Chapter 6

November 15th, 16:52 PM, in a closed room somewhere in the Wayne Tower was working Jackson and Bruce on some design concerning what may or may not be the next suit for the hero. He was very annoyed by the pale man's presence and was avoiding completing his work since he thought it would be better for the dangerous man to know close to nothing about his next armor. The dark knight was getting extremely sleep deprived and was starting to feel the effects of it, although he would never admit it. He was highly unfocused, his mind kept drifting off on unimportant things, his head was killing him and the never silent man he had by his side for most of his time was not making it any easier. At least they had spent the day surrounded by other people, which was somewhat preventing him to start any long senseless conversation with him. However, now they had been alone in this room for about ten minutes and the larger man was waiting for Joker to open his mouth and start his babble.

There it was, that moment, when the small man put his pencil down, sat back in his chair while locking his green eyes on the billionaire, licked his lips quickly and took a short breath. It seemed slow for the detective who just imagine shoving that red solid ball gag back into that large stupid mouth to shut him. He could not believed he actually was missing the clown's gift and he could not accept that the smaller man was right to think that his hero would have loved it.

"You're funny some times, you know that?"

He did not answer, he just stared with a face that was angrily begging for silence.

"Like when I threatened to ruin you by making a scandal out of our little session and you acted all heroic -Justice is important, do it I don't care, Gotham something more justice!" He stopped to laugh at what must have been the most pathetic Batman imitation in history and continued. "But then you decided to work with me anyway..."

The vigilante looked down, unable to find a reply that the madman could not twist nor use against him, for the truth was that in this current situation, he truly needed him, but he could not bring himself to say it.

"That means I could still make that sexy scandal and have you too!" He enthusiastically added.
"Maybe I should match your DNA to Joker's and ruin you too." Bruce rapidly answered.

"Maybe we were secret lovers."

"Maybe I was a victim."

"Maybe you're Batman!"

"Maybe I should stop being Batman."

Joker dramatically gasped.

"You wouldn't!"

"Try me." He said, quickly realizing how idiotic it was to challenge this lunatic.

"Oh! I will!" The pale man replied taking his pencil and focusing back on his work. "Not now, but I will."

Bruce kept his attention on the other man, regretting his words and grasping the fact that he was one of these rare individual who really knew who he was, furthermore he also was that one person who could hurt him the most.

"I know you will."

His mind was narrowing his thoughts to the man in front of him, who had seemed to deliberately ignore his last phrase. The fact of having someone who knows so much about him, even more than he could ever imagine always left him with an eerie feeling. However, for that same person to have been present during years of his life, to be standing in front of him in this precise moment and yet still be a complete stranger was leaving the dark knight with a sensation comparable to agoraphobia; fully lost in what seems to be an endless area, yet suffocated by the crowd occupying it.

Right now he was Jackson White, he also was Joker, he was that club customer from two months ago, he was to become this new Champion and he used to be someone before all of that. He still is someone under all of them. A person with a face like no one's, a voice like no one's, unique ideas, unique way of doing things, unique way of moving his body, a DNA that does not match anyone else in the entire country...

"You're not from here." Bruce suddenly stated.

White turned to him with a confused look on his face.

"You're not American."

"All right Brucie, I can admit that I am not always right, but I'm pretty sure that this is America." He answered pointing toward nowhere in the sky. "And I've been living here for a pretty good while."

"I'm not talking about you as a citizen, I'm talking about your origins." The clown was clearly not following where his partner was going with this and the larger man continued. "It all adds up. No one in this country, not even the ones deceased who's DNA where registered in some data bases beforehand matches yours nor even share enough similarities to be considered as part of your family. It makes sense if I consider that your family may simply not live in America, that you've been born some place else."

The jester smirked and started giving the billionaire a slow sarcastic clap.

"Wow... Well, good job, detective. You figured it out..." He giggled while leaning toward the other man. "You're right, I wasn't born in this country. Actually, I was born in the same hospital as Jervis Tetch, it's located near the Queen of Heart's garden somewhere in Wonderland."

He ignored the absurd reply his partner had just gave him and kept scrutinizing his facial traits.

