my territory right now, doctor. You don't get to give any orders."
"No, it just — I'm not ru— "
"Stop lying."
It took Bruce a moment to register that he himself had spoken. His voice was — not exactly at Batman pitch, that would've been too much, but it was close, and he could feel Cornell and Reznor both staring at him in surprise. He wondered for a moment if he'd made a mistake, interrupting the Joker in the middle of an interrogation, but Jude didn't say anything. He didn't even look up. Ainsworth did, though, gaze snapping to Bruce; again, that flare of panic when their eyes met, and again, somehow, Ainsworth failed to recognize him.
"I'm not — "
"You're lying," Bruce said again, walking forward. "You're lying to the Joker, of all people. How good of an idea do you really think that is?" As he approached the chair, Jude shifted over a little, circling like a dog to stand at Ainsworth's back. His hand flexed on Ainsworth's shoulder; the other still held the knife. Bruce remembered — lightning flashing — the way they'd worked together at the laundromat. Jude's knife beneath his foot, and how fluidly Bruce had moved in to grab it. How natural it had felt to insert himself and get hold of Ashland. It felt like that now, for some reason — the same energy sparking off Jude, landing on Bruce, hot and quick and dangerous. It was like their fights had been as Batman and the Joker, except now instead of trying to tear each other to pieces they were dancing side by side.
How far are you willing to go, whispered Thomas' voice. It sounded more like Bruce's, these days. And he couldn't answer it any better. So he brushed it aside, and took out his own knife, peripherally aware of the others' hands on their own weapons in the half-dark. He cut away the ropes binding Ainsworth's right hand to the chair and held his wrist.
"Tell the boss the truth," he said. "Who are you working with?"
Ainsworth stared up at him. "No one," he said, and Bruce bent his middle finger back. He watched the skin of his knuckle fold up and pale. He could hear Ainsworth's breath going choppy; his hand was trembling in Bruce's.
"Why are you still lying?"
"I'm not, I swear, I — "
With a quick, deft movement, Bruce broke Ainsworth's finger. It snapped clean along the joint and there was a brief, stunned pause before Ainsworth started screaming. This prompted Weiland to rush back in from the other side and slap his palm over his mouth:
"Shut the hell up, Chuck," but Bruce was staring at Jude. If he'd overstepped he knew he'd see it immediately, but Jude didn't look angry. He was actually — he was almost —
Laughing.
"That's what happens when you lie to me," he said, and this time his knife drew blood. "It's gonna be pretty fucking hard to jerk off now, isn't it?"
Ainsworth made a noise, muffled, against Weiland's hand. There were tears in his eyes. His hand was shaking and tense in Bruce's grasp, trying to pull away.
"You gonna talk now, huh, doctor?" Jude asked. "Wanna tell me who you've given my drugs to?"
Ainsworth moaned.
Jude looked at Bruce.
Bruce inhaled once. You've done worse as Batman, he thought, this is nothing, this is just infiltration, it's just a job, it's just the job — He broke Ainsworth's index finger, too, and after that he was babbling, hysterical. His hand swelled up and went limp in Bruce's while he talked, half-incoherently, about shipments out of Arkham and how he'd only gone to Harper that one time because he was desperate and Harper was offering more money and a fairer deal and a better cut —
"You think the Joker doesn't give you a good enough deal?" Cornell asked sharply, pointing his gun at Ainsworth's forehead.
"No, no, no, that's not what I — "
"If you want to be greedy with my product, I'm better off not doing business with you anymore, anyway," Jude said. "I can easily drop you from my clientele."
Bruce knew what he really meant. Judging from the violent twitch Ainsworth's hand gave in his, he understood it, too. "No. No. I'll run the drugs to you," he said. "Next shipment's coming in two weeks from A.C. I can get it to you by Saturday — "
"Ah," Jude said, almost cheerfully, "see, you're not so stupid after all, are you." He released Ainsworth's throat, walked around to his front. He patted his cheek, then slapped him a little. "Don't fuck me over again," he said. "Or actually, do. I'd be interested to see what other parts of you Mascis here could break." He grinned at Bruce, and Bruce, stunned, couldn't really help it — he smiled back. Jude had given him a nickname. This was sort of huge. It meant things were working in his favor, unless Jude was just stringing him along and planning to slit his throat, but he couldn't think about that. He had a nickname and his disguise worked and he was that much closer to his goal now. This was what he'd set out to achieve. There was a rush of pride in his chest he couldn't quite tamp down; he could tell it wasn't entirely attached to the right thing, but that was okay. It was just acting. Like playing at being Bruce Wayne, socialite, for the crowds. It was still what he'd told himself at the gas station: if he had to fool himself a little internally, that was fine. It would just make his act that much more convincing.
He let Ainsworth's hand go. "What do we do with him now, boss?"
Jude had slipped his knife back into his overcoat. He already looked bored. "Tie him back up," he said. "Knock him out. When he wakes up we'll be gone, and he'll keep his mouth shut. Won't you, doctor."
Ainsworth nodded, frantically. His arm was trembling, and he cried out when Weiland grabbed it to lash it back to the chair. He was soaked in sweat.
"If you're lucky," Jude said softly, "you'll wake up before those fingers are past the point of fixing." Then he nodded at Cornell, who smacked Ainsworth in the back of the head with the butt of his gun. Ainsworth's neck dropped forward, and a light trickle of blood from the cut on his neck fell on his shirtfront. Jude sighed. Bruce could still see marked tension in his shoulders, and in his jawline, but he only turned and walked to the door. When he was nearly out he paused, looked back. He looked directly at Bruce. His eyes were burning.
