Chapter Nine
There was a list in the Joker's pocket as he sped through Gotham City in a cop car. Tonight was the night. A maniacal grin was spread across his scars, and he was ready. In the sky ahead of him, glowing in the clouds, was the bat signal. The sirens were on full blast in his vehicle, and many more were chasing him. Oh he'd made sure the whole Police force knew who it was when he killed off the uniforms and stole the car; their little cop radios were incredibly useful.
Tonight, he was tackling the worst of the worst. Firstly, he was going straight to the Gotham Precinct, armed with five men with machine guns, and him, the wild card. That would be more than enough. It was even better that the rest of the force were following him like rats after the pied piper, it would make everything perfectly in place for the last bang. Bats would be on his way, but if the Joker had timed it correctly, he'd have about five minutes alone with Gotham's finest to spread a message, before he needed to set off on his solo mission.
The list crinkled from within Jerome's pocket as he leaned out the window, swerving the car from side to side. He stopped laughing with a grumpy curse when they opened fire, that just wouldn't do. He had a job to do now, those faceless cards could do nothing to interfere, not tonight. Tonight was theirs.
The look of sheer surprise on the faces of the police force when the Joker burst through he precinct doors, guns blazing, was perfect. "Hello Gotham PD, a little birdie told me that you guys were asking around for me! So I thought to myself, 'Why, I can't be rude, I'd better go see what the problem is!'. So, here. I. Am.", the Joker took a dramatic bow, smirking deviously. During his speech, the police in the cars that had been following Had burst through the doors after them.
Detective Gordon stepped forward, "Guess you really are crazy. You do realise this is the Gotham Police Department, right? There's a least fifty officers in here right now, and you dragged even more along with you. We've all been told to shoot you on sight".
The Joker tapped the barrel of his gun against his chin thoughtfully, "Hm. Now, that could have been an issue! If half the cops on Gotham's police force weren't susceptible to, uh, incentives, that is". Almost instantaneously, all the cops in the room pulled their weapons, but none were pointed at the Joker.
Detective Gordon swallowed, "Ramirez", the female cop grit her teeth and levelled the gun at his skull, "Ramirez, what are you doing?". She hardened her gaze,
"Sorry Jim, he's got my mother", she whispered, and pulled the trigger. James leapt to the side as gunfire erupted all around him. He managed to crawl under one of the desks, levelling his gun towards the Joker, who was laughing in the middle of the mess. His finger teased along the trigger for too long, the man caught sight of Gordon, sent him a grin, and leapt off the table into the fray.
Gordon cursed, and scrambled out in time to get bowled over by a brawling Harvey Bullock. They hit the floor with a noise like a cushion being dropped, and Bullock lifted his head to see Jim, "Eyy! Jimmy! Good to see you on the side of the righteous!". Gordon coughed, shoving his partner off him, "Yeah, sure. They didn't even try. What about you?". Harvey barked a laugh, "What did the Clown have to use against me? He tried money, which I'm sure is what got half these bastards, but me? All I need is cheap whiskey, and the cost of that's in its name", he winked sardonically, "So, go team morality!".
Jim crawled back under the desk he'd been under earlier, and Harvey followed. "So, what do you propose we do?", Harvey muttered, ducking as a handful of bullets skidded into the wood above their heads. Jim's eyes locked on the balcony where Commissioner Essen usually spent her time, when it wasn't her day off, anyway, "Up there. If I can get up there I can try and talk them down. The Joker's gone now, he disappeared up the fire escape, so it's most likely that this is a distraction, something to stop us seeing the bigger picture". Bullock nodded, "Makes sense. So you want an opening then, I'm guessing", he muttered, and cocked his gun with a grin, "If I die, I'll come back and haunt your skinny arse", Harvey winked, and rolled out of cover, leaping onto the last machine-gunned clown left, that was standing between Jim and the staircase with a yell.