"You could be Dutch, maybe..."

Joker laughed in response and the other man did not mind it, in truth he was slightly smiling as he was feeling like finally getting somewhere with him. His real origins were something he could look up whenever free time would present itself to him, that would surely be in a long time and also take a while to figure out, but to Bruce, this was all worth it.

"You are soooo obsessed with me!" Declared the pale man.

"I just want to know you..."

"You already do!"

"...the same way you know me."

He kept his devilish smile and somewhat craving started growing into the intense stare he was already giving to the hero. Knowing the lunatic, he placed one of his hand under the table to secretly clench his fist and wait prepared for his assault. He could not understand why that triggered him, but he was used to him suddenly going off. Which, in this case, he did not. He wondered if it was that drug, those Reds, that were miraculously working or if maybe violence was not what the madman had in mind.

Tension was rising in the room that has been quiet for perhaps five seconds. He was saying nothing, simply strangely staring and starving for something only he could know.

"We should go." Bruce broke the intense tranquility. "I won't spend this night with you, I'll be checking out these windows at Arkham and working on..."

"I had plans, anyway." He carelessly said.

"What plans?"

"Some cleaning needs to be done."

"I still don't believe you serve people that way."

They piled up the sheets containing various bullet proof vest designs and lock them up in some safe office drawer. As for the papers concerning the next Bat suit, Bruce kept them for himself. Upon leaving, the larger man grabbed one of Joker's shoulder and addressed him.

"Keep me updated on what you're doing tonight and don't do anything stupid."

"Same goes for you." He chuckled.

23:00 PM, Batman was at the asylum, analyzing the windows. It did not take much time for him to see that his new partner was telling him the truth since he found two Reds by knocking on the glass just as indicated. He placed them back to retrieve them once more in order to be absolutely sure that this was the way the drugs were making their way there.

He went on explaining the situation to the workers who would temporarily fix the problem by sealing the entire frame with a large amount of caulk.
The vigilante was looking forward studying the drug in the Batcave for he had been longing to understand the sudden sanity of his foes.

23:48 PM, upon his arrival, the hero took off his cowl before fetching his cellphone to contact Joker.

Bruce: I've found two pills in the windows, I'm about to analyze them.

Bruce: I'd like to thank you for telling me the truth.

He did not knew if his last message was out of place, but he truly was grateful for the pale man to have helped him.

The caped crusader set up his lab appropriately and started his inspection of the drug. First of, even though the Reds were looking like red marbles, they did not have the texture of one, it seemed in fact that only the exterior was solid and on the inside the narcotic was actually liquid. The component of the drug were surprisingly hard to figure out, even with the use of the Batcomputer and he could not comprehend why. However, he still managed to pick up some of the components. It contained polyethylene glycol which reduces the toxicity of a drug while making for longer-acting medicinal effects. Reds also had a high quantity of lithium, very commonly used in medicine to threat bipolarity, depression and even, to some level, schizophrenic episodes. He also found fluoxetine, a chemical active on obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic disorder, panic attacks and can even help a person through some sort of dependence or unhealthy habits. Finally, the drug contained starch which is an important chain of molecules that is produced by green plants as an energy store which, in that case, allowed the pill to dissolve for absorption. The last component made Bruce reflect once more about the possibility of Poison Ivy being behind the Reds, but then again any good botanist could probably harvest this element. Even though his research on this new drug was far from done it gave him the chance to trace some kind of profile for the person he was looking for; it was either an highly intellectual individual in the field of science or a person full of resources working with teams of scientists. It still was a concept opening to a vast option of suspects, but it was ruling out any ideas of the Reds being nothing but the result of some random easy narcotic mix done by some drug dealer.

His thoughts were suddenly disturbed by the vibration of his phone receiving a text message which he promptly picked up to read.

Jackson: Good job detective, your parents must be very proud!

Jackson: Oh... Oops.

He furiously sighed using all the self control he possessed to not break the phone in his hand. Of course he was expecting him to make some facile cruel jokes on the topic at some point, but it still made him enraged. He took a deep breath and tried continuing the conversation as if this was not affecting him at all.

Bruce: What are you up to?

