A/N: This chapter is a lot funnier if you're familiar with Lady GaGa's song Bad Romance… you'll see why. (if you haven't heard the song, well, that's what the internet's for, lol )
Enjoy! :)
Chapter Two: Bad Romance
Naturally, Batman's instructions to not touch anything in the Tumbler were cheerfully ignored.
"What's this button do?" Joker asked as Batman started the engine.
"Leave it alone," Batman growled.
Joker pushed it anyway, and the Tumbler's lights blazed on, revealing their location to anyone who might happen to be watching.
"I said not to—"
"Oh, lighten up—what's this one do?"
"Don't push that!"
He did, launching one of the Tumbler's missiles into the alleyway in front of them, where it obliterated a dumpster.
"Heh, whoops." Joker craned his neck, trying to see if he'd managed to barbeque any bums. While he was distracted, Batman reached over and slapped a pair of handcuffs on his wrists. Joker glanced at them and said, "Ooh, kinky. But pointless." He could pick the lock in less than a minute.
"Are you going to tell me where we're going?" Batman demanded.
"Just, uh, head for the south side of the Narrows," he said, surreptitiously retrieving a lockpick from his jacket pocket and going to work on the cuffs.
Batman steered the Tumbler out of the alley—luckily there weren't many cars on the road at three in the morning. He headed for the Narrows as the Joker had instructed, staring straight ahead at the road and doing his best to ignore the man beside him, who was trying his best to keep Batman's attention.
"Hey, let's play Twenty Questions!" Joker suggested.
"Let's play Shut The Fuck Up," Batman snapped.
Joker scowled at him. "Ya know, you really should be nicer to me—we are fuck-buddies now."
"Not by choice."
"You could've said no—there's always a choice, Bats."
Batman steadfastly ignored him—he refused to get sucked into another philosophical debate.
After a few moments of silence, Joker looked around the Tumbler and asked, "Didn't I blow this thing up?"
"It's a new one."
"Oh."
With a microscopic click, the handcuffs snapped open.
"Do you have a radio in here?" The Joker asked.
"No."
"Liar," he said, reaching with a newly-freed hand for the knob—Batman wasn't surprised, but he had hoped it would take him longer to pick the lock.
Joker flipped the radio on, surfing through the stations one at a time, muttering, "No… no… crap… ugh, god no… eh… no… Ooh, perfect!"
He cranked up Lady GaGa's Bad Romance to a near-lethal volume that rattled the windows.
I WANT YOUR LOVE AND I WANT YOUR REVENGE
YOU AND ME COULD WRITE A BAD ROMANCE
"This can be our song!"
"Turn it down!" Batman shouted, as they sped past the Major Crimes Unit building, nearly flattening some unfortunate spectator on the sidewalk.
I WANT YOUR LOVE AND ALL YOUR LOVER'S REVENGE
YOU AND ME COULD WRITE A BAD ROMANCE
"What? I can't hear you!" Joker yelled back, smirking.
Batman reached over to turn it off himself, and the Joker promptly cuffed Batman's hand to the steering wheel.
CAUGHT IN A BAD ROMANCE…
Commissioner Gordon had stepped outside of the MCU station to try to figure out where that explosion had come from. Mystery solved, he thought when he saw Batman's car-tank-thing speeding towards him. Gordon leapt backwards when it got a little too close to the curb, and he was surprised to hear deafening music emanating from the vehicle as it zoomed by. Gordon puzzled for a minute over the weirdness of Batman cruising around with the stereo blaring like a teenager. The song sounded vaguely familiar—one of those pop singers his kids were obsessed with, he was sure of it. It came to him after a second, and although he was alone on the sidewalk he said aloud, incredulously, "Batman listens to Lady Gaga?"
"God damn it!" Batman roared over the blaring music, straining uselessly against the handcuffs—he couldn't reach either the radio or the Joker with his free hand without wrecking the Tumbler in the process.
Joker just ignored him and turned the radio up even louder.
WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE
CAUGHT IN A BAD ROMANCE
Batman steered the Tumbler with his knees while his free hand searched through his utility belt for the handcuff key.
"This is the best part!" Joker said as the beat shifted, smacking Batman's arm to get his attention. Then Joker started pumping his fist in the air and tossing his head to the music like a head-banger, his green curls whipping wildly around his face.