"Harvey!", Jim hissed, but the idiot had provided an opening, and Gordon couldn't waste it. With an angry growl, he leapt out of his hiding place and towards the stairs. Taking them two at a time, Gordon pulled himself up with the banister. Panting at the top, James Gordon surveyed the crowd.
It was pure anarchy.
All the clowns had been taken down by the still-good cops, but the dirty ones were still trying to duke it out.
"HEY!", Jim roared. A few officers turned to look at him, but most continued to fight. Detective Gordon took a deep breath, "I said, HEY! LISTEN TO ME, YOU FOOLS!". Most people stopped this time, only one or two continuing to try and fight, Bullock raised his pistol and fired, hitting the still brawling Wuertz in the leg. Everyone stopped then, turning to face Jim, panting and clutching at their wounds.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING? We are the POLICE! We are meant to keep ORDER! But here we are, shooting at each other over a few stolen wads of cash stuffed in our greedy fists!", He sucked in a breath, face red, "We should be out there! Catching the criminal that's turning out streets to rubble and killing for his own enjoyment!". Everyone was silent, until Ramirez yelled up from under a bleeding nose, "He's got my MOTHER!", and a few others murmured angrily in agreement.
Jim held up a hand, "I understand, truly I do. But what's going to happen after this? You think the Jokers just going to hand her back with a nice, 'Thanks for the loan'? Of course not! Our best, no, our only option here is to catch the bastard tonight". Ramirez dropped her head, looking ashamed. Detective Gordon grabbed the railings, "In the case of Captain Essen and Commissioner Lobe's absence, I am taking charge. Any objections?". There wasn't a sound from the floor, "Good. Okay, we need to act quickly if we are gonna catch the Joker. Bullock, you are going to take a quarter of the force in the cars outside, keeping your radios on, and I want you to go downtown. There's just been a call that the cinema on third street has exploded, and it has Joker written all over it".
Harvey nodded, "That's Maroni's joint, right?", Jim returned the gesture, "Yeah, get down their fast, we need to maintain order". Detective Bullock rounded up a quarter of the remaining cops, and left.
Turning to the ragged remains of Gotham's police force, James Gordon assessed what he'd been left with. "For some reason, so far, the Joker has only targeted organisations that are corrupt or owned by the Mob. The only places he hasn't hit so far are the Iceberg Lounge", he took a breath, "And city hall".
There was a utterance of disagreement at that, and Jim took in a breath, "We all know the politicians are under the thumb of the mob, and the Joker's set up so many issues around Gotham tonight that it's got to be some sort of distraction to split our numbers". He swallowed, staring dutifully around what remained of his colleagues, "We're going to have to split into units that have never worked together before, and thrive. I'm relying on you all to help. And for tonight, the Batman is no longer classed as 'shoot on sight', he is our only ally".
•
"Tch, tch, tch. Commissioner Loeb. I've been told that you've been very, very naughty this year!", The Joker teased as he dangled the helpless commissioner off the side of the Wayne Enterprises roof.
"P-please!", the commissioner stuttered, eyes bulging fearfully, "Please! I'll do anything you want! Just, just don't let me die!". The Joker let go of one side of Loeb's lapel, bringing his hand to rub along his painted lip thoughtfully, "Hmm, now, I really would listen to you, you know, having a favour from the commissioner in the bank is not something to take lightly! But you see, tonight is special, and I need it to be remembered, and you really are a rotten apple".
Jerome stared out over the fire-lit streets of Gotham. There were fires raging all across town; a cinema down on fourth street owned by Maroni, a couple of restaurants owned by the Penguin uptown and City hall. The police, annoyingly, had recovered under the meddling hands of Detective Gordon, but were spread thinly across the city, barely containing the chaos.
It was pretty much perfect. The perfect crescendo to the tale he'd spun for Bruce's amusement. After tonight, Batman would be secured as Gotham's masked hero, a vigilante worthy of inspiring people, and Jerome would have cured Bruce of his one flaw. He looked up at the sky above them, a little proud of his bat-trap. There, circling the sky in red, was a spotlight incredibly similar to the one on the top of Gotham PD (perhaps because it was the one off Gotham PD), but it had been edited a little.
