Chapter Twelve- Like A Pair of Jokers (3rd Person)
"Bill Parsons' funeral is tomorrow, Master Wayne." Alfred informed Bruce, walking into his bedroom with a tray of food. "It will be good for the company's image if you attend."
"Send Lucius." Bruce croaked into his pillow, lying face down on his mattress.
Alfred placed the tray down on his oak side table and moved around the bed in order to draw open the curtains. Wayne groaned out in annoyance at the unexpected light. He didn't seem to care than it was well past two in the afternoon.
Alfred hadn't seen him out of this room since the death of Dent, no matter how much he had encouraged Bruce to get some fresh air. As far as Alfred was aware, the only time that Bruce left the comfort of his own bed, was when he needed to relieve himself in his ensuite. Alfred, having taken care of Bruce since he was born, knew that he was grieving Rachel's death. He had become a recluse for a period of time after his parent's had died, and it had been Rachel who had helped cox him back into the world again. Now Alfred felt the responsibility lay with him.
"Lex Luthor called again." Alfred told his employer, after he had woken up enough to turn over and prop himself up with his own elbows whilst staying laid on the bed. He was working hard to distract Bruce's mind from his loss, and get him back on his feet again.
"Lucius can handle it." Bruce said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
Alfred shook his head, "Lex Luthor will only talk to you, Master Bruce."
"Well then, he'll have to keep calling."
Bruce's butler picked up the remote that lay next to him, and turned on the large plasma television. It popped up with the news and Alfred quickly flicked the channel over to a cooking program.
Despite just waking up, Bruce didn't miss a beat.
"Alfred, what was that?" His eyes narrowing with curiosity.
"Nothing, Master Bruce." His butler lied, and he had lied badly, Bruce seeing straight through it in an instant.
Wayne reached over and took the remote from Alfred's hand, and turned the channel over to GCN. He was transfixed with the scenes that played out before both of them.
"When we're you going to tell me about this, Alfred?" Bruce Wayne asked accusingly at his butler once he finally understood what was happening, his eyes not straying from the scenes that played out before him on his gigantic plasma TV.
Five inmates escaped. The death count already at twelve. And the GCPD clueless as where to start searching for the killers.
"I didn't think it was important, Master Bruce. Thought it'd be best not to trouble you." Alfred said awkwardly.
"Not important?" Wayne snapped, taking his anger out on the only person close to him. "Twelve are dead, Alfred! I should have been there."
Alfred warned him, "If you were there, it may have been thirteen. Let the coppers handle this one. The people of Gotham have turned on Batman, you don't know what will happen if they see him again."
Alfred had prayed that Bruce would put his vigilante business to rest, and thought his wish had come true after what had happened with Dent. Bruce had been given the opportunity to quit for good, to live a normal life, to even start a family, but Bruce wasn't interested in any of it.
"Who do you think escaped?" Bruce quizzed his butler, demanding an answer. The Asylum and Police were not yet willing to release names.
"It could be anyone, Master Wayne."
Purposefully not giving the answer that Bruce wanted. That Bruce needed to hear.
"We were stupid, we should have seen this coming," Bruce ranted. "If he can escape from GCPD custody, he can escape from Arkham."
Alfred tried stopping him, "We don't know it's him."
"Of course it's him, Alfred."
"Please, Master Wayne. Gotham doesn't need Batman anymore, but your friends need Bruce Wayne." He pleaded, not wanting another restless night when his concerns for Bruce's safety took over his need for sleep.
"Friends? What friends? The one friend I had was murdered by the man who now walks free." His eyes momentarily glazed over with tears, before getting consumed by anger.
"Lucius, me. We are your friends." Alfred answered hesitantly.
Bruce stared at Alfred his eyes hardening up from the grief which he was not confronting, "You aren't my friends. You are my employees."
He had meant for his words to hurt, but that didn't stop the guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach occurring when he saw Alfred's wounded eyes. Just as Alfred knew that he was only saying such statements because he was upset, but it didn't mean that the insult didn't sting.
"I know you are sad and angry about what happened to Ms Dawes. But Rachel wanted you to give up with Batman and lead a normal life. Perhaps you should respect her wishes."
"Not until that clown is locked up for good."
Rachel had been right, thought Alfred, the day wouldn't come when Bruce Wayne no longer needed Batman. He left the room with that sad revelation.
Whilst Bruce swore vengeance, the Joker physically threw the Mad Hatter out the back of the moving van, sick and tired of his obsession over Alice, laughing as he watched his body flip along the tarmacked road, seeing the havoc created as cars swerved to avoid hitting him. The Joker didn't want to share his toys.
"Did you really have to do that?" Alice asked, trying to sound angry but failing. In truth, the Mad Hatter's obsession with her had begun to both freak her out and annoy her simultaneously since they had got into the vehicle. She wasn't too bothered to see the back of him.
The Joker slammed the van's door closed, and turned around to grin at her, thinking she'd join in. Becoming disappointed that she didn't. Alice only glared daggers back at him. He slapped the hostage in the face to distract himself from the annoyance he was feeling, at her refusal to join in on the fun with him.