RAH RAH, AH-AH-AH, ROMA RO MA MA, GAGA OOH LA LA, WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE
Joker sang along—or, at least, he tried to. He must not have heard the song very many times, judging by the way he got half of the words (if they could actually be called words) wrong.
Batman stared, a sharp exhale of disbelief escaping him. He wanted to stay angry—he really did—but somehow he couldn't stop the completely unwanted smile that twisted his lips. He wondered vaguely whether he was going crazy, or if he had already been there awhile and was just now realizing it.
Joker, who had been watching out of the corner of his eye the entire time, smirked and stopped thrashing around. "I thought you'd get a kick outta that," he said, reaching over and giving Batman's cheek two quick pats. The smile abruptly died.
"Don't touch me," Batman said, forcing his face back into a neutral expression—he honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd really smiled, instead of just faking it for the parasitic socialites he had to endure as Bruce Wayne. He thought it was a particularly sick joke that the one to finally put a smile (albeit a tiny one) on his face was his mass-murdering archenemy, especially since he was the same one who had made him so miserable in the first place.
Batman remembered the handcuff key, and quickly unlocked himself, just in time to turn off the radio as the final chorus of rah-rahs finished.
"You should smile more," Joker said, "and I don't mean that in a I'm-about-to-slice-your-face-open way."
"You should lay off the crack."
"I'm not on crack, I'm just funnier than you."
"That's clever," Batman replied sarcastically, "you should put that on a t-shirt."
Joker raised an eyebrow. "Ya know, Batsy, I've never seen you this…snarky," he licked at his scars, and said, "I like it."
Batman realized a little late that the line between his personas had indeed worn very thin in the resultant shock of making this 'deal with the devil'—Bruce Wayne was supposed to be the one with the witty repartee, not Batman—he was supposed to be silent and violent. But it seemed like every time he encountered the Joker, the madman found some new way to shatter his already-fragile stability and push him to the edge, in one way or another.
"What can I say," he mumbled. "You bring out the worst in me."
Joker grinned, and took it as a compliment—Batman realized this, and resolved to shut the hell up for the remainder of the drive.
He stared out the front window while the buildings they passed became more and more ramshackle the farther they ventured into the Narrows. They passed a brick building with a hideous blue unicorn painted on one wall, and Joker said, "Take a left at the next light."
They turned onto a street that looked like the aftermath of a bombing-run—crumbling buildings shed bricks into the streets—and the slum's helpful denizens had in turn pitched some of these bricks back through the windows, shattering the glass in the few that weren't boarded up. The dark sidewalks were scattered with what looked like lumps of rags, but what were actually homeless people huddled up in search of nonexistent warmth.
"Slow down, we're close. Turn right—down that alley."
"People are sleeping in there," Batman protested.
Joker raised an eyebrow. "We're in a tank. I fail to see the problem."
Batman ignored him, and went down the next alley instead, which luckily did not have hordes of homeless people hunkered down in the middle of it.
"Just park here, we can walk," Joker instructed impatiently.
Batman parked the Tumbler, and the two of them climbed out.
"Come on," Joker said, smoothing the wrinkles out of his suit and peering out of the alley, ensuring that the street outside was deserted. "It's, uh, that one," he pointed to a nondescript three-story brick apartment building that looked empty and ready to collapse. "I think."
"You live here?" The place didn't look fit for cockroaches.
"I do tonight—now, come on. Let's not keep Harley waiting."
Joker grinned, grabbing Batman's hand and trying to pull him along, but Batman stopped walking and said, "You've got the kids in that deathtrap?"
Joker gave him a sardonic don't-be-an-idiot look. "No."
"But if Harley's in there, where are the children?"
"That would be telling," Joker said. Batman glared at him, so he added, "They're fine, Bats, stop worrying about it. Now, come on!"
Joker dragged him across the street and through the crumbling apartment building's entrance.
"So, Harley's actually okay with this?" Batman asked as the pair of them headed up a treacherous stairwell—Harley had never struck him as the type that liked to share.
"Hmm, what? Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. She's fine." He led Batman out of the stairwell and into a dingy hallway on the top floor, heading for the room at the end of the hallway.
"Really?" Batman said dubiously.
Joker sucked his teeth loudly, then said, "Mmmm, well, I might have uh, forgotten to mention, um… all of this."
Batman stopped in his tracks. "You didn't even tell her?"
Joker ignored him, flinging open the door to the apartment and stepping through, dragging Batman along behind him and calling, "Harleeeey, I'm ho-ome!"