Jackson: I just convinced a hobo to eat his own dog! He was so miserable, you should've seen the look on his face.

The hero literally felt slightly nauseous while learning about this. Managing to persuade a man with nothing to kill his own best friend must have required a lot of violence from the lunatic. Moreover, there was nothing he could do about it now and he knew he would have a hard time not hitting his partner next time he was to see him. Telling the pale man how much of an asshole he was was all Bruce wanted to do, but at the same time he knew there was nothing he could say to make him feel remorseful and truly hurt him. He put down his phone and went back to the Batcomputer in order to work.

He started researching what could the government gain from freeing the inmates, from these criminals to form a gang that seemed to be much more bent into political corruption than violent activities. He was aware that Amanda Waller often uses the most dangerous humans on Earth to perform an immoral action to which the person in question could also take the blame for or suffer all of the consequences followed by the job leaving her and the government to look completely dissociated.

In this particular case though, the goal of the organization was very unclear. They seemed bent onto passively controlling crowds and political parties. Their goals were beneficial mostly for them, any other person who were positively impacted by their actions were simple coincidences.

Another thing not adding up was the fact that emptying the asylum from its patients was not a financially profitable situation for them. As depressing as it was, all medical services such as hospitals and asylums were working the same way any business was, with the main objective being to obtain as much money as possible from people. Emptying Arkham was making it slowly lose profit just like a store losing its customers.

Bruce did not knew what to make of all of this whole gang situation, with it being nameless and so immensely obscure. During his research he found out that Amanda Waller was to have some meeting located in Gotham for the next month, he noted the exact date being the 22th of December, he would confront her then.

It was 2:46 AM and he was done with all he could do for this night. Of course he could still ask a few questions to Crane, Tetch, Nygma and maybe Quinzel, but in doing so he would surely put Joker's life in danger as he would be called a traitor before anyone else and he could not risk that. He was glad to have someone working with him and the gang, but it was unfortunate that he was despised and not trusted by almost all the other members.

For the dark knight, it was earlier than usual to call it a day and this was making him happy. After all, he was intensely sleep deprived and good long nights of sleep where rare things in his life, so he jumped on the occasion. In no time he was in bed, trying as hard as he could to free his mind from over thinking about any little thing so that he could fall asleep.

It was the middle of the night when he suddenly woke up from an unknown cause. He sat on his bed lightly nervous and highly annoyed by this unusual situation. He listened to the quiet of the night, trying to pick up any odd sounds, but he heard nothing. His eyes started scanning the room for anything out of the ordinary and found one thing about the armoire on the right side of the bedroom. One of its door was almost closed, but not fully. He looked at it for a good moment. He was feeling childish for being this paranoid and decided to brush it off as his own doing.

He moved his attention away from the armoire and that's when he noticed it. On the left side of the bed, from under it was slowly crawling out and without making any noise while doing so a tall and slender man. He was already halfway out of his hiding place when Bruce first saw him. He jumped and landed with one knee on the back of the intruder who let out a small scream of pain and surprise. He immediately recognized Joker's voice, so he covered his mouth with one hand and grabbed his right arm with the other. The last thing he wanted was for Alfred to wake up and have to try and explain whatever was going on. He quickly got bitten and his reflexes made him took away his hand. During that short moment, the clown swiftly moved his free arm to grab Bruce any way he could and pulled him off of him with all his strength. He successfully got the larger man off his back and on the floor, but the vigilante still had a firm hold of his right triceps. To completely free himself from him, the jester rapidly roll on himself ending the quick move with a forceful punch to the man's elbow, making him lose his grip. They both got up as fast as possible once free from one another.

"Surpriii...!"

The hero rushed his hand on the man's mouth and one palm on his torso to violently pin him against the wall. He received many fast jabs in the stomach and side of his body making him promptly step back almost out of breath. Then, the lunatic clumsily lunged at his opponent who caught him by the head and his right arm. Twisting his arm he, with a controlled amount of force, slammed Joker's face against the top of a small dresser, swiftly placing both of his arms on his back like a policemen would. The battle was still not won as the clown started moving like a devil in holy water, trying to break free from Bruce.

