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“Psst, batbrain. Batsicle. Batsy.”
“What, Joker?” The man simpers up at him from where he’s handcuffed to the railing of a roof.
“I think, uh, you might have played a little too rough, Bats.” He says, looking downwards. Bruce follows his gaze, sees a blossoming flower of red liquid seeping through the vest and shirt of the Joker. Quickly, too quickly, that’s a kill shot, how…?
Bruce steps forward, leans down to get a better look (they have medical at Arkham, he just needs to slow the bleeding before Gordon gets here, keep the Joker alive) and then there is just the tiniest giggle, like a small child that knows a secret and just can’t keep it in anymore. He freezes, but it’s too late. Joker’s uncuffed hand wraps around his neck and yanks him forward, smashing their mouths together.
His lips are warm and chapped, the greasepaint making them slick and a little oily. The paint smears onto Bruce’s face as the clown rubs their mouths together, almost a nuzzle, and Bruce is immobile for a moment in sheer shock before he manages to regain himself and rear back, stumbling.
Joker giggles again at the sight of him, unnerved and covered in the madman’s paint. His smile is obscenely wide.
“Mmm-mmm, thanks for the smooch, Batsy. It’ll keep me warm aaaaaall night long in Arkham. ‘Least until I can catch another one.” He winks.
Bruce, still a little shaky and hearing the wail of police sirens come closer, turns and leaves without a word. Joker’s laughter follows him off the roof and into the night. He clenches his fist and looks down at what should be blood from Joker’s wound, but isn’t quite the right consistency—ink. Another one of Joker’s gags.
When he gets home, he runs a full toxicology report on both himself and the paint still smeared across his face. When nothing comes up, he takes a hot shower and scrubs until every last trace of the makeup is gone.
He still feels it on him, after, a phantom itching that is hard to ignore. Damn Joker’s getting under his skin.
The next time Joker catches his kiss, he’s holding up a bank and Bruce is lucky enough to be a hostage there. The man is prowling around while his people load the money and valuables into a truck, looking like some sort of lean, rabid predator. Someone, a child, is crying. Joker notices too.
“Will someone, uh, shut that kid’s mouth before I have to take some initiative?” He flicks one switchblade through his long fingers idly before tapping it against his cheek. “I’m sure I can turn that frown upside-down.”
“Stop it.” Someone says, and it takes Bruce a moment to realize that it’s him. Joker, who has had his back turned to him until now, turns slowly on his heel to observe Bruce, a smile gaping across his features.
So much for flying under his radar until Bruce can get out of here.
“What did you say, pretty boy?” Bruce feels the eyes of the other hostages on him, and knows that he can’t stop now. He sets his jaw and speaks slowly, surely.
“I said to leave him alone, you damn clown.” There is a collective intake of breath, and then a small pressure of air displacing as something closes in on him quickly.
He feels the knife slide into his mouth with almost tender care, settling against his cheek. He reminds himself that he’s not in his Batsuit, can’t fight back the way he wants to, and very carefully does not move. Joker chuckles darkly.
“See, I think you might have gotten our parts mixed up, cutie. See, I’m the loveable rogue that’s holding you good folks up in this fine establishment, and you, my dear, are a hostage, meaning that you keep quiet and do what I tell you.” Bruce dares not talk or not with that knife in his mouth. Joker, however, is unsatisfied with that result, and pulls his knife upward slowly, Bruce craning his neck to move with it so that it doesn’t slice him open. “Come on, dear, look at me. It’s only polite, now that you’ve gone and made suuuch an impression.” Bruce says nothing, stone-faced. Joker leans in, the smell of smoke and greasepaint and gunpowder washing over Bruce as he does, and growls lowly, “Look. At. Me. Or I gut that crybaby you care about so much.”
Bruce looks at him.
The Joker’s eyes are dark, so dark. Bruce has never looked into them, this close. They are almost black, and filled with enough intelligence and untamed chaos that it would terrify better men than Bruce.
There is a long moment where Joker simply stares at him, smile curling his lip slowly as he leans in further, eyes narrowing, reveling in the fear he causes. Then his eyes widen just slightly, and the knife slips in Bruce’s mouth and just barely nicks his bottom lip. He makes a small sound of pain and surprise, and the Joker’s pupils dilate in some sick show of arousal at the noise. He licks his lips sloppily, smile widening to insane size as he does so, and then he laughs again, an uproarious sound that seems to shake the building.
In a moment the knife is gone and a hot mouth and tongue are pressing against the wound, lapping up the blood as though it’s strawberry syrup. He jerks away, surprised, but Joker has one hand tangled in his hair and holding him in place, and the other hand slips to hold his knife just under Bruce’s ribs, pricking through his shirt and against the skin there.
Bruce freezes obediently, but no matter how the man licks at his lips and how hard he tugs Bruce’s hair, the man does not return the kiss. The man makes an almost-growl sound against his lips, annoyed, but then he’s leaning back and smiling again. Bruce’s blood is smeared across his lips.
