I've got you under my skin... I've got you, deep in the heart of me.
Have you ever gotten that feeling when you meet someone, the sense that they're different? Special, somehow?
I still remember it vividly, the moment that would fix you in my mind forever. It was the dead of night, and you stood on a rooftop, the fire from the light of the building you'd set aflame sending shadows dancing across your face. You threw your head back, spread your arms wide- and laughed.
I knew right then that you were a completely different breed. You didn't want to destroy Gotham like R'as al Ghul, and you didn't want revenge, like Harvey Dent. You only wanted to watch everything burn.
And then you turned around, and you wanted me.
I still get the same thrill from thinking about it, even now. You were a force of nature, unstoppable, unbeatable. To have your focus on me, just me was in equal parts terrifying and breathtaking. To have your attention continuously, to eventually become a constant recipient of that attention? Well, only two people know what that's like and are alive to tell the tale, and they're me, and Harley Quinn.
And like a child, like a fool, I thought it could never end. No matter how many times I beat you and sent you to Arkham, he would always come back. There was never a moment where I doubted your return. And oh, yes, you were chaotic, unpredictable, ever-confusing. But you were constant. Bane could break my back, Jonathan Crane could gas me into next week and make me see my parent's murder over and over again, but you always understood what made me tick.
It makes me laugh, now- all the people who've ever wanted to know what I've been hiding should have just gone to you.
So deep in my heart... that you're really a part of me. I've got you under my skin.
The GCPD found your main base of operations when they found the body. I still have the photos.
They found a tiny bedroom. Inside was a tiny twin bed, and on it, two little teddy bears propped up against the wall. But those were the only personal touches to it. The rest of the room, from practically floor to ceiling, was covered with- with me Batman. You had all the stupid comic books and action figures they'd made about me. Taped to the wall were clippings from newspapers, most about the times we'd fought, but also just speculation about me by people who'd written in. There were posters. Toy Batmobiles. On one wall was a picture that someone had drawn of the two of us, locked together in battle. Our mouths were smeared with blood and lipstick and I looked like I wanted to turn you into a spot on the ground. You just looked thrilled, as always.
I've wondered for weeks whether or not it was your work. I like to think that it was.
I'd sacrifice anything, come what might, for the sake of having you near...
They say you were obsessed with me. And you were, there's no doubt about it. But I didn't find it disturbing then, like I should have. It's not disturbing to me now. Now I look at the pictures, and I see a graveyard where the two of us went to die, because I'm positive that when you died, a part of me died with you.
The more I think about it now, the more I'm convinced that you were right all along. We're the same, Batsy. I need you. You need me. I'm the only one who really knows you. And at the heart of it all is the fact that I did need you, like a junkie needs his next high. I worried about you. I did my fair share of obsessing over you.
So you haven't been forgotten. I know that was what you feared most, and I'm telling you now that it hasn't happened. This city will bear the scars of your reign of terror for years to come. Commissioner Gordon won't forget. Harley Quinn won't forget. I won't forget.
And I keep telling myself that whatever I felt for you is gone, that maybe it was never there to begin with. I wasn't in the habit of lying (too much, anyway) before. I guess I'm practiced at it now, because all I do is pretend like you never existed. I think Alfred's beginning to catch on, but it doesn't matter. There's nothing he can do anyway.
The end of an era can feel peaceful, sometimes. Others, it can feel like a swift kick to the teeth.
Don't you know, little fool, you never can win? Why not use your mentality- step up, wake up to reality?
Harley Quinn held her own thugs hostage to lure me out after your death. She was taking it badly, and it bled into her physical appearance. Her makeup was smudged, and for once, she wasn't smiling. She handed me a battered-looking envelope with a B written on it in chicken-scratch handwriting and made every attempt to not meet my eyes.
"He wanted you to have this," she said, sounding worn.
I took it, but didn't open it. After a moment, I said-
"I'm sorry for your loss."
Quinn took a shuddering breath. "Mister J- he meant a lot to me," she said. "But I didn't mean anything to him. Nobody did." She looked up. "Except you."
She made a motion with her hand, and her thugs began cutting loose the ones she'd "taken hostage". Then she turned and walked out of the alley, disappearing into the darkness. I got the distinct feeling that we were, and had always been, together in our grief.
But each time I do, just the thought of you makes me stop just before I begin.
I tugged off my cowl when I got home that morning and stared at it. It was the mask that had kept me hidden from Gotham for years. It was the mask everyone wanted to take off. Except you, of course- but you always were the exception, not the rule.
Did you ever want to take it off and see who I was underneath it, I wonder? Or was the mask all you were interested in? Because if you took it off, I'd be something else? And the thing is- I don't know what's more likely. I could never entirely predict you, for all that I knew about you. What makes that easier to stomach is that you couldn't predict me, either.
I took out the envelope from Quinn. It had one thing in it- a picture you must have cut from some magazine. A picture of Bruce Wayne. And in the corner, you drew a little heart in pink marker. You knew.
'Cause I've got you under my skin.
I'm starting to think I'm not Bruce Wayne anymore, and I'm not Batman, either. I think I'm becoming someone else.
Would you have liked that?
Yes, I've got you... under my skin.