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Bruce tells himself that when he takes Joker directly to the batcave, he's doing it to free up ambulances for the more deserving citizens of Gotham who were also poisoned by Dr. Strange's exotic toxin. That's a galling lie, as false as any assurance he gives Alfred that he won't take unnecessary risks. He takes Joker to the batcave, to his home, to the place beneath where his children sleep, unaware of their father's depravity, so that he can make sure the antitoxin is retrieved fast enough. He takes Joker home because he needs Joker to live.
Speeding through the smog and the whir of neon and nightlife in the batmobile, he can forget the gravity and the awfulness of what he's doing for a moment, can focus on just driving home in the rain. Joker still breathes beside him, slumped backwards and head lolling, with a bright orange noxiousness foaming at the corner of his lipsticked mouth like some hideous flower blooming.
Bruce doesn't know what he’ll do if he loses him. The city will– should– throw a party, have a carnival in the streets, whip up a ticker-tape parade, declare a public holiday. Bruce thinks of the losses he’s endured. He imagines each of them like stars falling out of the sky, fires never to be relit in the heavens. Losing Joker wouldn't be the same at all. It would be like losing the blackness of the night, the mocking void that makes the stars visible in the first place. As great a loss, in its way, as the one that first and irrevocably blackened Bruce's sky.
Joker makes a snuffling sound in the passenger seat. His head's fallen so far back that the liquid dribbling out of his mouth is falling up his nose. Bruce frowns at the rearview mirror, and without looking back he reaches out to nudge Joker upright.
They're almost home, where Bruce has the largest store of the needed antitoxin in the world, thanks to the excellent intelligence work of cousin Kate and Julia Pennyworth. He'll activate a drone to take a shipment to Gotham General as soon as he steals away the one dose that will never be counted in the official records.
He parks haphazardly, almost denting Dick's motorcycle in his haste to get Joker to the stretcher and the syringe that holds his–well, salvation's not exactly a word that fits him. Bruce spares a quick glance to make sure he hasn't actually ruined Dick’s bike, which would really be a too-apt metaphor for the damage he's always causing taking care of Joker, saving Joker, having this whole mess he has with Joker.
One sweaty lock of green hair falls on Bruce's hand and Joker mumbles something that sounds kind of like "going to kill you" and kind of like someone blowing bubbles out of a straw.
Bruce cuts his mental spiraling short when he reaches third-order anxiety and hoists Joker out of the car and into the harsh light of the cave's medical bay. There's a dose of antitoxin waiting, in case Batman or any of the Family were poisoned, and he grabs the syringe and plunges the liquid deliverance meant for himself and his loved ones as close as he can to Joker's damned and demonic heart.
He does his best to ignore the symbolism. It’s a bit overt even for his melodramatic taste.
For a few moments the world doesn't turn and Bruce doesn't breathe and he is neither saved nor condemned. This must be what Clark feels when he moves faster than Bruce can think, the world suspended in the impossible peace between then and now and hereafter.
Then Joker's lips twitch and he coughs, and Bruce is so overwhelmingly numb with relief he can't feel his own hands on the syringe and atop Joker's chest, can't feel his own feet on the cave floor. He hates how his own throat has opened back up and his heartbeat has dropped. He wants to throw up, he wants to punch a hole in a sheet of nth metal, he wants to throttle Joker and he wants to lick every last drop of poison out of his mouth.
The buzz of an overheated computer cuts through Bruce's thoughts and he crouches as though ready for an attack. He would rather face another Night of Monster Men than talk to any of his children right now, would rather have Joker spontaneously awaken and stab him with a dull knife than explain to a member of the Family what he's been doing.
Slowly lowering his guard when no one grapples from the ceiling or offers him the customary scones and disapproval, Bruce tries to remember how he felt before he and Joker consummated the inescapable thing that binds them together. It seems, thinking back, that Bruce's guilt was just as heavy, his sick dread of discovery just as overwhelming before his fall into the abyss.
Bruce thought letting his rage-lust-horror wreck Joker would change everything, but it hardly changed anything at all. And that knowledge is worse than any crisis of conscience Bruce could have imagined. A Batman and Joker who sneak around their carefully constructed personas to violently fuck in the gutters of Gotham should knock planets out of orbit, split atoms apart, rend the universe in two. Shouldn't they?
Shouldn't there be some price to pay for indulging in his most depraved nightmares?