"I want to discuss something with you, Wayne," he said. "You'll come meet me by your car after you help the guys clean up."
"Sure, boss," Bruce said, but his heart was in his throat. Had he said something off? Jude had seemed pleased with his performance, even amused by it. Had he gone too far, and Jude just hadn't reacted because he wanted to complete the scene? He couldn't read Jude's expression, and he could tell it would be wrong to ask for elaboration in front of the guys, so he forced himself to look away, and to keep his hands steady as he packed up the assortment of weapons they'd brought. When he glanced up again, Jude had disappeared. Cornell was watching him, mouth thin, but when Bruce looked at him he just shook his head, saying,
"Count the guns, Wayne, would you? There's supposed to be seven."
Outside the wind had picked up. Jude was waiting as he'd said beside Bruce's car, leaning against the passenger door with a cigarette. He'd taken his gloves off and the skin of his hands was purple with cold beneath the smears of greasepaint. His nails were yellow with nicotine. When he withdrew the cigarette from his mouth the end of it was stained with the violent red imprint of his mouth. Bruce's feet crunched in the gravel of the parking lot, and Jude glanced over. His mouth twitched, and he crushed the cigarette out beneath his heel.
"Hope you don't mind driving," he said, when Bruce was close enough he didn't have to shout. "My car's in the shop again."
Bruce couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but he just shrugged. "I know you like my car," he said, testing it. Jude rolled his eyes:
"Careful, we don't want you thinking too highly of yourself," but there wasn't any heat behind it. Bruce nearly smiled; he unlocked his door and slid into the driver's seat. He stared at his hands on the wheel. They were trembling a little bit, for some reason. He kept feeling the snap of bone beneath his fingers, and seeing the way Ainsworth's features had contorted. This was far from the worst thing he'd ever done. But maybe the thing was he'd done all those other terrible things as Batman. And he had all of Batman's rage and violence backing him. The blind, nearly manic edge that kept him buoyed up when he had on the suit, and his adrenaline was going going going, pushing him forward, crashing him through plate glass or rappelling him down the sides of buildings. In that apartment he wasn't anything other than Bruce Wayne. And without all of his anger and the conventions of society stripped away he had only his strength, and his training, and he found that the result was very cold. Very cold, and very methodical. He hadn't felt a single thing when he'd broken Ainsworth's fingers. He hadn't realized how deep the disconnect ran between one personality and the other, and he supposed the idea should have chilled him.
It was still just acting, though. He was still learning how to do this, how to find Bruce Wayne beneath the socialite and the vigilante. That was easier to consider than the alternative. He didn't want to think about the alternative; his mind shied away from it, and so as Jude got in the car too he keyed the ignition, forcing his hands to work so they'd still. The radio started playing Rage Against the Machine's "Guerrilla Radio", and Jude snorted, but otherwise didn't speak. They pulled out of the alley and onto the main road. Finally when the silence had gotten to be too much Bruce bit his lower lip. Jude had given him the phone; he'd given him his name. He clearly wanted something out of Bruce that he didn't require from the other guys; it was probably all right to initiate conversation. If nothing else, it would mean the plan was working. Bruce drew in a breath and said,
"Who am I?" They were at a stoplight and he saw Jude glance over at him.
"What?"
Bruce made a gesture. "That name you called me, back at the apartment — Mascis. I don't recognize that one." He didn't recognize most of the names Jude called his guys, actually, but he didn't really want to admit that. He'd have them all in Arkham or in jail soon enough, anyway.
"It's the guy from Dinosaur Jr.," Jude said. "I didn't like them as much, but I was kinda running out of good names to give out. I figured if you had a working disguise it would be pointless to keep calling you Wayne and ruin the suspense."
The light turned green. Bruce drove. "You know a lot of band trivia," he said.
"Does that surprise you?"
"Yeah," Bruce said, without really thinking, but Jude only laughed. Absent its usual sharp edge it was very nearly a nice laugh.
"You know when I grew up," he said. "You think I had anything better to do than listen to the radio and watch MTV?"
The lonely sad kid sitting hunched in the corners at Wayne Manor, nose about an inch from his Gameboy. Bruce felt the edges of his mouth tighten. "They sound good," he said, quietly. "The names, I mean. I like them, boss."
They were at another stoplight and Jude was shaking his leg. He withdrew his pack of cigarettes and lit one staring absently at a Starbucks. When he rolled the window to exhale the smoke filtered out over the buildings and Bruce realized with a jolt they were on the street where the Joker had stood not quite four months ago and begged Batman to run him down. He'd been so desperate to just let go and fucking plow into him, and so angry with himself when he jerked the wheel at the last second. He remembered watching Jude lean over him, hands coming towards his mask to lift it off. He remembered reaching up to grab his wrists.
"So what did you want to talk to me about?" Bruce asked, shoving the memory down.
Jude's cigarette hand twitched. Some of the ash fell on his fine linen trousers. "Could you take me somewhere?" he asked, and Bruce blinked, startled.
"I — yeah, sure," he said. "Wherever you want to go, boss — "
"Turn left here," Jude said, gesturing at Stratham, and Bruce nodded, cutting the wheel. He tried to drive less erratically than he had as Batman, back in September. The radio was playing Stone Temple Pilots now. These conversations kill, falling faster in my car… Bruce could feel his heart starting to beat harder the longer they drove without speaking. He remembered suddenly the way Jude had reacted when he'd said he was on the board at Arkham. It was clearly an issue even if Jude wasn't going to bring it up and he wondered —
"That little stunt you pulled," Jude said suddenly, blowing a long column of smoke out the window. "With Ainsworth."
