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Arkham’s facilities were getting worse every year.
He’d only been on the outside for a few months and already could tell that the quality had gone down. Many of the nurses and therapists called in their two weeks notice after he left, so the whole place felt like a ghost town.
Plus everybody was staring at him like he was a feral beast that needed to be collared.
He had been lying in bed when the knock had come. He was fuming over the fact that the Batsignal had been off for the past week, always getting his hopes up every night just for them to be crushed with the lack of his own personal lightshow. He’d gotten the best view in the whole asylum from his room.
But now he was zoning out as a guard banged on the door and yelled at him to get up, that he had a visitor. Probably one of those infernal reporters. He rolled his eyes and pulled himself out of bed, not bothering to mess with the house slippers that came with a basic Arkham package.
He gave the short two knocks that let the guard know that he could open the door. The visitor was behind his typical night guard, face blocked from view.
His day guard slapped on a pair of handcuffs, grabbing them in the middle and pulling him to the side door that led to the garden. He was roughly shoved out the door.
“Oooh, is it my lucky day? Finally letting me go? If so you might want the handcuffs back, that feels like a waste of money,” he teased, waiting for them to follow him out.
“You get an hour,” the guard explained to the visitor, “You can take the cuffs off, but if he maims you we’re not liably responsible,”
Joker still couldn’t see the visitor, not around the two guards. He waited, a little nervous for what sat behind them that was so important.
They stepped away and it was Bruce, always Bruce. He tensed at the sight of him, wanting nothing more than to rush back to his cell in a frenzy and lock himself inside until he left.
“Hi, John,” Bruce said, fiddling with the keys the guards had given him.
“Not my name,” Joker snapped.
The guards snickered behind Bruce, “Yeah we forgot to mention that. The freak doesn’t respond to his name anymore. We mostly just call him a clown. You might want to try that,”
And they walked away laughing.
Bruce turned back to him with a soft but sad smile on his face, “So… Joker?”
“Fuck off, Bruce. I don’t want you here,” He snapped again.
Bruce’s smile grew with the anger brewing in Joker’s chest, “You don’t even want out of a cell? I thought you said you couldn’t stand being in the same four walls,”
Joker pouted, slightly embarrassed that Bruce could be this dumb, “John hated being in the same four walls. I could give less of a rat’s ass as long as I’m not here with you,”
He turned around and started walking, hands still cuffed. He just wanted away. He might be able to “outrun” Bruce during the whole hour visit until he had to leave, but he doubted that Bruce would even try to follow him around for that long.
“John,” Bruce protested immediately, “Joker!”
Joker didn’t listen to him, walking faster just to spite him. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to see him. Frankly, he didn’t want to know that Bruce existed.
“Joker, please,” Bruce said in such a broken voice that Joker stopped in an instant.
“You don’t have a right to be sad for me,” he said before continuing to walk even farther away.
“What did I do, John? Can you at least tell me that?” Bruce’s voice sounded so pathetic, so sad. Joker didn’t want to think about it.
“That’s not my name,”
“Bullshit. It was until a few weeks ago,”
Joker finally turned back around to face him, “You don’t get to pretend that you magically care about me and my problems and what freaking name I want to go by! She hated me and I was so sad and you didn’t care. You blamed me for acting in self defence. You only ever used me! You don’t get to come here now and ask about me and what’s wrong,”
“I never did anything that wasn’t to help you, John. I didn’t want or mean to hurt you and I’m sorry that I did, but you can’t just act like you killed yourself after Harley hit you.” Bruce said back, almost matching Joker’s volume, but certainly not his tone.
“I might as well have! It would have saved me a lot of trouble! As well as you I’m sure,” he thought over it a moment, turning the idea around in his head like he was firing it over a spit roast, “You know, you could have always just not brought me back! If you’re that mad over me lashing out, there was always that option!”
“I shouldn’t have done that in the first place! It was an accident and I’d rather have you alive than dead,” if he was trying to sound assuring, it was backfiring horribly.
Joker laughed, the sound ripping itself out of his throat as he doubled over, “That’s! Such! Bullshit! God, Bruce!” he laughed even harder, feeling as if blood was going to pour out of his throat, “It’s so hilarious how you think that you can solve everyone’s problems! Maybe that’s why you get in that costume get-up every night as if you’re making any difference!”
He pulled himself up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand to the best of his ability with the handcuffs still on before stalking up to Bruce, “Listen here, buddy. You’re not helping me. You’re not helping anyone. Nobody, and I mean nobody, gives a shit about whether the Batman is out stalking the night or not.”
He conveniently left out the fact that it had been destroying him from the inside out not being able to see the signal at night. He’d conveniently left out the fact that he would want nothing more than to be chased through the streets by the Caped Crusader himself. He conveniently left out the fact that he’d rather be anywhere else with the Batman than stuck in Arkham without him.
