1! warning for disturbing torture fantasies.
Echo-logy
There are some upsides to days spent in Gotham. Getting to wake up in his own bed, for one. But there it is; the sun shining in like a knife, and Alfred's cool, professional tones, always ready with that tinge of sarcasm, there to reassure him that some things remain unalterable.
"You have brunch today with the I-tech group, and after that—"
"Yeah, I know. The stockholders."
He rubs a hand over his face. Why does it always seem more tiring, getting up at the beginning of the day, having to face utter banality. It says something about him, that skewed perception of reality. That he would rather fight crooks in endless array than deal with the trivia of human interaction. It's unimportant to dwell on, though. He knows the systems of his own psyche, the limits and fault-lines mapped by speleology. Enough to predict and compensate for, to function properly.
He puts on his casual attire—same brown suit as always, with that mustard-yellow shirt underneath, just a little stodgy and out of touch for a confirmed playboy; but it can be chalked down to eccentricity, forgivable in the rich. It's easier. Helping to think about the important things, when one filters out the extraneous details.
There's no hurry, today. Alfred has errands of his own, to run, so he drives Bruce to his meeting. Moments like these, the idle banter ranging back and forth between them, the particular slant of sun warming the car interior through the early-morning rush of the streets—shops, open and less afraid with morning than he's used to seeing in the darkness; pedestrians wending by; cyclists with their pointed precision, darting through the crowd like minnows; the steady rumble of automobiles that is the road's voice, stopping, starting—the noise of beeping passing from one vehicle to another like kinetic energy.
Bruce tries to appreciate them. Forcibly pulls himself from endless calculations ranging from the new upgrades on Watchtower tech to how Damian is doing in school to the latest patterns in Gotham crime. (He'd be tempted to have the police radio implanted in his ear if he didn't think, with some self-irony, that it would be going a bit far. Everyone needs their moments off.)
Still, he checks this morning as he does every morning, scrolling through data feeds on his phone when the handshaking has died down and everyone orders brunch; he's been to the restaurant before; already knows what he wants. Takes a quick glance at the menu just for appearances' sake.
The discussion could have been interesting; the tech involved is one that passionate inventors infuse with their own novelty, but they never send the actual engineers to business lunches.
It's too bad, really.
Bruce nods along to the basic social routines, the back-and-forth dance of making a pitch, prettied up with anecdotes about so-and-so's leisure activities the coming month to some forest in the Everglades. He parries back; all his interesting stories off-limits; all his acceptable ones photoshopped beyond recognition.
It doesn't require him to be on, at least—not like a fundraiser or a date. He just has to smile—practiced from the shaky foundations in college to the slippery, aimless perfection he has down now.
His coworkers—his other coworkers—say seeing Batman's real smile makes them feel like someone walked over their grave.
He doesn't smile much.
It's always the most random things that set it off. Rarely can he predict the moment it will happen. Today it's something about the pathetic flower arrangement wilting on the table, that particular shade of daisy-yellow that suddenly looks like nothing so much as Joker's.
He'd hate the maniac for that; for turning everything in Bruce's world to something Joker owns; if he didn't have so many other reasons to hate Joker first.
Countless lists of dead. Innocents he'd hardly known. People he'd tried—failed—to save.
Partners. Family.
Frank, an acquaintance too close to be brushed off, catches the group amid that lull between the check being paid and the cards returned. "We're having a get-together this weekend, informally," he announces.
Like a demented Rube Goldberg machine, it's started and now nothing will call it back. That familiar rise of coiled anger, and something more than anger, something feral and terrible he doesn't dare name.
He's finding the Joker—it doesn't matter where. Breaking in, to see him vulnerable, in one of his dens; catching that glance of sharp gleeful surprise.
He can never take that out of the fantasy—the knowing victory, like the Joker is rubbing in that he won. Leaving it out renders the whole thing out-of-character enough to be meaningless, but he chafes at giving the Joker any victory, even in his mind.
He uses that to direct his rage.
"I didn't think you'd finally go for it, Bats." A ragged-edged smile; their syncopated, controlled breathing. "What did I do this time? Or won't you do me the honor of knowing what it was that pushed the Caped Crusader over the edge?"
"Nothing." There's no fight; not this time; everything pared down to brutal efficiency as he has Joker restrained. Takes every concealed weapon from his person, watching the amusement turn to burning resentment at the reminder that they know each other too well.
"I just finally decided I'd had enough of you."
"Is that so." Joker's voice is sour.
But Batman grins.
"I'm going to kill you. Not because you deserve it—not because the world will be a better place without scum like you in it. Not even for revenge. But just because I want to."
"So you've finally seen it my way." The Joker's voice is too soft, too insistent; he punches the sweetness out of it until it's nothing but cracked bones and blood, spilling crazily across the white page of Joker's skin. "The freedom in deciding not to care."
"Maybe I have," Bruce says roughly. "Maybe I have, but this isn't your victory, clown." He breaks the bubbling laughter from Joker's stained lips. "You're not going to enjoy this. Because, you see… I won't be done until you beg me to die."
"We'll be here a while, then," Joker replies, those fever-bright eyes boring into his own. There's no forced bravado in the statement. It's merely fact; something they both know but that doesn't suffer from the confirmation. It's accepting. As it should be.
"Seems like it."