Bruce tensed. "Did you — I mean, should I not have — "
"I'm just wondering where the CEO of a Fortune 500 company learned how to do shit like that." Jude was watching him, and Bruce tried not to let his face betray the sudden panic swirling in his chest. He had overstepped. He hadn't been thinking about it. Of course Bruce Wayne didn't know how to do these kinds of things. He remembered the first time he'd gone as Batman, how afterwards he'd spent hours making lists of alibis, places he could've been during those hours, people he could've been with. Rachel had topped nearly every list, because Bruce had known she'd cover for him without him having to ask.
His mind was racing. Jude was still looking at him, eyebrows lifted beneath the paint. "It just doesn't seem like something they would've covered in orientation — "
"It's not," Bruce said, feeling his nails dig into the leather of the steering wheel. "It's — fuck, this is kind of embarrassing — "
Jude pitched his cigarette butt out the window. It flew onto the asphalt and lay smoldering there, a tiny red-orange cluster of sparks. "I'm intrigued," he said, softly, and Bruce could tell what he really meant, so he said,
"While I was — overseas, I kind of… I studied taekwondo."
There was a pause. Then Jude burst out laughing. "You did what."
"I studied — "
"Oh, no, no." He waved his hand at Bruce, still snickering. "No, I heard you, you don't have to — turn right here — you don't have to say it again, I might not make it through hearing it a second time…"
Bruce turned onto Parkside, feeling vaguely irritated, though he wasn't sure why. "I was in Asia part of the time," he said. "There was — I was going through — " He bit his mouth. He didn't have to tell Jude any of this. Why was he telling him this? "I was in school in Europe for a while," he said; the same lie he'd told Cornell. It felt wrong to tell Jude, for some reason. "It was hard to stay in one place, and I — you know I have the money, so I went off. I couldn't come home, so I went and found other things to do." When they got to Anderson he turned automatically without being asked, and Jude raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment. Instead after a moment he said,
"What did make you come back?"
Bruce swallowed. I knew the city needed me. I knew I couldn't run forever. Even in his head it sounded hollow, trite. And there was no way to explain the connections between his training and Gotham without revealing that he was also Batman, so in the end he said,
"Some of my advisors were contacting me and telling me about underhanded deals going on in the company. I had to come in person to straighten it out. I just — ended up staying." He shrugged. "It was easier than getting back on a plane, I guess." It wasn't entirely untrue. There had been a lot of mess in the company when Bruce had gotten back to Gotham. A few of his father's closest employees had gotten involved with the mob, or else they'd started laundering money themselves, and Bruce and Lucius had had quite a time of cleaning things up in the various infiltrated departments. Between that and becoming Batman, in the end, it had just seemed logical that he stay where he was.
Jude was quiet. Bruce couldn't tell if he'd said the right thing — in fact he couldn't really tell where this conversation was even going. After a moment Jude asked, "And do you regret it?"
"What?"
"That you stayed."
For once, he didn't have to think about it. He didn't even have to lie. "No," he said. "Gotham's mine, it's my home. I couldn't — even without those financial troubles. I couldn't have settled anywhere else."
Jude didn't answer, but Bruce could see he understood. They were both city kids; grown wild and fucked up and unhinged beneath the sewers in their respective states. They got it, the way a city drew you in and then kept you trapped, kept you coming back. Bruce supposed every city was like that, to a degree; they all had their idiosyncrasies and their specific inner corners no one except a native would know. But there was a difference between every other city and Gotham. Gotham was its own breed, and so were its citizens. It had the highest crime rate in the country, higher even than New Orleans, but it also had the steadiest population of people who grew up in its walls — and then stayed. Hardly anyone left, and Bruce didn't know if it was out of loyalty or something darker, but it didn't matter. They were there, and so was he. So was Jude, drawn back despite having only spent parts of summers here as a child and as a preteen. They were here, and they weren't going away.
He and Jude had grown up the same, in similar filthy cities, in well-known, wealthy families. And though on the surface they'd gone different ways as adults, there was something similar about their paths, too. After all, they both had their violence, the hot anger they drew on when they needed it, Jude's raw lashing electricity and Bruce's controlled silent rage. The difference was Jude let his run him all the time, whereas Bruce's was contained, pushed back. He'd thought for a long time it was better his way, more effective. Recently, though — like now — he wondered if maybe it wasn't a little bit of a problem, after all. Because there really was very little separating him and Jude, outside of a set of standards — though even that was questionable — and there were things… Bruce knew, even though he hated it, that a good bit of why they were already working so well together was because Jude understood, in a way no one else really could, what Bruce was thinking — at least as Batman — and why. But the thing was —
— the thing he'd repressed earlier, the thing he hadn't wanted to admit —
— was that even when he wasn't wearing the suit, there was still a little piece of Batman in him. Actually, there was a larger chunk in him of Batman than socialite Bruce Wayne. The controlled violence, ready to snap to the surface at any given moment. It was very difficult indeed to suppress; he remembered when he'd first met Cornell and Reznor at the start of the month, and how he'd had to work at not beating the shit out of them because they'd made him angry. It was there and all he had to do was pick at the scabs a little to draw it right back out. The desire, running constantly through his fists, to grab, to punch, to throttle, and to keep throttling, to choke and bruise and bleed and hurt, really hurt, until he was blind from it, until he was hardly breathing. It was always there, simmering, and Bruce knew that because he could feel it, every second. It had always been a lot easier to slip into Batman than to come back out of it, and sometimes he wondered if it wouldn't just be easier to be Batman all the time. Jude was the Joker all the time, letting his anger control him, and it had thrown the city into chaos, it had destroyed countless lives, but at least he was happy. (Comparatively, anyway.) He enjoyed himself. And Bruce knew that, because…
…because in the apartment, when he'd broken Ainsworth's fingers, when he'd stood there with Batman's violence at his surface in Bruce Wayne's skin, and snapped the delicate bones, and snarled, and paced, there hadn't been a suit to cover his fucked up desires, and the needthat ran through him. There had only been him, him and the violence, Bruce Wayne using Batman's violence, alone, exposed, and —
— and he'd fucking liked it.