But not Bruce. Never Bruce.
Bruce didn’t want Joker. Bruce wanted John. Those names fit together, felt like they were a perfect match. Batman and Joker were perfect, order to chaos.
Joker and Bruce didn’t work. John and Batman didn’t work. The last time he’d tried the latter, he’d gotten hit.
And plus, he didn’t want to go back to John. Poor pathetic little John Doe who couldn’t do jack shit for himself and needed Bruce Wayne and Harley Quinn to hold his hand through every step in life. He hated that.
“Then it’s good that I gave it up,” Bruce said, completely straightfaced despite the hurt that had just been painting his features.
Joker felt his jaw drop, “You didn’t…”
Bruce just swallowed and nodded, looking like the topic made him sick.
“You…” Joker took a second to process. So that’s why the signal hadn’t been outside his room. That’s why the news channels never covered Batman arrests and fights anymore (not like he was allowed to watch those anymore anyways).
“You bitch,” Joker finally said softly, “You bitch!”
“You just said that nobody cared about Batman! What now?! What horrible atrocity have I committed that you won’t tell me about now?!”
“He was supposed to be mine! You can’t just kill him like that!” Joker screamed, scaring Arkham’s many birds.
“You ‘killed’ John! How is it any different!?”
And they both stared at each other, breathing heavily from their screaming.
“Just go away,” he finally started to feel the exhaustion of his anger, “Go home and leave me here. If Batman’s gone then there’s no reason for you to stay,”
“John, I’m not doing that,”
“I’m not John though. You can promise that to him. Make him a grave somewhere and mourn like he really died if that makes you feel better. But right now, I need you to leave,”
“I don’t care. I came here to apologize and I’m not leaving till you let me and until you’re feeling better,”
“They’ll drag you out by your fingernails if you stay over the hour of visitation I get,”
“Then I guess I’m losing fingernails,” he said with a smile that looked too forced, “Listen. I should have helped you. I should have stayed with you and insisted you sober up and talked to me. I should have been there and I shouldn’t have blamed yo-”
“Just stop,” Joker urged, “I can’t listen to this garbage anymore,”
“I’m not lying. Why would I lie, John?”
“He’s still gone and I don’t know, maybe the same reason you did the first seventeen times,” He took a deep breath, “Now, go home, forget about me, and we’ll all be peachy,”
“I’m not going to just forget about you,” Bruce promised, looking too naive for what Joker knew he was capable of.
“Look. You’re not helping. Go. Home.”
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Bruce looked defeated, like he was finally going to give up and just leave him alone.
Joker finally let himself relax a little. Maybe he’d leave. Maybe he’d finally leave him in peace. He could get as bad as he wanted, wreck himself in any way.
But then Bruce was walking up to him quickly and pulling him in close to kiss him.
He squeaked against Bruce’s mouth, battling with the want and need to either pull him close or push him away. He was sure that it was a manipulation tactic, a way for Bruce to convince him to let him stay.
So he shoved him away.
They stared each other down for a minute even though it was mostly Joker doing the staring. Bruce was mostly just looking at him like a kicked puppy.
Joker felt like he couldn’t speak and clearly Bruce felt the same way. They just watched, waited for something to magically force them to talk again.
“John-”
“That’s not my name,” Joker insisted, for some reason still staring at Bruce’s mouth.
“Joker,” Bruce restated, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,”
And Joker just pulled him back in and kissed him again, not caring about the fact that he was probably going to hate it in an hour. He just wanted to taste him again, even though he was mad.
“John…” Bruce warned when he pulled himself away.
“Just stop talking. I don’t care anymore,” Joker said, pulling him back in.
Eventually he heard the guard whistle from the door, forcing Joker to pull away from Bruce’s mouth with a scowl.
“Didn’t know I was getting a show,” he teased, “Come on freak. Back inside.”
“I thought we had an hour,” Bruce protested while trying to sound like he wasn’t protesting.
“Yeah but the clown has therapy that I conveniently forgot about. He’s gotta go now, so say bye bye to your boyfriend,”
Joker reluctantly let go of Bruce’s shirt, “Next week?”
“Are you going to yell at me again?”
Joker shrugged, “Maybe. It just depends on how mad I decide to be at you,”
“Oh, so that can change?”
Joker smiled at him, watching Bruce’s face already starting to flush, “You might have to convince me, but I’m sure that you can figure out some way to do that,”
Bruce’s face was bright red in an embarrassingly cute way, “I’m not sure that I’ll be able to do that without getting you in trouble,”
“So? I really don’t care. I’m gonna have to convince you to go back to your night job somehow,” he teased with a wink, letting his day guard shove him inside.
He hoped that he’d come back. And he hoped that he might be able to get his head screwed on right before then.
But at least he could still languish in the taste of him on his tongue.
And dream about the chases they could get up to if he only broke out.