The bat had been flipped round, so it was upside down, and the Joker had added a two spots below each wing, creating a nice little smirky face. If Brucey didn't get the message, Jerome would be a tad disappointed in him, especially considering the sizeable selection of cop cars that had gathered at the bottom of the Wayne tower. They wouldn't get in, they wouldn't even try, considering the clowns waving bomb detonators from behind the glass on the ground floor. And because spray painted across the double doors in red were the words, 'BATMAN ONLY. ANYONE ELSE TRIES TO ENTER, THE BUILDING WILL EXPLODE. THE POLICE COMMISSIONER WILL EXPLODE WITH IT'. Jerome hoped he'd made himself clear enough.
A helicopter turned up, carefully circling the Wayne tower, it's rotating blades whipping up a little storm around the Joker and commissioner. Jerome smiled nostalgically, that was a nice touch, unexpected, but nice. The police were calling something out to him from the speakers on the helicopter, but the Joker wasn't listening. His eyes were fixed on a rapidly approaching shape on the streets below.
It was a motorbike, a black motorbike with a black rider. The Joker turned his attention back to Commissioner Loeb, who was still dangling over the edge of the building by his lapels, "Bats!", he exclaimed happily at the snivelling man, and let go. The police commissioner dropped like a stone.
There was a short panic from the street below as officers raced towards where he was going to land, but there wasn't anything they could do. It was mere moments before Loeb hit the Tarmac, and he did so with a resounding crack. The Joker greedily searched the streets for the motorbike, eyes desperately seeking out the caped shape that should be raging towards him. Where was he.
For a cold moment, Jerome thought Bruce wasn't coming. Had gone past, towards one of the fires uptown perhaps, ignoring the Joker completely, but then Batman appeared across the building.
They just stood there for a few moments, taking each other in. Jerome smiled blissfully, spreading his arms, "What are you waiting for?", and Bruce was upon him, snarling ferociously. Jerome found himself on his back, his head dangling off the edge of the building. Yes.
"It really took you a while, didn't it?", the Joker laughed, "To realise it was me. Oh, I bet you were so shocked". Bruce bared his teeth, "Jerome", the word was ripped from him with such anguish that the Joker almost dropped his carefully rehearsed routine. Where was the angry confrontation he'd been expecting? Where were the death threats and hatred?
Oh god. It looked like Bruce was about to pull him back up. No, no, he needed it to end here. Everything he'd planned ended here. Jerome's mind whirled as he tried to come up with aggravating comments, "Did you solve all my little riddles? Or just enough? Just enough to realise it was me?", Bruce said nothing, just narrowed his confused eyes, Jerome continued to ramble, "Oh you didn't! Did you! Which one was it you didn't get? Was it the murder of Dan and Owen? No, no, you got that one, and you had to have got the Arkham one, so it must be the date of my mother's death, and of the assassination of the man who killed your parents".
Bruce shook his head, "What are you talking about". Jerome grinned widely, and he noticed Batsy's eyes lingering on his scarred mouth. Jerome didn't like that, for some reason. He didn't want Bruce to look at the scars, "Well! I had to pay you back somehow for paying for my trial". Bruce snarled angrily, and slammed Jerome's back into the ledge as the clown continued to babble, "And it took you so long to figure it out! Really! I thought you would remember just from the masks alone, and the name, Joker, come on! I had to bribe old man Paulo in the cell next to mine to spell it out for you!".
Bruce was shaking, and for the first time, Jerome felt a tiny sliver of doubt worm its way into his gut. No! He needed to do this! This was for Bruce, he couldn't afford to be selfish now! For the first time, Bruce managed to force out a sentence, "Why. Why would you do all this?".