They drove down Leesville for a ways, then turned onto Peterson, then Wooddale. By then they were deep into the Narrows, static crackling on the radio, blocking out parts of the music: …broke our mirrors… light my candles, in a daze 'cause I found God… The moon had drifted behind clouds and half the streetlights didn't work so Bruce crawled along, squinting to see beyond his headlights. In the passenger seat Jude had been silent for a long time except to give directions, and Bruce was quiet too, jaw clenched, wondering what else was coming. He knew better than to let his guard down just yet. They went past the warehouse Bruce had dropped Jude off at back in September. Two blocks later Jude had him turn left onto Cedarcrest, and then another left on Forest, and then —
"Pull over here," Jude said, gesturing. Bruce executed a decent parallel park and looked up. They were next to a dilapidated apartment complex, grayish and haunting in the dark. Half the windows on the fifth floor had been broken out; maybe a fourth were boarded up. There was a massive tarp over one corner at the roof. When Jude saw Bruce staring at it he shrugged. "Some fucker tried to bomb us all out a couple years ago. They never figured out how to fix it."
Bruce wondered if Jude himself had been the 'fucker', but decided not to ask. The pipe which ran from the roof to the drain in the sidewalk was rusting badly in places. The bricks were crumbling, covered in vines. There were junkies on the front steps and tents set up under the windows. On the corner a prostitute stood beneath the single working streetlight, her slender thighs clad in fishnet, ample breasts accentuated by a leopard-print tank. She smiled at Jude through the windshield of Bruce's car, pale pink mouth stretched wide, and Jude rolled his eyes. He lit another cigarette.
"That's Helena," he said. "She's always trying to get me to fuck her. She thinks if she screws her way through the underworld she'll be able to get away with anything she likes in the city. But we both know that's not true. Don't we, Wayne."
Bruce nodded, slowly, watching Helena as she reached down to adjust the straps of her heels. Her skirt was too short to be very effective, and he could see she wasn't wearing any underwear.
"Take out your contacts," Jude muttered suddenly. "No one's gonna care if they see you here."
Bruce wasn't sure what the issue was with leaving them in, but he knew better than to argue. He popped them out, flinching a little at the feeling of his own fingers at his eyes, and slipped them into the case he kept in his glove compartment. He would have to figure out a way to sanitize them on the job. Once they were out he blinked, feeling his eyes water, and stared for a moment into his rearview mirror. The sclera was a little bloodshot, but mostly it just looked like he'd been smoking weed, or something. He looked at Jude with his eyebrows raised, and got a little mocking congratulatory smile in return.
"What made you pick them, anyway?" Jude asked as he opened Bruce's passenger door. "You never said."
"I remember it working really well for Marilyn Manson in the nineties," Bruce lied, feeling another rush of relief when Jude laughed again. And that was weird, because he had no need to feel relieved. None of this was necessary, not standing here in the Narrows outside Jude's apartment, not trying to amuse him as deflection, not any of it. He supposed it was good for gaining Jude's trust, which in turn would be good for infiltration. Alfred would have pointed out that Bruce always went the extra mile on everything, anyway.
The night air chilled Bruce's skin. He lingered a second too long beside his car and Jude saw him doing it, and rolled his eyes. "Wayne, c'mon," he said. "You leave your fuckin' car at the warehouse all the time. Everyone knows you're with me. No one would dare touch this car. Okay? Just — lock it and let's go."
Bruce nodded: "Sorry, boss," and shut the driver's side door, and locked it. He and Jude walked across the street, passing Helena, who called,
"Hey, Mr. Wayne, I didn't know you came down here!"
"He's off limits," Jude said coldly, turning to give her a look which, amplified by the orangeish glow of the streetlight, was very nearly hellish. "He's my guest."
She pouted, holding her hands up. "Can't I just say hi? We don't get celebrities here too often — "
"I said no," Jude repeated softly, and Helena glared at him, but she also stepped back up onto the curb. She teased her hair up off her shoulders.
"You gentlemen have a nice night," she said, and Jude rolled his eyes a third time, walking the rest of the way to the complex. At the door — ignoring the junkies — he withdrew from some inner pocket of his overcoat a key ring on which sat at least seven keys, plus an assorted cluster of keychains: Disney World, the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta, a miniature Eeyore, a tiny plastic Nintendo controller… He selected one of his keys and fit it into the lock, shoved the door open with his shoulder —
"It jams when it rains,"
— and led Bruce inside and up the stairs. At the third floor he walked down a hall and stopped at the door at the end. It was just a door, nondescript, dark wood. Bruce wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. The gate to hell, perhaps. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. Jude found another key and stuck it in the lock, then looked at Bruce, his eyebrows raised.
"I suppose I don't have to tell you how much better it'll be for you if you keep your mouth shut about where I live."
"Yeah, of course," Bruce said. It was chilly in the corridor, the damp concrete walls and floor retaining the outside air. The whole building felt like it had been long since neglected and was only waiting to collapse. It reminded Bruce weirdly of Arkham, the few times he'd visited.