He's created a new version of Joker's laughing gas, one that can sneak through his natural defenses. He watches, dispassionately, as the Joker's laughs burns its way from his throat, until the mirth is the same pain—a bone-deep agony—as it is for anyone else.
It won't kill him. They're just getting started.
He crouches down beside the Joker's head. "Like that?" he asks softly. "This is how they felt. How they all felt. When you did this to them."
"Minus—" Joker's breath comes out in pained gasps, but he forces the words with an effort of will only to be expected. "Minus the personal attention of my own dear Bat. I do appreciate the effort, you know, darling. Perhaps you'll even impress me, but I have to say it's doing nothing for me so far."
"You're hard to impress," Bruce allows. "But I've been planning this for a long time. As you like to say… this is merely foreplay."
Joker chokes on a giggle, despite himself; the sensation heaving its way through him while he clutches his stomach, fingers twisted, drawing blood.
Bruce counts that a win.
He takes his time, after that. The slow, psychological approach is a favorite of theirs.
The finale, though—that's always the same.
The gun in his hand feels familiar; cold and terrifying. Like he was meant to have it. His own weighted nightmare.
He doesn't shoot to kill. Nowhere in this did he claim to have mercy.
No. Instead he takes the precise shot through Joker's abdomen, watching him shudder to the ground, unable to move, staring back at him in—no. Even now, there's no horror.
Merely that knowing look.
"This one's for Barbara," he says, and for the first time his voice shakes.
"Is it, though?"
In reality, of course, the Joker would be in no state to talk. But even in Batman's head, Joker doesn't know how to shut up.
It infuriates him.
"If it was really for Barbara, why didn't you let me die any of those times you could have—simply by stepping aside? Not saving me?" Joker sighs, clucks chastisingly. "We both know the answer to that, Bats."
"You don't get to talk," Bruce says. "Not now."
He kneels down and ties the gag tight enough that Joker chokes on it. Then lingers, pulling the buttons of his waistcoat and shirt open the way the Joker had done to her. There's no gun in his hands anymore, but a camera, and it feels mocking, in a way the gun never had.
He wants to throw it on the floor. Stomp it to pieces. Forget about it.
But there's no stopping this train now.
He takes every picture.
He knows them all.
After, when the camera has disappeared along with his steady hands, he pulls the gag from Joker's mouth. Joker drags his tongue experimentally across his cracked lips, spits toward the ground. It trails its way down his cheek, and Batman wipes it away.
"You don't look so well," Joker observes.
He can't deny it. He feels—broken. Like nothing else he's done today. Every pretense of morality, of the high ground, lost. He thought he'd feel some satisfaction, but there's nothing but a sick sense of self-disgust. Made worse by the fact that he knows he wouldn't go back. Even if he could.
"I'm not going to survive this," he admits. Wrested from him with brutal honesty. "But. Neither are you."
"Did you ever think you would?" The Joker's voice is wry.
He chuckles. "No."
He gets up. In the corner, there's a crowbar, of course. He picks it up, turns back. "Any last words?" he says softly.
"Au devoir," Joker says. He shifts a little—drags himself up by his elbows—and looks at Bruce fondly. "One pile of dirt's pretty much like another, but even if we can't there embrace I'd like to be interred with you. How's that for a last will and testament?"
"You're an incurable romantic, Joker," Bruce says. "You're forgetting there won't be anything to inter. I'm going to burn you alive, right here in this warehouse. I'm going to cremate you."
"Well, I've always wanted to go out with a bang," Joker says.
He swings.
Again—and again—and again—
And he knows it can last as long as he wants. He can keep this endless moment just as it is, his own personal reel of horrors, or he can take the last blow, drop the match, and watch Joker go up in flames.
It is that, more than the precise moment of the monster's death, that satisfies him.
That excites him.
That moment when he has utter power.
"What about you, Bruce?" Frank turns toward him as the group gets their hats in the cloakroom; Bruce pauses, his overcoat halfway across his shoulders. Then continues the motion smoothly. The idle chatter, all around and almost indistinguishable, has become in the span of a moment a rushing tide of conversation, like someone turned the volume up; a function of his attention; broken from an all-encompassing focus. The door swings open on a sensor at the whirlpool of motion, chivvying them on their way, disgorging them from air-conditioned sterility onto concrete sidewalks covered in the press of feet. The afternoon air, still sticky, has grown overcast with clouds since they entered. A hint of rain on the air mixes with the usual blackened smog, turning to something lowering and strange. "Do you think you can make it?"
"I'll be there," Bruce says. He meets the man's eyes with an easygoing smile; skin-deep camaraderie. Frank doesn't notice. Would never expect anything more.
Slips into another car, waiting at the curb in a line of painted steel, oven-hot and bright with the reflections of their tinted windows.
—No Alfred, this time, and asks the driver to turn the radio on.
In Gotham, crime waits for no man. But Bruce has to wait, now; staring out the window at sporadic, scattered drops in the heat-hazed air, while the engine idles in a rush of traffic.
He has another meeting to go to, later.
After that, if he's lucky, he can hit the gym.
.
.
"A day doesn't go by I don't think about subjecting him to every horrendous torture he's dealt out to others—and then end him.
… But if I do that—if I allow myself to go down into that place… I'll never come back."
.
.
.
[end quote from "Under the Red Hood"]