Jerome winced, he needed to keep in control, couldn't think too deeply at that. He wasn't hurting Bruce, he was helping him. Jerome didn't want to look too deeply at why he was doing this, it was an obsession, yes, it had started off as that. But slowly, it had grown into something else, something absolutely terrifying. But that didn't matter. His thoughts didn't matter. Why would Bruce give two shits about him anyway? He hadn't seen Jerome in eight years.
Jerome realised he needed to speed things up. The Joker pointed a thumb over his shoulder towards the messy stain on the Tarmac, "Did you see me kill Commissioner Loeb? I'm pretty sure I just-ACK". Bruce was holding him by the collar of his heavy woollen coat over the edge of the building. Yes. Yes!
Jerome grinned and wriggled desperately as he was held over the edge. Just a small loosening of Bruce's hands and he would have won. Bruce was breathing heavily, his eyes wide and flayed open, "Jerome! Tell me the truth! Why are you doing this?".
It was at that exact moment that Jerome realised the fatal flaw in his plan.
Bruce wouldn't do it. Jerome'd thought that if he did enough killing, drove Bruce into the choice of either killing him and removing the problem and saving him, Bruce would have been forced to go through with killing him.
But he wasn't going to do it.
Even through the anger and confusion swimming in Batman's eyes, Jerome could see he wasn't going to do it. He still thought he could save Jerome.
"Tell me!", Bruce yelled.
Jerome stopped smiling. Looking straight at Bruce softly, Jerome knew what he was going to have to do. But he couldn't resist it, just once. He wouldn't do anything to hurt the story, but the desperate longing was rearing its unwanted head inside his belly, and Jerome's breath stuttered along with his resolve. One last clue, then, one unsolvable clue that held the smallest glimmer of possibility.
"Evol", Jerome ground out, before lifting his arms, and sliding out of his coat arms.
The Wayne Enterprises building rushed past in a pretty blur of colour, and the wind whipped through Jerome's hair as he fell. He wasn't looking down towards the black streets waiting for him, he was looking up, at the shocked figure standing on the roof above him. Jerome had won. He closed his eyes.
This was it.
There was a sudden impact, then nothing.
•
The moment when Jerome shrugged out of his coat was the single, worst moment of Bruce's life. Worse than loosing Jerome the first time, worse than loosing his parents, all because he'd finally gotten him back. Jerome was in his hands, all cutting wit and dazzling green eyes, then he simply wasn't. He was hurtling down, down towards the unforgiving pavement and the police. Down away from Bruce.
In that moment, Bruce didn't think of all the people the Joker had killed, he didn't think of the buildings he'd burnt or the suffering he'd put Bruce through. He just thought of his friend. He thought of the stump they'd spent many an evening on, perfectly imperfect as they faced away from the sunsets. He thought of the unquestioning, unjudging friendship Jerome had placed in him, and he thought of the last time he'd seen Jerome at night, in his bedroom, when the older boy had confessed everything to him. Even what he hadn't meant to say.
The man hurtling at breakneck speeds away from him was the only person in Bruce's whole life who could do everything Jerome had done, and still make Bruce care. It was that thought which made Bruce dive headfirst off the building after him.
The only reason Bruce caught up with Jerome's decent was because the man was spread-eagled when he fell, and Batman was more aerodynamic when falling headfirst. He bundled the criminal up in his arms, and pressed the button to spread his cape. They could still get out of here, Bruce would fly them away, away from this mess and everything would sort itself out. The left side of batman's cape spread, slowing their free fall slightly, turning it into a maple-seed decent.
The other side of Batman's Cape wasn't opening.
At this rate, they were still going to slam into the ground right in the middle of the police. Bruce needed to get Jerome out of there. The police would kill him. At the last second, Bruce flipped himself onto his back in a weak attempt to shelter Jerome from the impact, unable to tell where they would land due to the sickly spinning.
They hit the ground.