Jude studied him for a few more seconds, then twisted his key and opened the door. Together they walked inside, and Jude flicked on the overhead light. The interior was as unassuming as the door, and somehow all the more unsettling for the normalcy of it. It could have been anyone's apartment. There was a living room with a couch and a television, a record player against one wall, and a tape deck, and three doors in the wall to the left. The kitchen was beyond the living room, separated from it by a half wall. Bruce could see his stove and part of his sink. He had things scattered over the floor — old takeout boxes, dirty clothes, books with the spines bent — and a few of his guns on the coffee table by the sofa. There was a pizza box open with a few slices inside on top of the television and as Jude walked past it he grabbed one up, offered it to Bruce.
"Want?"
"No," Bruce said, trying not to notice the way the cheese smelled, "thanks, but I'm…" He trailed off, feeling like an idiot, but Jude made a noise in his throat as he dropped his keys on a pile of — something, socks, maybe — and slipped off his overcoat, so Bruce steeled himself for the mockery and said, "I'm vegan, so."
There was a pause. Jude's mouth twitched; he swallowed a lump of pizza, and he said, "A vegan billionaire who knows how to break fingers. What the fuck, Wayne. Who the fuck did I hire? What else can you do?" He was grinning; his mouth was shiny from the grease. Bruce looked away, towards the wall over the sofa. It was littered with various clippings from newspapers and magazines: a vividly colored photograph of 9/11. An article about the Dyatlov pass and one about the Erebus and Terror. A poster of Zeppelin's first album, evidently only there for the Hindenburg. A long article from the Gotham Gazette about the AIDS crisis, with words circled in red. 'Panic'. 'Reagan'. 'Morality'. 'Telethon'.
"You like it?" Jude asked, coming up to look over Bruce's shoulder. He smelled fucking terrible. He always smelled like he'd just crawled out of the bottom of the river — among other things. Bruce had no idea why it didn't totally repulse him.
"It's — " He searched for a word that wouldn't break this weird — whatever they had going on between them. Not that he had any reason to keep up the charade; they'd long moved past doing anything useful. They were in Jude's apartment. Bruce had no reason to be here. "It's definitely different," he settled on, and Jude's mouth tightened a little at the corners. Bruce only noticed because he was looking for it — for some reason — but it still made him wince. He'd fucked up anyway.
"Of course it's different, Wayne, that's the point." Jude dropped his pizza slice on the ground. It spread grease on the threadbare carpet. "I like this shit — " pointing to the 9/11 picture — "I find it fucking fascinating, so — "
"I didn't mean it's bad," Bruce said. You need to like me, he thought. This needs to work. "It's just — it's really not something anyone else…" He trailed off. Jude wasn't looking at him anymore; he'd moved on into the kitchen. Bruce could hear him pouring water in the sink. He felt like he'd failed some test, and he wasn't sure how, and he wasn't sure why he was disappointed. It was the same feeling he'd had at the laundromat, wishing Cornell and Reznor would approve of him. "What interests you about all those — "
"Stop trying so fucking hard," Jude snapped. "You try too hard, Wayne. You think too much. It's going to break your fucking brain."
Bruce swallowed. Okay. "Sorry, boss," he said quietly, and that earned him a frustrated sigh. Bruce saw Jude's hand clenching around the counter.
"Why the hell do you think I asked you to come here?" he asked, after a moment. "Do you think the others come here? Do you think any of them know my name? My real name?"
"I — don't — "
"No, Wayne. The answer is fucking no." He walked back into the living room. His makeup was smudged on his face, like he'd been wiping at it in the sink. "You're still the prettiest guy I've ever hired, and I think you're fucking weird, and I'm interested in that. It's why I hired you. Or did you forget that?"
How far would you fall? No, Bruce hadn't forgotten. He just wasn't sure of the answer anymore.
"So if I want to bring you back to my apartment, and share certain things with you — I expect reciprocation. You don't want me to lose interest in you, Wayne."
"You're not going to, boss," Bruce said, which — what the fuck — but Jude only raised his eyebrows, and then his mouth twitched, and he said,
"Ah, yeah. There's that fucking death wish." He tilted his head. "I really like the way you talk to me, Wayne."
Bruce remembered tying steel wire to the axles of an eighteen-wheeler and dragging it end over end. He remembered broken glass and a machine gun and the way Jude had come up the street growling like a rabid dog. He remembered flipping him onto his back later, and how even when his head had gone through plate glass he'd just laughed, shaking with it on the floor, begging Bruce to hit him again, nearly reaching for it — and he remembered synchronicity, how easy it had been to reach for the knife, to hold it to Ashland's throat. How it had been even easier tonight to glare and intimidate Ainsworth and break his fingers while Jude cut his skin. He thought again of their similarities, how their divergent paths were really just frayed edges of the same rope, still within reaching distance, and he cleared his throat, and made a show of looking around, and said,
"So this is your lair."
Jude laughed. "Oh what, I'm a Star Wars villain now?" he said, and Bruce laughed too, feeling some of the tension unwind miraculously from his shoulders. He walked to where the records were, leaning against each other beneath the tape deck. There weren't many, but Bruce wasn't really surprised by the selection: Superunknown, Audioslave, Pretty Hate Machine, Bleach, Facelift, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness… He ran his thumb over the tops and turned to look at Jude.
"Going for record on stereotypical nineties' albums?"
He walked over to stand beside Bruce again. He seemed to have no concept of personal space. "You judging, Wayne?"
"Considering what all our friends' names are…"
"Oh, they're our friends now?" He sounded amused. Bruce fought to keep the red from staining his face. His heart was pounding for some reason and to keep Jude from seeing it in his eyes he asked,
"You got any drugs?"
