A Laugh In The Dark Ch9
After examining the wings Bruce moves onto his clawed hands. Then abruptly he moves to Jace's face, roughly pushing back the upper lip to get a better look at the teeth. Although on the outside Bruce was making a good show of seemingly just examining Jace, Bruce was grinning on the inside. The whole 'examination' was merely a means to getting what he wanted. And at the moment what he wanted was this odd man before him. "Wings like a bat, impossibly smooth marble like skin, lips soft as rose petals, and fangs." Bruce mused to himself, then out loud, "Heh, just as I thought. You're a vampire, right?" He said with a smug grin, his tone showing it was more a statement of the truth rather than a question.
Jace's ear twitched as he spoke and recoiled his wings, "Ya know, "You could have just asked instead of putting me through that." Bruce allows his grin to widen a bit as he says "Yeah I know. But where is the fun in that?" he immediately scolds himself inwardly about how much that line and grin reminded him of Joker. But Bruce's mental scald was interrupted as Jace mumbles "But where is the fun in that…" his eyes locked on Bruce's grin. The grin was quickly replaced by a slightly confused frown as Bruce tilts his head slightly to one side and asks what's wrong. Jace's voice drops a few decibels as he replies, "Oh…its just that…that's the same thing HE said…when I told him that." causing Bruce to become slightly more confused. "Who said the same thing?" Bruce asked, but almost immediately wished he hadn't as Jace turns his attention in the direction of Arkham Asylum and mutters under his breath "The Joker, and then he gave me that exact same grin."
Bruce stood in silence for a few minutes watching stray hairs blow across Jace's face. He noticed that the hair seemed slightly…green some how, but he shrugged it off as a trick of the growing shadows of night. Stealing himself Bruce spoke again, the pitch of his voice coming dangerously close to that of his alter ego Batman. "You know The Joker?" He shakes his head, "Not really, no. I ran into him when I was exploring Arkham. I didn't think anyone would still be there, but there he was." He flexes his wings mid thought, "Bastard damn near ripped off my wings trying to see how far they would bend before breaking." A grin was beginning to tug at the edges of Jace's lips that for some reason reminded Bruce of Joker. His eyes trail from Jace's mouth to Arkham, he must have been glaring harder than he thought because the twitch of humor quickly disappeared to be replaced by a flicker of fear.
Bruce gave a low growl directed at Arkham. Slow movement caught his attention and he watched as Jace backed away from him and into the guard rail. While it was true the Batman was mainly the one striking fear into his enemies, Bruce himself also had a way of making people afraid. Although his anger was not directed at him the vampire could clearly pick up on it and was scared by it. "H-hey Bruce? What is it? W-what's wrong?" Jace stammered in fear and concern. Abruptly Bruce turns and reenters his room and after a few moments hears Jace take a step towards the entrance. Part of him wanted the strange creature to stay while another, darker, part of him wanted to be alone. And as usual the darker half won out. "Get. Out." Bruce commanded over his shoulder in that same, almost Batman but not quite, voice. He stood in silence as the sound of flapping wings filled the air and slowly faded into the distance.
Turning back around to shut the glass door Bruce mumbles to himself, "Time to suit up…" and, with that, he headed to the secret entrance of the Batcave and headed down. A few moments later he arrived inside the cave. Taking a seat at the computer station he scanned the police radios and emergency frequencies for any major criminal developments, as well as contacting Oracle. Miraculously there was nothing of great interest going on at the moment. Deciding to suit up anyway and head out for a quick patrol. About an hour and a half later Batman had captured several small time criminals and had decided to head back toward Otisburg for a while. Pulling the Batmobile into a back ally, and activating the security system, Batman climbed to the rooftops.
Looking out over his city Batman spotted someone standing on the roof. "That cant be him, could it?" he muttered aloud to himself. Pulling out a pair of 'Bat Binoculars' he focused on the familiar figure. There standing on the adjacent building was Jace, the odd vampire he had meet less than two hours ago. "Hnn, Bruce had his chance to talk to him. Now its Batman's turn." With that he pulled out his grappling hook and shot it across to the building the vamp was standing on and silently made his way over. Standing in a fairly shadowy end of the roof, Batman listened as the vamp muttered to himself. "Am I a pathetic excuse for a vampire or what?" he asked aloud, apparently to himself. Batman gave a small smirk barely noticeable in the dark and spoke up "Possibly."
He watched in silent amusement at the vamp jumped forward in surprise and nearly ended up going over the roofs edge. He then quickly spun around to face who ever had spoken. "Holy shit!" The vamp exclaimed, panting slightly from fright. "What the fuck is with you people and sneaking up on me? Ya try'in ta give me a heart attack?" Batman gave another barely noticeable smirk before stepping out into the better lit portion of the roof. "I didn't know your kind had hearts. Let alone heart attacks." He said in a joking manner, but in that deep gravely voice he uses as Batman it came out sounding more darker than intended. Batman give the vamp a once over then shifts his gaze up to his face expecting to lock gazes with him. Instead he is both surprised and slightly amused to find that the vamp's eyes where instead angled downward slightly, obviously staring at his lips. "Interesting." he thought to himself. He could also tell the vamp was blushing. Years of working in darkness as The Bat had granted him excellent night vision and apparently the vamp was unaware of that fact as he tried to shake himself out of the blush before Batman noticed.