"What now?! We stay like this?" The pale man mocked.

"Shut up."

He needed to keep him silent and under his control, which he did not knew how. He examined the room and noticed a silk tie with the knot still done a little on the left of the dresser. He dragged the complaining man's face against the wooden surface until they had reached the accessory. He hastily placed the tie around the smaller man's neck using his left hand while keeping him under control with a firm grip for a short time. Placing both of his hands back as fast as he could to contain the maniac, he grabbed the longer part of the tie in between his teeth and proceeded to pull in order to strangle him until he would pass out. He could not fight him to same way he used to, he could not leave any marks on his body, they had that damned facade to keep up. He knew the soft silk would let his pale skin intact after the asphyxiation.

After the jester passed out, the vigilante was not sure of what he should do with him, but he was aware that he did not had a lot of time before the awakening of Joker. He had a strange idea that would allow him to have all the time he needed to figure out what would be a solution to whatever this situation was.

Dragging the small man to his bed, he placed him on top of it and went to gather all of his belts and some of his ties. Using the belts, he tied each of his legs the a corner of his bed, and attached his hands high up to the sides of the bed head, placing him in an half sitting position. Finally, he placed one tie to his neck and many to perfectly cover his mouth.

Stepping back, Bruce glanced at his set up feeling overall disturbed and confused. He directed his attention to the armoire now wondering what might be inside. He opened it to find out that the clown had simply properly disposed of his dark coat on a hanger. Searching through each pockets he found his glasses, phone, a knife and some money.

A muffled growl captured the detective's focus, turning his eyes to the man he was now holding captive only to meet with his frenzied vivid stare. He kept moving anyway he could, pulling and pushing against the belts in futile efforts of freeing himself while grunting and growling like an untamed animal. The larger man went to sit on the bed, right next to him and place his hands on his hips.

"Did you bring anything else with you?"

The clown's muffled voice responded and even with all the ties covering his mouth, the hero could pick up the harsh tone he was using. He was furious, this break in of his really must have not turned out the way he would have liked it to go. After rubbing his hands pretty much all over his body, the vigilante was assured that the pale man had bring nothing else. He went on speaking to him in a low voice as if a conversation was possible.

"Why did you come here?" Joker frowned but did not make sound. "You have my number, if you absolutely needed to see me you should've called."

In response he started laughing, the sound barely making it out of the ties, but the way his chest shook was clearly giving away what he was expressing. Bruce bowed his head down and scratched the back of it perplexed, he knew that sending the jester to his home would not solve anything, he would simply come back.

"I think I'll keep you here for tonight. We'll leave early in the morning and head to work."

The madman raised a eyebrow looking even more puzzled than his partner who started sliding pillows behind the small man's back. He went on removing the man's shoes and undoing the first buttons of his shirt in order to get him a little more comfortable. Pulling out the blankets from under him was pretty easy since he was light, he then placed them over the pale man. He would have loved to sleep away from him, but he knew better than to leave the maniac unsupervised and restrained by some ordinary belts. Although Joker was in the middle of it, the bed was rather big and the larger man had enough place to sleep next to him, still not without touching him. One of his leg was over the other man's and he could constantly feel his clothes against the bare skin of his muscular arm.

"Get some rest."

Of course he laughed uncontrollably in response, but that was expected by the detective who simply took a hold of the tie around his neck and started strangling him while hushing arrogantly. It was like training a dog with the help of a choking collar and it surprisingly made Bruce smile. For the first time in what felt like a year, he was in control and he was calm. The clown passed out once more and the hero fell asleep shortly after.

Once more, he awoke, this time with a burning sensation in the chest, heart pounding intensively and his breath quick. He was beyond shocked upon realizing that Joker had freed one of his hand and was smoothly masturbating him. He swiftly pushed his hand away while sitting up.

"Get... Get your hand off of me." He spoke with an uncertain and broken voice, which made him feel ridiculously weak.

He rearranged his boxer properly while doing his best to remain calm, fighting any emotions tormenting him. His head was spinning, he was intensely aroused, somewhat nauseous, very furious and absolutely lost. The larger man slowly turned his attention to the maniac who had his liberated hand laying on his thigh and a satisfied look in his eyes.