Jude's eyebrows went even higher. "Is it that kind of visit?"
Bruce shrugged. "You wanted me here for entertainment. You tell me."
Jude's tongue darted out to wet at his mouth. He was almost smiling. "Getting there, Wayne," he said, and suddenly Bruce's face was even hotter. Thankfully Jude had already turned away, heading into one of the rooms lining the left wall, and Bruce followed, feeling as though he was about to go way out of his depth. He found himself in the bathroom. Jude was moving aside a few pill bottles from behind the mirror and retrieving a bindle of coke, a container of oxys, and a prettily rolled spliff.
"Take your pick," he said, "if you want heroin or something else not on offer you'll have to come back another day — "
"I don't, this is fine," Bruce said. He took the coke, lining it on the edge of the filthy sink beside the pointillist toothpaste splatters and the rust stains and the hair dye stains and what looked like blood stains. He tried to ignore that. He'd done so much worse already, to Jude, with Jude, to himself —
"You gonna snort that or do I have to," Jude asked quietly at Bruce's elbow. He realized he was just standing there like an idiot, so he leaned down and snorted the line, feeling it buzz into his nose, into his blood, into his brain. It was pure and good and he could fucking taste it. Jude spilled some too opposite Bruce's and snorted it with one nostril covered, edging it into a straight line with his longish pinky nail, keeping it from spilling over too far one way or the other. When he straightened up Bruce could see his pupils were dilated and he was grinning manic and wild. Bruce's gaze snagged on his mouth for some reason. He had coke residue clinging to his nostrils and some of it had spilled onto his mouth, the white flecks standing out starkly against the red paint.
"You're looking at me weird, Bruce Wayne," Jude said. "Are you gonna kill me now?"
Bruce blinked, jerking his eyes back up to Jude's. He could feel the coke racing in time with his heart. "Of course not. How the hell would I explain that to Cornell or Reznor?"
Jude smiled, jagged. "You catch up quick," he said. He was breathing unsteadily, perhaps also feeling the coke, the way Bruce could see it making his teeth grind. Bruce could smell him even more now, sweat and blood and unwashed hair, old clothes, the chemical scent of his greasepaint. He narrowed his eyes at his reflection, running his tongue over his teeth. His fingers drummed incessantly on the edge of the sink. He caught Bruce's eyes again in the mirror and his jagged smile grew. "C'mon, Wayne," he said suddenly, "let's blow this fuckin' depressing place. I wanna finish the grand tour with you before the news comes on."
Bruce's gaze had caught on Jude's mouth again, and when he said blow Bruce's brain went momentarily offline. It took him a long few seconds to realize that Jude hadn't said he wanted to leave the apartment, and then another beat before he registered the rest of the sentence altogether. Jude was banging his knee on the underside of the sink and his hands were tense. Bruce felt really weird, almost dissociating, one half of him standing in the bathroom, the other half watching himself from inside the tub. The coke was still pulsing in him; maybe it was that, he didn't do drugs very often.
"You watch the news?" he asked.
"Sure." Jude smiled at Bruce's reflection, then reached over and snapped the light off. He walked back into the living room, then made an abrupt about-face and went into the room to their right. His bedroom, Bruce realized, with a stunned sort of feeling. He wasn't sure why it had never before occurred to him that the Joker might have a place to sleep. There was a mattress on the floor, sheets piled around it, and a fan plugged into the wall, and more books scattered over the shelves, and a dressing table with his makeup smeared over the mirror. The tubes of it sat in disarray among cigarette packs and knives and tiny animal figurines. Jude leaned against the table. His whole body was trembling. "I wanna see what the Batman's doing so I can go behind his back and undo it," he said.
Bruce stilled temporarily in the doorway, but he didn't think Jude noticed. He was only half watching Bruce anyway; most of his attention was devoted to his reflection, he was mumbling softly to himself, "Gotta touch it up soon… maybe take off the paint now…" He pointed at Bruce without looking. "Could you get me my — fucking — the thing you take makeup off with."
"I — what? What thing?"
Jude rolled his eyes in the mirror. There was a crack right where he was standing and it bisected his face from his forehead down part of his nose. "The pads, Wayne," he said, as though everyone should have known this. "The cream. Didn't you ever watch your mother take her makeup off in the evenings? Oh wait — " He snorted, and Bruce closed his eyes, counting back from ten. Rage pulse — he's just teasing — fucking bastard — he's baiting, he's testing you — should smash his head into that fucking mirror right now fuck this plan — keep it light, you need this to work — When he looked up again Jude was watching him still, expectant, and Bruce sighed.
"What does it look like?" he asked, and Jude grinned. He told him, and Bruce walked back into the bathroom, opening the mirror cabinet again and searching for several seconds before finding the container of Pond's behind a tube of lipstick. He forced himself to stay away from the pill bottles, and to shut the door again. When he brought the cream to Jude their fingers brushed and Jude's eyes snapped to his, all traces of amusement gone from his face. He kept his eyes on him in the mirror while he lathered first his hands and then his face with the cream. Bruce watched the greasepaint slowly lift off his skin, until at last it was all gone, except for a few traces of black clinging to his eyes, and white splotches along his jaw. Then he set the cream down, screwing the cap back on, and turned to Bruce, spreading his hands out.
"Ta-da," he sang.