The buckling of metal and bursting of glass punctuated the rough end to their fall. And Bruce vaguely registered that it hadn't been Tarmac they'd crashed into, but a cop car, and that he'd really hit his head. Jerome rolled out of his arms at Bruce's momentary loss of muscle function, and Bruce lay, stunned, on top of the car. Voices. There were shouting voices around him.
He needed to do something.
Something really important, he's been in the middle of something. No, someone.
Jerome.
Jerome wasn't in his arms. Bruce heaved himself up into a sitting position in time to catch sight of Detective Gordon across the street. The man was shouting something, but it all blurred into the same noise in Bruce's head. And pointing a gun.
Gordon was pointing a gun towards Bruce. No, not towards Bruce, just below him. He looked down in time to see a pair of panicky green irises flicking between Gordon and himself, and Bruce smiled. Jerome was there, he was okay. Jerome was alive and shouting something at him. Shouting something.
A gunshot rung out, purging the noise in Bruce's head, and Jerome jolted. Confusion filled the Joker's eyes as he looked down to see the blossoming red stain in his chest. He looked up slowly, meeting Bruce's eyes in something akin to apology, before collapsing.
Everything sped up.
Bruce let out a roar of anger, dropping down over Jerome as further gunshots punctuated the space around them. He pulled Jerome into his arms and started to run. The police were shouting behind him, but there were no more shots fired. James Gordon was yelling something after them, but Bruce didn't care. He needed to get Jerome back to the cave. He needed to fix the hole in his chest.
"It's okay", Bruce heard himself muttering, "Everything's going to be okay".
They were on the motorbike now, roaring down the streets away from Wayne Enterprises, towards the bat cave. Alfred wouldn't know what to think. Bruce didn't quite know what he was doing, to be honest. Jerome's head was resting against Bruce's shoulder, and instead of feeling scared and intimidated, a soft, completing warmth pulled itself through him.
It was a warmth he hadn't felt since he last saw Jerome in the park eight summers ago. Bruce sped up, dragging himself from that haze. He'd got Jerome back, but unless he acted fast, their reunification would be short-lived.
•
When Jerome came to, he knew something was wrong.
To be honest, the thing was, he hadn't actually expected to come to in the first place. He'd expected to be a red splatter on the pavement next to commissioner Lobe, the last part of a vigilante's origin story neatly tied up in a bow.
This was anything but neat, in fact, it felt positively messy. There was a dull sort of ache in Jerome's chest, near his right shoulder, and the skin on his left arm and leg felt abrasive somehow, like scraped flesh. Maybe he was just dead, and this was what the afterlife looked like. Jerome's eyelids fluttered, and soft, yellow light filtered in slightly. There were stone walls above him, which would certainly fit in with the stereotypes of hell, but Jerome was sure no version of the bible had ever advertised hell as being so very comfortable.
And nowhere had they mentioned a very angry looking Batman prowling the floor around him.
Jerome pondered over pretending to be asleep for a while longer to prepare a strategy, but it was too late. "I know you're awake Jerome", Bruce stated darkly, and Jerome let his eyes slide open. He was right, the ceiling was rock, as were the walls and floor. Underground then. Wires ran across the bare walls, all congregating at a cluster of computer screens to their left.
Jerome pulled himself up to sitting, the twinge in his shoulder complaining painfully, and he turned to face the still-costumed Bruce with guarded eyes. He felt too exposed without a plan, he was cornered, and he had failed, but the worst thing was that Jerome didn't understand.
"Why didn't you just let me die?", he asked harshly, "You leapt off a building after me, which I guess was because I engineered my falling to be almost your fault, but the shooting? That wasn't you. Wouldn't have been your fault. I would have bled out pretty quickly". Jerome realised too late he'd said the wrong thing. Batman stopped dead in his tracks, pure fury swirling in his pupils, "You thought I'd just let you die? That I'd let you fall or bleed out from a bullet wound, Jerome?".