"Don't touch me." He finally said with an ordinary voice.

He was troubled by the pale man's reaction to his order. He nodded and placed his hand back into the belts trying his best to tie himself back up. Bruce lied down next to him, turning his back on him as if he was no longer dangerous. Truth is, right now he could have stood anything but looking at him. The man beside him was crazy, but far from stupid, he knew how the hero loved him, silent and obedient. There he was, quiet and immobile just like him. A false serenity filled the dark room preventing both men to correctly sleep, relentlessly glimpsing at one another, awaiting for something unknown to take place.

It was 6:00 AM, the sun was about to rise and the dark knight could no longer stand the uneasy atmosphere inhabiting the bedroom. He took a deep breath and turned to Joker who was not asleep either.

"I'm about to set you free, we're gonna leave soon. Don't make too much noise."

He slowly took off the ties on the clown's mouth hoping for him to comply.

"I don't know why you asked me to stop, you really seemed to be enjoying it."

Bruce ignored him, and went on undoing the belts.

"You can use the bathroom if you want to shower or anything." The larger man said while getting off the bed.

"Okay, Brucie. Not talking about the elephant in the room." He replied with an amused tone while heading to to bathroom. "The elephant with an eight inches long trunk." Added the jester while chuckling and heading toward the toilet to clearly take a leak.

"Fine. We'll talk about it after you're done."

The vigilante rapidly closed the door not at all surprised by the shameless attitude of his partner. He started dressing up immediately deciding he would rather not take a shower with the pale man around. The door to his bathroom opened.

"All right, let's talk. Also, where do you keep your gel?"

The detective walked passed him opening a cabinet in order to get his bottle of gel and lazily threw it behind his back for the other man to catch.

"Joker, what we did in the past won't happen again." The unconvinced clown giggled in response. "I don't want to do those kind of things with you."

"You're mind is telling you no! But your body! Your booodyy's telling you yeees!" He sang while the other man took out his toothbrush.

"Not so loud." The maniac kept on humming while styling his hair. "The physical part of this matter is not the real problem here."

"I agree..." The small man purred while gazing at his pretty up reflection in the mirror.

"The problem is you, Joker." He lost his smile and turned his attention to Bruce. "I prefer doing this with people I lo..."

He stopped to think about his next words carefully. Declaring that he only had sex with people he loved would have been a lie for he slept with so many models and meaningless persons just for fun and keeping up appearance.

"We're working together right now, but when this is done I'll have to send you back to Arkham..."

"False! We're going to triumph over these punks as the Champion and the Batman. Then we'll be together fore..."

"No. I'll have to stop you and you'll try to prevent me from doing so. There will be only me remaining free and you locked up in the asylum, or only you and you alone remaining alive."

"I wouldn't kill you, baby." The larger man started brushing his teeth. "This will end with us winning together and remaining together. You're different when I'm not around." He approached the hero who was making terrible efforts to stare at the sink. "I make you stronger, always did. You've spent the year roaming this city like a miserable and desperate imbecile."

"I was searching for a lead." He harshly replied.

"No, you were searching for me."

Once more, he was trapped in a senseless conversation that had no way of being concluded. He decided to simply get back to the point and brush off all of what they have been saying.

"Let's just not sleep together. Let's just be simple allies."

"You're awful at conversing, you know that?" The clown laughed. "As you wish, darling. No touching, no fucking nor fighting. Batsy'll go loony without his play thing." He merrily added while the other man finished brushing his teeth and started combing his hair.

"You're not a play thing." He took the bottle of gel and applied some. "Grab your things and follow me quietly, we're leaving."

"Right now? But I'm hungry."

"We'll just stop at some 24hours fast food place, you like that kind of stuff."

"Seeeee?" Joker stopped moving and stared at the detective with an over exaggerated smile.

"What?"

"You do know me." Happily declared the clown before proceeding to walk with his partner through the manor.

Bruce left a short note to Alfred consisting of : I'll bring my car from now on. He then left his home accompanied by the jester who kept gleefully chitchatting about anything and everything and what not.

He was ready to face another excruciating day.