It was the first time Bruce had seen him bare-faced since he'd learned who he was. For the second time that day Bruce caught a flash of the kid he'd been; it was the same face, sixteen years older, eyes blazing with so much rage and mania and exhaustion; sixteen long years dealing with pain —
— pain Bruce thought he very nearly recognized. He wanted to reach out and touch him, for some reason — his shoulder, maybe, or his mouth, the edge of it where it was still red despite being clean of product, where the scars were. He was staring and he could feel Jude's eyes on him, curious, a little amused, like he knew to which tendencies Bruce's thoughts were running, and so Bruce allowed himself to ask,
"Do they hurt?"
"What, these?"
"Yeah."
Jude shrugged. "Sometimes."
"When sometimes?"
"When they hurt."
Bruce huffed. "You're deliberately being obtuse."
"That isn't a question."
"That isn't an answer."
"I can't answer a question you haven't asked."
Bruce sighed. "When do they hurt?"
"All the time."
"You said sometimes before."
"Maybe I lied."
"Do you lie often?"
"Are you sure you can trust my answer?"
Bruce swallowed. He didn't know how to answer and so he didn't. "So what's," he tried instead; his voice caught, for some reason, so that he had to clear his throat and try again: "Your whole thing with Batman. You really hate him, huh."
Jude blinked, evidently taken off guard by the subject change, but he rose to it gamely, unbuttoning his vest and tossing it on the floor. He looked sort of ridiculous with just his suspenders but Bruce didn't dare say anything. "Nah," Jude said, leaning backwards against the dressing table with his elbows. "Don't have the energy to hate such a self-righteous hypocrite."
"Why do you call him a hypocrite," Bruce asked carefully. "He does a lot of good for this city."
"Oh, like you?" Jude's mouth twisted. Bruce folded his arms. He watched himself in the mirror, watching Jude.
"I do plenty for this city," he said.
"Sure," Jude said. "Except we've already had this discussion, and we both know you don't. Your philanthropy act — that's all it is, Wayne. Just an act. Shelling out money so people will like you. Pretending you give a fuck about anything you're paying for."
"I give a fuck." Bruce's hands were shaking where he had them clasped around his arms. He couldn't tell anymore if it was just from the cocaine but he didn't think it was. His heart was racing and he was a little bit nauseous. "I give a fuck, Jude."
"Everything you touch is still destroyed," Jude said. "Every single thing. And you're hunting down people with me now — how good do you think that makes you?" His eyes dropped to Bruce's mouth and Bruce's heart gave a violent thud, like he'd been kicked in the chest by a giraffe. Jude's mouth was still twisted and he said, "You really think being on the board at Arkham makes them do shit for the patients? You think showing up once a year to their meetings and handing Ainsworth a check makes him give a fuck about us?"
Bruce's teeth were clenched so hard it was sparking a headache behind his left eye. He walked forward — he's still baiting you — and grabbed a fistful of Jude's hair — and you're fucking letting him — and pulled. Jude made a guttural, growling sound; after a moment Bruce realized he was laughing and he was seeing red. I give a fuck, he wanted to say again, spinning Jude around, trapping him against the dresser. He was one long line of coiled tension in Bruce's arms and Bruce had no idea what the fuck he was doing. This was the same man who had held Rachel over the windowsill; the way he'd pushed her out —
"You know I like the way you talk to me," Jude said, almost softly. "I know I said that earlier but I really, really mean it, Wayne. None of the others have the courage to tell me they hate me. That's why I like you so much." His eyes snapped up to meet Bruce's again, and Bruce was burning with it, and also cold, because it was the same as it had been in the apartment with Ainsworth, the adrenaline without the suit, and the enjoyment. The rush of fearangerhatred, and the fucking enjoyment.
"I can tell every second we're together," Jude said, "how much you want to kill me."
Every ounce of heat in Bruce's body rushed down between his legs. "I don't — "
"Hey. Do us both a favor and don't fucking lie, okay?" Jude's voice was steady, but his eyes were gaining an edge Bruce didn't like. "Why the fuck else would you be staring?" he asked.
Bruce took a deep breath. The silence and solitude before the plunge. The weightless drop behind the ribs from diving off some or another foreign skyscraper. "I want to fucking devour you," he whispered. It felt like it had come out of fucking nowhere, but the second Bruce heard it, he knew it was true.
Jude gave him a measured look. Finally he said: "Okay," and Bruce started to grab for his belt loops, to spin him around and direct him where he wanted him to go, but before he could Jude was turning himself. He got his hands on Bruce's wrists and walked him back to the mattress, shoving him down. Bruce could feel his breath coming fast and uneven and Jude was staring at his mouth and crawling between his legs. One hand settled on his hip. The other on his knee.
"Couple of things," Jude said. "I don't fuck unless I feel like it. And I don't feel like it very often. So if I'm going to fuck it needs to be good. Otherwise I'm wasting my time." He reached up, and ran one long finger down Bruce's cheek. The feeling of his skin against Bruce's — cold and dry — made him shiver. "Do I seem like the kind of guy who wants to waste his time?"
Bruce swallowed. He closed his eyes. Steeled himself. And said, "If you don't shut up and let me get you on your back then I'm wasting my time."
There was a pause, and Bruce had enough time to start thinking perhaps he'd made a mistake, but then Jude laughed, once, sharp brittle sound like shattering glass. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you, Wayne." His voice came out even more hoarse than Bruce was used to hearing it, and it shot an unfamiliar, warm tingle down his arms.
"I thought that's what you liked about me," he said, and then, "Are you gonna shut up now?" and Jude laughed again, and took Bruce's wrist, and flipped them over.