Joker snorts and rolls on the makeshift operating table, and Bruce catches him before he can fall onto the cold stone. He looks awful. Bruce has seen scores of livelier corpses. Joker's drenched hair is congealing in his own sweat and his lips are gray under the painted scarlet. But the antidote is working; Bruce can see the rise and fall of Joker's chest under the pink ribbon tie covered in smiley faces and hacked-up blood.
He removes one of his gauntlets and peels off a glove to touch Joker's hair, which is unspeakably disgusting and so, so reassuringly warm. If Joker were awake he'd probably mock Bruce for the sentimentality, or maybe try to bite his fingers, or demand that Bruce pull at his hair until Joker screams. But he's not awake, and so his sleeping form is forced to endure Bruce's care.
Bruce should probably feel a lot less happy about that.
He has more immediate concerns. There’s a meeting with Batwoman and Spoiler and Red Robin in the cave in four hours, and if he cancels again Tim will start sniffing around and possibly hacking into the Batcomputer. Joker is barely stable, and Bruce won’t bring him to Arkham until the antitoxin has had at least 12 hours to undo Strange’s poison. If he takes him in earlier, he suspects Joker will try to draw his own blood and attempt to isolate the poison; after all, they got into this whole mess because Joker was trying to steal Strange’s formula for god knows what purpose. (It shouldn't be possible in an Arkham cell, but Joker has created a makeshift chemistry lab from unlikelier places.)
Bruce needs somewhere to stow a homicidal maniac while he has other urgent business, but the usual recess of the cave is going to be crawling with his associates and doesn’t have an AED besides. Joker’s heartbeat is still more erratic than usual. Bruce has a mental chart of its ups and downs that he adds to after each near-strangulation he inflicts on Joker.
Bruce checks the computerized display on his gauntlet that shows the location of each of his Family. (It was trivial to implant them all with tracking devices. A simple, secret nanodevice injected intramuscularly with their biannual prophylactic rabies shot. He tells himself that if any of them really objected they would have been paranoid enough to steal their own inoculations from the New Jersey Department of Health.)
Joker’s hand spasms, and Bruce can’t tell if he’s searching for a weapon or trying to wrap his fingers around the nearest throat or reaching for help in a way the conscious Joker never does. Something small and shameful in Bruce clicks like a lock, and he picks up Joker and moves soundlessly to the elevator that ascends directly to his bedroom, impatiently jabbing at the biometric scanners (there’s too many, he knows, but he doesn’t trust that someone like Joker won’t gouge out one of his eyes to pass a simple retinal check).
He’s just going to get Joker cleaned up, administer a mild tranquilizer, and leave him safely anesthetized while the poison clears and he can debrief the Hugo Strange escape. He has already held Joker against his will in the Manor before, so it’s not like that barrier has never been breached. And the boundaries between his intimate space and Joker have already been thoroughly dissolved by their vile alleyway sex. Surely that’s a much bigger lie-by-omission to those closest to him than just stashing an unconscious Joker in some upstairs room.
Even if it’s his room. Even if he tucks Joker into his own bed.
The elevator door opens and the familiar twilight of his room greets Bruce. There's a bit of a shambles, and Bruce nimbly steps over a half dozen empty energy drink bottles and a collapsed pile of battered paperbacks on his way to the ensuite bathroom. At least Joker is in no state to judge his slovenly surroundings, even if Bruce can imagine the mockery well enough.
Gracious, bats, even Tetch's hideout is cleaner than this, and he's got caterpillars crawling out of his cupcakes. Do you have to echolocate around your own piles of garbage, batty-boy?
The real Joker is polite and pliant in Bruce's arms, and reacts to Bruce dumping him in the tub and undressing him with only the vaguest of hums and the ghost of a smile. If he were awake this would be a struggle–Joker likes to make Batman work to get his clothes off, likes to twist from his grasp and belie all those years of batsy honey won't you kiss me darling , likes to watch Batman prove he wants Joker enough to fight viciously for it.
Alfred would question a bunch of purple pinstripes thrown into the laundry, so Bruce places Joker's clothes carefully in the sink, unlooping the tube for an acid flower from around Joker's wrist and pulling a series of increasingly nastier knives from his waistcoat.
Whoops, forgot about that one, Bruce can hear Joker say as he slices his thumb on a blade hidden under Joker's shirt collar. Apologies, bats, but I can't let you have all the fun of sticking something into your dearest enemy.