The Joker licked his lips, eyes darting off to the side then back to the livid man in front of him, "Well, yeah". Jerome watched as Bruce appeared to go through some sort of inner turmoil, the tendons in his neck stretching out deliciously. His loins throbbed almost painfully.
Bruce clenched his fists, "I wouldn't- You-", Jerome raised an eyebrow. Bruce, speechless? The man wasn't exactly vocal, but he had always been full of blunt surety. This was new, and interesting. Bruce didn't know what to do. He was torn between doing the right thing, and the fact that it was Jerome. That was unexpected. Perhaps, perhaps Bruce had missed Jerome back a little bit, just enough.
It was an odd feeling. The idea of being cared for, Jerome hadn't really ever experienced it. The electric feeling in his belly started to spread warmth through the rest of him. The scary warmth that he didn't want to think about, but it wouldn't go away. Bruce cared about him. Jerome vaguely registered that Bruce was looking at his face, specifically his scars.
Now, Jerome had never felt too self-conscious about his scars. But he knew they weren't pretty, rather hideous in fact, and Jerome felt stupid. Sure, Bruce could care about him a little, a small ember of a childhood friendship, but the blind warmth that flooded his chest, and the deep-seated aching in Jerome's crotch? That wasn't just caring. How could Bruce return such things when Jerome was so imperfect? "What?", Jerome barked, "Never seen a Glasgow grin before?".
Bruce blinked, taken aback by the abrupt change in the Joker's demeanour, "What happened?". Jerome raised his eyebrows, "Oh, long story. You don't want the gory details, you already know half the story anyway. Wasn't me, if that's what your wondering". Jerome ran the pad of a thumb across the jagged line, deep in thought.
"It's not like you have anywhere you need to be", Bruce said coldly, and Jerome caught his eye. "Fine", he bit out, "The night I got out, I went to your house". The corners of Bruce's mouth turned down, and Jerome's eyebrows drew together, "I won't tell you until you take it off. The mask, I don't like it. Take it off". Bruce hesitated, and Jerome rolled his eyes, "Jeez, it's not like I don't know who you are, Brucie. Just take it off".
The clown watched as Batman grasped the bottom of the mask, and pulled it off in one smooth motion. God. Bruce was beautiful. Even with the black circles of makeup surrounding his eyes, their intelligence and determination, along with that spark that was just pure Bruce stared back at him. A slender, straight nose lead up to dark, sweeping eyebrows, and messy, unruly hair framed the whole piece. Jerome felt sad, in a selfish way, because Bruce was so perfect.
No flaws. No great, curving scars marring his appearance, not even a pimple. Jerome didn't stand a chance. He forced himself to continue the story, "I went straight to your house. But you weren't there, I'd missed you by three weeks. So, I decided I'd have to, uh, procrastinate whilst I waited for you to come back". Bruce frowned, "How did you know I was coming back?".
Jerome smiled patronisingly, "Brucie. Of course you were coming back. You hadn't fulfilled your dream, clean streets, remember?". Bruce worried the inside of his cheek, eyebrows drawn together slightly, and Jerome continued, "So I made my way to Haley's Circus. You see, I'd spent eight years in a cell thinking, and when you give someone that long to scheme, they come up with some pretty good plans. I'd got this perfect one for Dan Lloyd, it was brilliant, I was", Jerome licked his lips, "I was going to go in there when he was asleep, quietly, scare him, then I was going to slowly strangle the life out of him like he had tried to do to you. See how he liked it as he went purple". Bruce said nothing, his expression giving nothing away.
"So, I creep up, in the middle of the night, to his caravan. I'm not armed, you don't need to be for strangulation, but I was giddy from my recent escape. Cocky", Jerome spat out coldly, "Assuming. It wasn't Dan Lloyd in his caravan. It was Owen. I froze up. Hadn't planned it through properly".
"Owen knew where I'd been the last eight years, even if the trial had been kept under wraps, they'd called witnesses, and Owen was one of them".