The thing was — and Bruce wasn't sure he'd ever admit it — but the thing was that he was the same as Jude: he didn't like fucking much. It wasn't so much that he didn't feel the desire as he just didn't feel like going through with it; he was more interested in obsessing over another person until both of them were repelled by each other, like opposite poles on magnets. It was what he'd done to Rachel, to a degree. The vulnerability involved in sex was like ripping himself open from the inside and expecting the other person to just sit back and take it. He hated showing so much of himself to anyone, so he just didn't. The last time he could even remember fucking anyone else had been over a year ago, maybe; some model at a fundraiser, bent over in the bathroom, door locked, her dress hitched up around her waist, shoe clasps loose on her ankles. Bruce had to picture Rachel to come, and it hadn't been satisfactory enough. The model had seemed to understand without being told that he needed something out of it he wasn't willing to discuss, and to her credit she'd tried to accommodate him, but it just — hadn't worked.
This, though — this was nothing like that. Nothing like jerking off thinking of the shit he'd do to Rachel if he could have her. Nothing like any of it. Right from the start it felt the way it did when they fought as Batman and the Joker; that same violent release of tension, that same uncontrollable urgency to hurt, and to keep hurting. Bruce thought again of hitting Jude over and over in the interrogation room. He remembered his foot in Jude's chest in the penthouse, and Jude's knife below his ribs, and the rush when he'd shoved Jude off the side of the Prewitt Building. This was like that, except with markedly less clothes.
Bruce wasn't gentle with Jude; he didn't have the time or the patience to be. He got Jude on his back on the mattress and there was this feeling — a rush of heat straight down his spine, uncontained, which he'd never had. It made his hands shake and he was suddenly so hard he couldn't get past undoing his belt and unzipping his fly. Jude was laughing up at him, but there was nothing mocking about it, though Bruce could see he was pretending otherwise.
"Is this what years of business meetings and repression does to a person," he asked as Bruce bit his neck, working at his pants, hands shaking as he fumbled them off Jude's hips. "Or are you just naturally made of all this fucking tension, Wayne, this isn't healthy you know — "
"You sure are fucking good at running your mouth," Bruce growled against his throat, pulling Jude's shorts down past his hips. He could feel the hard line of Jude's pulse and he licked at it. Jude gasped, still laughing, as Bruce reached between them and grabbed at the shaft of his cock to stroke it. He was too impatient to go for anything to slick it up but Jude seemed to like it better that way, shoving at Bruce, begging him:
"C'mon, c'mon, harder, fuck, Wayne, fucking — touch me, you fuck," and Bruce stroked him dry, hard, rough, angry, thinking of Rachel, of Harvey, of the thousands Jude had killed and the thousands he would kill and how underneath it all he was right. He was right about Bruce and he'd been right about Batman and now Bruce was here in his apartment biting his mouth red and bloody, bruising his neck, snorting his drugs. He'd orchestrated everyone's deaths that Bruce had ever cared about but Bruce was fucking around with him on his filthy fucking mattress in the middle of the night. He'd broken a man's fingers and he hadn't even been wearing the suit to do it. He'd held a man at knifepoint and he'd liked doing it and he had no idea how to deal with any of it except to twist Jude's cock in his hand dragging forth more brittle broken laughter. He was thrusting up into Bruce's hand, scraping his nails through the short ends of his hair and down his neck, like stroking a feral dog, and Bruce could tell he was close so he stopped, and flipped them over. He spit into his hand and got Jude open enough he could take Bruce and then he plowed into him from behind, shaking on every thrust, Jude shuddering against him, head hanging down between his arms, and what did it was Bruce curling his fingers into the unwashed locks of Jude's hair and pulling. Jude's neck arched back and he came all over Bruce's hand and his sheets and the sight of it sent Bruce over the edge as well. It was the hardest he could remember coming perhaps in his whole life and he hadn't been thinking of Rachel at all. He couldn't stop moving his hips. He couldn't stop shaking. When he pulled out Jude pretty much instantly slumped onto the mattress, burying his face in his pillow. Sweat had gathered at the base of his neck and Bruce leaned in and licked it off. Jude snorted into his arms.
"Bruce Wayne," he murmured. "I had no idea you were so fucked up." He twisted his head a little so he could watch Bruce's face; Bruce didn't know what for, and he didn't know if he wanted to. He pushed himself a little to one side and said,
"Was that a waste of your time?"
Jude's eyes were lidded. Bruce could see the bruises forming along his throat and his shoulders where he'd bitten him. "We'll have to see," he said, and settled himself down more firmly into the mattress. They stayed like that for a while, staring at each other, until eventually Jude closed his eyes, and Bruce understood his welcome had worn out. He stood, slowly, on legs that felt like water. He redid his pants, hands shaking. He walked to the mirror and stared at his mouth. It was swollen from biting, bleeding a little. He reached up to touch it, gently, with his fingers first, and then his tongue. The skin tasted like Jude.
"See you later, boss," he said. Jude grunted sleepily.
"Light off when you go," he slurred into his skin, and Bruce nodded, and switched off the light before leaving the apartment and heading downstairs to his car.
He didn't know why he was smiling.
Two evenings later Bruce arrived at the scheduled meeting with a scarf around his neck to conceal the obvious. Jude however had not and when Bruce walked into the warehouse his eyes zeroed pretty much instantly on the deep sucking bruise at the base of Jude's throat. Everyone else was talking quietly and evidently trying not to look or ask questions but as Bruce approached Reznor looked at him, and at his steadily warming face, and then to Jude, who was watching Bruce with an obviously cocked eyebrow. Reznor nudged Cornell who mouthed 'ahh'. Jude had an expression like, what are you going to do. Bruce rolled his eyes, shoved his beanie into the pocket of his coat, and then removed the scarf as well. It got momentarily very quiet. Then Cornell said,
"What's on the agenda today, boss?"
and the meeting began.