He didn't know this, but Alice was fuming over the fact that it had been him who had got her locked away in Arkham to begin with. He thought it was because he had knocked her down the stairs, a factor which only slightly irked her compared to the truth. Her anger towards him wasn't helped by the fact that she was having morphine withdrawals.
The Joker sat right next to his hostage, shoulder touching shoulder, and stared intensely at Alice. She looked more insane leaving the Asylum than she had when entering it. Her neck was turning a green blue, there were two brown circles on her temples from the shock therapy, her lips were cut up, there was still blood smudged on her chin, her arm was prodding out strangely- maybe it was broken after all, her cheeks were swollen from the slaps, and her eyes were set alight with fury. To the Joker, she was close to perfect!
If only her anger wasn't directed at him.
"Oh, don't you be playing so innocent!" she snapped.
'Me?' the Joker mouthed, pointing to himself, mocking her and causing her wrath to only increase.
"I know it was you who got me locked up in the first place!"
The Joker wheezed out a chortle.
"Don't deny it!" she warned in advance, ready to snap completely.
"Oh, I wouldn't do that to you, Alice." he told her. "How'd you work it all out?"
"Boles told me." she admitted, hands clenched together tightly.
"Before or after he tried electrocuting you to death?" He winked, having worked out everything clearly in his twisted head, and promised her, "We'll get him, don't you worry."
"I'm not angry that he told me, I'm angry at you!"
The Joker turned with a mock expression of shock towards the tied and gagged hostage, pretending to speak about her with him, "The level of gratitude."
"'Gratitude'?" Alice spluttered. "What exactly do I have to be grateful for?"
The Joker's smile vanished from his face, not liking to be insulted or contradicted, and he stood up from his seat slowly making his way to the bench opposite where Alice sat. He stopped right in front of her, their toes touching, and placed his middle and index finger under her chin, raising it violently up to coax her off her feat again. She stood up to greet him, his fingers still under her chin, so she was forced to look up and meet his black eyes.
"You don't get it get, do you?" he asked rhetorically, licking his scar. "I'm freeing you, Alice."
"You got me locked up and I risked my life for everybody so we could escape, but you want to pretend that the whole plan was yours?" she asked dumbfounded, not understanding what he was talking about.
The Joker's eyes flashed with anger, and he gave her shoulders one violent shake.
"Listen!" he shouted out in a low voice, before reverting back to his usual insane one.
"That back there, that was all you." He pointed to the van's seal doors giving her some credit, and then tapped his finger on Alice's rapidly beating heart. "But this, right here, this is all me! See, Alice, I want to help you like I helped Harvey Dent. I'm showing you a world without rules, and you've finally got something to live for! Something to die for. Guess I'm not such a bad guy after all."
Alice paused, surprised to find that he had finally spoken a slitter of truth but that didn't mean that it made up for all of his lies.
"But why did you get me locked up with you?" Alice asked again, her voice this time sounding more hurt than angry.
"Alice, my little Alice," he smiled knowing she was in the palm of his hands again, resting on of his hand on her shoulder in a light display of affection. "We can't be split up. They can't make us!" he suddenly shouted with a low voice, making her jump up. "We are the same. It's me and you. It will always be me and you."
Until he got bored of course. But he brushed that thought away, he'd get to the subject of disposing her when that happened, but currently he was living for the present.
Faint alarm bells rung in Alice's head. She recognised his speech from somewhere, not tying the connection that it had been similar to the one she used on Killer Croc, the Joker's words and mannerisms acting successfully to confuse her mind.
She was completely thrown off the tracks when he rolled up his sleeve of his orange jumpsuit, revealing a scar across his wrist that was identical to the one on hers. He rolled her sleeve up, showing off her own scar, smelling it's freshness. He then held her hand up with his scarred arm, making their scars lightly brush against each others whilst his finger nails dug painfully into the flesh of the back of her hand.
"Me and you." He repeated for the last time, before hissing, "Say it!"
"You and me." she agreed nodding along to him. She was more than buying into all the words he spoke, she was believing them. It made him start to laugh maniacally, and she joined in finding herself wanting to make him happy.
The hostage watched the crazy scene taking place in front of him, and started to choke on his sobs. He was doomed.
Crane slammed the metal window, that allowed to the driver to hear what was taking place in the back of the reinforced van, closed. The giggles and chuckles, grating on his last nerves.
He had slyly eavesdropped into the conversation taking place in the back of the van, feigning disinterest. But now, he was furrowing his eyebrows. He didn't understand why such an iconic villain would be so infatuated with a pathetic girl like Alice. Obviously, he believed that the Joker saw some potential in her, where Scarecrow didn't.
Crane did have to admit, that she had a strange ability to stay alive despite all the odds stacked against her. It was one of the reasons he had waited longer for her, at Maximum Security, just to make sure she was dead. And it had been a smart decision too, especially since she ended up being alive. He thought of her as an ant. No matter how many times you try to squish it with a shoe, they somehow always managed to slip through between the cracks and survive. It was a fitting analogy. After all, she had lived through suicide, the Joker, Scarecrow, Boles and now even Killer Croc. Maybe some things were destined to live forever.
And then again, thought Scarecrow who seeped out of Crane, maybe she had just been lucky. But the next encounter she had with him, her luck would sure to have ran out.
Like Crane had said, he would relish in killing her. He only had to wait.