"He'd always been strong, part of being a circus performer, but he was getting old. I should have remembered I was stronger, you know, but I. Just. Froze", Jerome spat out the words like poison.
"He, uh", the clown sighed, "He grabbed me, whacking my head against the walls like old times, and the whole time he was crying. Not the quiet, manly tears you see people cry in public, no, these were the disgusting, messy tears that run down red faces. I was dazed, unfocused because of the head injuries. Owen had always been the sort of man who liked to hurt people. He liked to see blood and spit and tears, and he was still sore about Lila's death".
Jerome looked up, dark eyes meeting Bruce's, "You know what I did, right? When I killed her. You know what I did to her face?". Bruce swallowed, shaking his head, and Jerome hollowed his cheeks, "I did this, to her", he turned his head so Bruce could get a good look.
Jerome tilted his head, looking up, "Well, I had been high- But anyway, I was dazed, angry. Goaded him. Told Owen I did that to her face for him. You see, when he was beating me up, I would smile, just to piss him off, and he'd hit me until he'd beat it off my face. Then he'd just keep saying the same thing over and over and over".
"Why. So. Serious?".
"After I told him. He lost it. Pulling a kitchen knife on me, he snarled something along the lines of, "See how you like it", pried open my jaw, and did this".
Bruce said nothing. Eyes dull as they lingered on Jerome's scars, "The pain sort of brought me back. I realised what was happening. That this was a weak, pathetic old man, and that was when I pulled the knife from his hands, whacked his head against the walls a few times, and gutted him like a fish". Jerome didn't stop, "And I'm not sorry I did. I then went to find Dan. It wasn't that hard, he was only in the caravan over, and I squeezed the life out of him".
Jerome leant back, cold, self-satisfied resignation in his gaze, "There. Bet you wished you'd let me fall now". Bruce's eyes didn't move from Jerome's cheeks, "I'm so sorry", he whispered.
Jerome's eyebrows twitched closer together, in irritation, "Why are you so bothered! Why do you give a shit? It's not your fault that you can't even look at my eyes anymore". Bruce's pupils shot up to meet Jerome's, "You think you disgust me", he stated softly. The Joker didn't want to be sitting down anymore, he felt closed in. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and stalked towards the chair.
Jerome opened his mouth widely as he neared Bruce, showing off the rough insides of his cheeks as well, "Well, I'm not gonna win any sort of beauty pageant".
Brow's drawing together, Bruce leaned forwards, "You think the scars make you ugly, don't you?". Jerome stopped inches away from the chair, and leaned in towards him, eyes burning threateningly, "It's not like you're gonna want to kiss me, though, is it?".
The air suddenly felt thick. Jerome had crowded them in, and Bruce was glaring right back. Two wild animals, circling each other.
Without thinking, Jerome jerked forwards, and pressed his scarred mouth forcefully against Bruce's. Bruce stopped breathing, his eyes wide and inches away from Jerome's as the older man licked into his mouth.
Jerome wasn't sure what he was doing. He'd kissed Bruce to prove a point, expecting the man to recoil in disgust, but he hadn't. Bruce had just stayed there, unmoving, eyes glazed over as Jerome plundered his mouth. Somehow, this was so much better than the expected response. Jerome let out a wounded sound, curling his hands into Batman's suit collar, and dragged Bruce to his feet. At the same time, he pressed further into the wet heat, their teeth clacking as Jerome tried to get deeper.
The Joker walked them backwards, until his lower back hit the bed, then he flipped them over, wedging a knee between Bruce's thighs as he kissed him.
Bruce still hadn't thrown him off. He was just leaning against the bed, limp and passive beneath Jerome. Jerome didn't want that. He wanted Bruce to fight back. He wanted it desperately.
The Joker bit Bruce's tongue, hard, watching calculatingly as the man's eyes narrowed slightly at the pain, and Bruce's tongue began to move. It was slow at first, unsure, but Jerome coaxed it into his mouth, and Bruce began to gain confidence as their tongues slid over each other. Jerome moaned roughly as Bruce licked a long stripe along his lower lip, and broke away, panting.