Maybe he wouldn't say that. Maybe he wouldn't be that blatant. (Last Valentine's Day he sent Bruce a card drawn in blood and a bucket of lubricant in addition to the usual box of chocolates with explosives in place of nougat and caramel.) Sometimes Bruce wonders if the years of being so openly desired have gone to his head, have made him overestimate how much Joker really enjoys his company.
There's too much steam from the shower, and with the cowl on Joker is just a white smear against the black marble bathtub. Bruce swears and unlocks the cowl, tossing it into the bedroom. It hits an energy drink bottle and makes a sound like bowling pins toppling.
Would Joker be furious if he awoke now, technically kidnapped and involuntarily held in Wayne Manor, under the insistent ministrations of Bruce's showerhead? Would he be delighted? Would it be amusing for five minutes and then he'd get claustrophobic and try to strangle Bruce with the nearest available square foot of ultra-fluffy Turkish cotton?
Something ugly in Bruce growls in perverse satisfaction that at present Joker cannot do anything but submit to the consideration being shown to him, cannot help but accept Bruce's perfectly-pressurized water jets across his battered body and Bruce's fingers caressing the tangles out of his hair. There's an oddly savage pleasure Bruce feels at the exercise of his own delicacy on the unconscious Joker–if he were more self-deceived he would believe he was doing Joker a kindness; if he was more scrupulous, he would recoil from his own cruelty.
He turns off the showerhead and hauls Joker from the tub, trying to pat him dry with a towel while holding him upright, which is significantly more difficult than grappling from building to moonlit building in the rainy dark. Bruce lifts Joker into a Heimlich-like position and waves a hair dryer over him, trying not to drop either of them on the hard tile and trying not to enjoy the way Joker leans against him with all his meager weight.
After a minute or so of terry-clothed tussling, Bruce decides Joker is dry enough and picks him up to deposit him on the bed. With the green strands inexpertly dried his hair looks like a pile of lime zest. Bruce restrains himself from smelling it.
Joker's face twinges, and suspicious eyes blear pitifully at Bruce.
"Bats?" Joker croaks out. When he moves Bruce can feel the soft pressure of Joker's nose against the base of his chin. "Where…where're we?"
"You were poisoned," Bruce says, deepening his voice instinctually without the cowl, although Joker has long known who he is and exhibited little curiosity about it. "You're safe now."
That, of all things, seems to make Joker start to panic, but then Bruce lays him on the comforter and plunges the needle of sedative into his arm, and Joker's alarm dissipates into a narcotic haze. Bruce tells himself the sedation is necessary for everyone's sake, not least because multiple people in the Manor will kill Joker on site if he sneaks out. He tells himself he doesn't enjoy watching consciousness flicker from Joker's eyes, just like he doesn't feel an obscene thrill looking at Joker's naked splay across his bed.
He's a good liar, but he's also a pretty good detective, which makes lying to himself rather difficult.
A thump sounds from the corridor and Bruce almost jumps out of his kevlar. His door is more than locked (it's been absurdly reinforced since he attempted to sleep-fight a suit of armor as a teenager), but he still feels as though he should be skittering from the dreadful light of discovery like some loathsome insect.
Are you afraid your nest of Robins is going to walk in on you playing dress-up with your doll? Bruce can hear Joker spit at him.
"You were dying ," Bruce mutters aloud to Joker's slack, unconscious face. "I saved your life."
Gooseflesh ripples across Joker's colorless skin and Joker curls in on himself as if in answer.
Bruce feels an odd pang looking at Joker's obvious discomfort in the cold, a similar pang to the one he feels seeing Joker's head on his own pillow and Joker's clothes in his sink. It's not guilt or shame–he's had plenty of practice fighting through those in these months of sneaking around fucking Joker–but it sits awkwardly under Bruce's ribs all the same.
He makes an impulsive quasi-decision and shucks off the rest of the batsuit, shedding armor with the practiced elegance with which Bruce Wayne notoriously sheds clothes. (After a moment's hesitation, he loses the undershirt and underwear too. Perhaps if he acts fast enough he won't have to think of a justification.) He nudges Joker and pulls at the sheets until both of them are snugly beneath the covers, cradling Joker's back to his chest and Joker's backside to his…well, he's trying to warm him up. It’s not like he’s–it’s fine. It wouldn't be good if the antidote was compromised because Joker got hypothermia. On the scale of liberties they've taken with each other's bodies, a bit of unclothed snuggling has to be below stabs in the gut.