The vamp then turned his back to Batman to gaze out over the city once more. As he turned his hair caught in the moonlight making it seem to glow silver with a heavenly light. His skin was fair if not pale and also caught the moonlight. Batman sucked in a silent gasp, unable to take his eyes off the positively radiant creature before him. Before he had a chance to realize what he was doing, Batman had started moving. When he finally came to his senses once more he was standing directly beside the vamp. In an attempt to distract himself from any unprofessional thoughts that might start, and were, running through his mind Batman broke the silence. "Why did you come to Gotham?" he finally asked after a few minutes pretending to look out over the city when in fact he was watching the vamp from the corner of his eye the whole time.
There was a short silence then a mumbled "I don't know" was heard coming from the vamp. Batman watched in fascination as the wind picked up slightly causing strands of that silver hair to trail across the vamp's face as well as in other random directions. "Curiosity got the best of me I suppose. I wanted to see with my own eyes whether or not this town was truly damned." he continued with a weary chuckle, "heh, turns out it is…but…that doesn't mean it will remain so." By this time Batman had already turned slightly so his full attention was on the vamp beside him. The vamp turns slightly to look at Batman and The Bat is once again looking on with quiet amusement as the vamp's face blushes even deeper than before.
Apparently he wasn't expecting The Bat to be looking at him, but instead of shying away he gave a small smile and continued to speak. "Its because of people like you and Mr. Wayne and the men and women of the GCPD that I believe this city can be reclaimed from the scum who now have control." he turns away again and looks back out at the city, once again catching the moonlight in that breath taking way. "I wonder if he is even the slightest bit aware of just how tempting he looks right at this very moment." Batman muses to himself as the vamp continues to talk. "Maybe not tonight or the next or the next…but…it will happen, eventually."
Jace's word, coupled with that irresistible way the moonlight reflected off him, caused a small smile to make a rare appearance on Batman's face. The vamp seems to notice the smile an gives a subtle but sharp intake of breath. Apparently he was as taken by surprise by the smile as Batman was himself, though he didn't let his surprise show. There was a short silence, then Batman turned to fully face the vamp with the smile still in place. "Thanks." He says finally, breaking the silence. "For…what?" the vamp asks in slight confusion, tilting his head to the side. Batman then did something else that was just as rare as the smile. He leaned toward the vamp and placed on gloved hand gently on his shoulder. "For thinking there is still hope left for this city." he replies, then lowered his hand back to his side, the smile slowly fading into a sorrowful frown. "Not many people believe that. Most have already given up hope for her." Before he could say more a subtle beeping began to go off in the earpiece within his mask.
Turning suddenly he made his way back toward the shadows without a backwards glance at Jace and leaped from the building. Halfway down he spread out his cape which quickly stiffened and glided safely to the ground. Running swiftly towards the Batmobile, Batman clicked a button on his utility belt disarming the security system and opening the hatch. Jumping inside he switched on the thing that had been beeping. It was the tracking device, more importantly it was the tracking device specifically made for monitoring the whereabouts of a certain mad clown. Joker. He was close. "To close. What the hell is that madman doing off Arkham Island?" Batman mused aloud. He switched on a police scanner listening for anything that would hint as to why Joker would be on the main island. Nothing. At least nothing that Joker would have any interest in or have caused. "What is he up to now?" Batman asked aloud, then quickly jumped back out of the Batmobile.
Rearming the security systems, he quickly made his way down the back alleyways, heading in the same direction as Joker. Halfway there he decided that the rooftops would more than likely provide a better angle to observe the maniacal clown from. Bringing his grappling hook back out he quickly shoot a line to the nearest roof and zipped to the top. Several rooftops later, having either jumped or zip lined most of them, he landed on one last roof and, hiding in the shadows, glanced over the edge searching. His search didn't take long as there, on the sidewalk, directly across from the building he perched on, was Joker. He was trailing behind someone. Upon closer examining the unlucky person Batman was shocked to see that it was Jace. The vampire he had been standing with only a handful of minutes ago.
Batman was just about to make a move, to warn Jace that Joker was right behind him when said clown suddenly ducks into an ally way just as the vamp turns around, apparently having sensed someone fallowing him. After a moment of nervous glancing around the vamp slowly turned to continue on his way when out of the ally a few feet from him shot out a purple blur. The next thing Batman saw was Jace falling flat on his ass. Joker sat perched on top of Jace's stomach like some sort of brightly colored psychotic bird, grinning like the mad man he was. "Hello again cupcake!" Joker practically squealed in that overly happy voice of his. "Miss me?" and then proceeded to laugh hysterically.
"Miss me?" Batman repeated in his head. "So Jace had meet Joker before at Arkham." Batman sat and watched in silence for a few moments, half expecting to see the vamp to go into some sort of rage and attack the madman. But he didn't. Instead he merely gave Joker an annoyed look then groaned out his reply as he tried to push the madman off him. "Oh yeah, tons. Get off me Joker." And to Batman's great surprise, he did just that. Giving a slight shrug Joker spoke in a mock polite voice. "Oh of corse, anything for you, friend." At this he leaped off Jace and did something else that took Batman by surprise, he reached out a miraculously weapon free hand and helped the vamp back to his feet.