Bruce said nothing, just took in fast, short breaths with wide eyes, and Jerome liked that. He liked the debauched way his red lipstick had smeared across Bruce's mouth and cheeks, and with the black circles around his eyes, Bruce looked like a parody of the Joker. God. Jerome's trousers were so tight. So painfully tight, and the warmth that he'd shoved right to the very pit of his soul was pulling him down with it.
Jerome climbed up over him, straddling Bruce's chest and forcing Bruce to arch his back down into the bed, before grabbing two handfuls of the younger man's costume, and dragging him further up onto the mattress. Jerome leant down slower this time, so his open mouth was hovering just above Bruce's parted lips, watching his eyes.
He was giving time for Bruce to say no. To turn his head, show Jerome he didn't want this, but he just lay there, letting their breath mix beneath hooded eyelids. Jerome couldn't wait any longer. He closed the distance again, shutting his eyes and sinking into the delicious, slick wetness once again. The Joker squirmed down, lifting Bruce's left thigh, then his right, and settling in the gap left behind.
Jerome let his hands wander down the firm body beneath him, feeling Bruce shiver as he brushed fingertips across his hard stomach, and drinking in the way the younger man arched up into him when Jerome's hands stroked down his ribs. Jerome ground his hips down into Bruce's, and broke the kiss with a groan when he was met with equal hardness. He wanted to pull noises from that perfect mouth, Jerome needed to hear Bruce moan.
A hand slid down Bruce's stomach, gripping his covered hardness firmly, and ripped a choked moan from Bruce's throat. The noise went straight to Jerome's cock, which was already rock hard and leaking in his trousers. Jerome rubbed up and down the bulge in Bruce's suit, drinking in the stuttered breathing and soft, held-back noises his hands coaxed from the pliant body beneath him. Jerome's other hand came down to run across Bruce's balls, and the younger man sat up on his elbows, face screwed up in pleasure, as he squinted through dazed eyelids down at Jerome's hands.
Jerome didn't even need to touch himself, he was so close, and there was more than enough visual stimulus. He just needed Bruce to go first.
Oh god, the noises Bruce was making were speeding up, getting closer together, and Bruce's arms gave way, forcing the younger man down onto his back. Jerome couldn't help himself, he removed his hands and pressed their hips flush together, grinding and thrusting against the body beneath him quickly. They both moaned in unison.
He wasn't going to last long, not like this. Bruce was close too though, if the pressure being returned as the younger man ground his hips back to meet Jerome was anything to go by. Jerome sped up, the force of his thrusts rocking the bed in time with Bruce's grunts.
Crashing their lips together, Jerome's stomach flipped as Bruce let out a long keening noise into Jerome's mouth and shuddered against him as he came. Oh Jesus, that was too much, Jerome was coming.
He blacked out with the pleasure, eyes writhing in his skull as he shook above Bruce. Their mouths slid apart, and Jerome buried his face into Bruce's sweat-sticky neck. They were both panting as they came down, and Jerome slowly let Bruce's legs drop as he rearranged himself to lie haphazardly across the man beneath him.
The cum was quickly cooling in his pants, and Jerome could see the wet patch in Bruce's black suit spreading across his crotch.
That had been thoroughly unexpected.
Jerome wasn't quite sure what to do, or say. He'd just forced himself upon the richest billionaire in half the country, who also happened to fight crime as a vigilante at night, and Jerome was a mass-murdering lunatic that probably had about two cents to his name now his clowns thought he was dead. He lifted his head, intent on delivering some sort of witty, unserious line to excuse his behaviour, but was met with the slack-jawed, slightly huffing, fast asleep Bruce Wayne.
Well, that solved that problem then. Now, if he could only remove the iron-tight arms around his waist without waking Bruce, he could sneak out of there without having to talk about any of it.
Ten minutes later, Jerome decided that was much easier said than done.