Enveloped in the warmth of Joker's body and his own blankets, Bruce feels a deep, enthralling peace settle over him for what feels like the first time in months, if not years. If it was closer to dawn, he could actually fall asleep like this, a thought that makes him feel as dizzy as he is warm. Bruce traces the green hairs along Joker's nape with lazily-lidded eyes and realizes he almost never sees Joker without the cowl's reconstructed vision. He's both paler and greener in real life, a shock of absurd brightness in the heavy shadows of the Manor.
Bruce runs his fingers up and down Joker's arms, scratching gently at the skin with his blunt fingernails and breathing in deeply through Joker's hair. If he were awake Joker might try to squirm away–he gets twitchy and easily overwhelmed by Bruce's affection, especially after sex, when his attempts to mock Batman for thinking with his dick tend to falter and he falls back on venom.
But now he shifts in his drugged sleep and nestles closer to Bruce, feeling blindly for his arms, and Bruce tells himself that if Joker were trying to get away he would stop. That if Joker really objected he would know, somehow. There's something intoxicating about being so close, something glorious and heady about Joker's sleepy facsimile of submission.
When Bruce feels his own erection pressing against Joker's body he doesn't pull away like he should. He's had too much practice ignoring the voice screaming in his head that he's doing something unspeakable he can't take back.
And anyway, he's being exceedingly gentle, and Joker just clutches him closer as Bruce winds tight around him and loses himself in the euphoric slide of skin on skin. Joker would be fine with it. Bruce figures Joker’s probably done as much or worse one of those times Bruce woke up suspended over a chemical bath in a dark basement with a rubber chicken stuffed in his mouth.
(He doesn’t think about the way Joker always asks will you kiss me? About the way he hesitates as if in disbelief every time Bruce gives him what he asks for.)
It would be good for him if he could learn to accept affection without snarling and biting and working himself into a murderous frenzy.
And after everything he's sacrificed for Gotham, for Joker, doesn't Bruce deserve this, this one chance to delude himself into thinking he can take Joker to bed, not in some godforsaken damp warehouse, but in his own home?
You're pathetic, the Joker in his head jeers, even as the Joker in his arms merely opens his mouth softly when Bruce presses closer and kisses the side of his throat. Look at you getting all dreamy-eyed because you want to whisk me away to your castle and live happily ever after. I'm not the damsel in the story, you moron, I'm the dragon you should have killed before it eats your whole village!
"Shut up, " Bruce says to the Joker in his head, and squeezes the real Joker tightly as he feels his cock slide across the cleft of Joker's ass.
He shouldn't be doing this.
He'll stop if Joker seems distressed.
He's only doing what Joker would want him to do anyway.
He feels so.
fucking.
good.
He deserves to touch Joker in his own goddamn mansion at least once. He won't be able to sleep in this room ever again.
He'll be gentle.
He's going to regret this for the rest of his life. He wants to stop time and live in this moment for eternity.
He's in control. He's drowning in his own depraved lust. He's lost his mind.
He's attuned enough to Joker he could tell if Joker wanted him to stop.
He wants to die. He wants to live forever and have Joker every night.
He can stop anytime.
He couldn't stop if he tried.
Joker exhales a small whine and the monster that's taken over Bruce convulses in wretched pleasure. Bruce thrusts slowly, enjoying every pull and drag of flesh, every helpless whimper, every limp and yielding touch. Joker accepts with uncomprehending ease all of the caresses Bruce is otherwise too caught up in their mutual violence to make. But now Bruce knits gentle fingers through Joker's and Bruce presses soft kisses up the back of Joker's neck and Joker doesn't hiss or bite.
Something yawns inside of Bruce's chest, something he keeps more securely locked away than he ever managed to keep his damnable desire to fuck Joker. He knows now it's never going to be enough, their fervent nighttime couplings and their alleyway dalliance. Bruce wants to wake up in the evening in Wayne Manor with Joker still content in his arms, wants Joker to call him Bruce with something other than spite, wants to watch Joker get better. He wants Joker to be his in a way Joker has not, and will never be, anyone's.
Bruce stumbles into his own orgasm like someone waking from a dream by the feeling of falling. He bites Joker's shoulder to avoid crying out, one more injustice in a night of debasement. He shudders and spurts against Joker, feeling the storm of guilt and horror beginning to besiege his overfull heart.
"I love you," he murmurs in Joker's ear, because he's already damned, because they're doomed either way, because it's true.