“Well, that was a nice surprise, wasn’t it?” He stands, ruffling Bruce’s hair with one hand as he does so as though Bruce is a child. “I hate to cut and run, kiddies, but I’ve got some, uh, things that have come up.” He gestures rather obscenely to his crotch and laughs at the ripple of shock and disgust that ripples through the crowd. “So we’ll have to take a rain check on slitting your throats, ‘kay?”
He leaves his goons gaping stupidly after him, still attempting to complete the robbery but somewhat lost now that they’ve misplaced their fearless leader. Bruce thinks darkly that they should be grateful; if Joker had stayed, they’d probably be dead before the heist was finished.
Instead they are led away in police cars as the reporters swarm Bruce and the other hostages. Apparently one has blabbed, and suddenly all the vultures can talk about is how it felt to be molested by the Joker during a bank heist, was he scared, is he scarred for life, poor, poor Bruce Wayne.
He bites his bleeding lip and smiles and lies until he can get home and away from the memory of this day. He can’t escape the memory of dark eyes looking into him though, no matter how hard he tries.
Bruce jerks awake when he feels something watching him.
“I’m, ah, guessing the black thing’s a theme, huh? You know, Batsy baby, you could do with a little more, uh, color in your life.” The Joker tells him idly as he sits on the edge of Bruce’s black silk-covered bed. Bruce’s bed, not Batman’s, and that means that…
The Joker smiles.
“Anyone ever tell you that you kiss like a bat, Mr. Wayne?” Bruce scrambles to sit against the headboard, reaching under his bed for where he keeps a knife for emergencies—
Joker’s faster. There’s a knife at his throat before he can reach it.
“Tsk, tsk, Brucie. And here I was ready to have a polite conversation with you, and you just have to go and make it difficult. Hands where I can see them, babe.”
Bruce carefully moves so that his hands are resting above the covers. Joker beams at him.
“What do you want?” He asks, voice feeling raw from the scream he’s keeping in, because this is not happening, the one person who just cannot know his identity is not here, holding him at knife-point and talking like they’re long-lost lovers.
Joker hums thoughtfully, tapping his chin with one long, gloved finger.
“Well, there’s the obvious: mayhem, chaos, some nice fireworks, a pony. But I can get all those on my own, Batsy. So, if you’re asking what I want from you…” He pauses, licking his lips. “Kiss me.”
“…What?” Bruce must have heard him wrong, because Joker couldn’t have actually told him to—
“I’ve laid two smackers on you, and yet I still haven’t gotten one back. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? So I want you to smooch me—and make it a good one. No pecks. I want your best game.”
“You’re sick.” Joker laughs at that, his strange hyena-like giggle that grows and grows until it must be hurting him to maintain it. It cuts off just as easily as if a blade has sliced it.
“Scared you’ll catch it if you kiss me?” He teases, and Bruce glares and says nothing. “Come on, Brucie, live a little. Or else your dear old butler will be living a lot less.”
“You bastard!” Bruce roars, jerking forward to punch, claw, hurt, and Joker’s knife nicks his neck before there is a surprisingly strong body ramming into his, forcing him back against the headboard with a painful thunk of his head. Joker grins at him from where he straddles his hips, knife once again securely in place at his throat.
“Uh-uh-uh. Now, see, that wasn’t very smart. What if my hand had, ah, slipped? The game would be over before it began, and there would be no one left to save poor Alfred. You’ve got to work with me, Brucie, or else this won’t work.” Bruce growls, but obediently stays still. “Good bat.”
“Even if I go along with this twisted farce, how do I know you won’t hurt him?” Because it’s not about the Batman, not when Alfred’s involved. The man raised him, for God’s sake. Bruce doesn’t have much of life left to ruin, but Alfred does.
Joker grins at him, one hand held over his heart.
“Scout’s honor?” When Bruce just stares back mutinously, he huffs. “I’m a man of my word, Bats. And really, if you say no, he dies. If you say yes, he only maybe dies.” Bruce swallows. Only maybe. “Come on, take a chance.”
“Yes.” He croaks, because really, does he even have a choice? He can’t kill the Joker (won’t let himself become that, no matter how far he’s fallen already), and the Joker is all too willing to kill others to fuel his obsession. At least this way he can say that he tried.
Joker honestly looks a bit taken aback, dark eyes blinking rapidly for a moment before a manic grin overtakes his face.
“I was, ah, expecting that to take longer.” He waves his free hand at Bruce in a flourishing, beckoning motion. “Well then, Brucie-boy, go on. Impress me.”
“The knife?” Bruce asks him flatly, and Joker glances down at it as though he’s forgotten it’s there.
“That stays, I’m afraid. Wouldn’t want you feeling guilty for not fighting back.” He shifts though, so that they are nose to nose, dark eyes a scant inch from Bruce’s own. “Go.”
Bruce swallows his anger and fear and leans forward, lips brushing against the Joker’s, testing the waters. The man doesn’t bite him at least, which he was half expecting. It seems Joker’s serious about this kiss.
Joker frowns at him.
“You call that a kiss?” He hisses, knife dragging along Bruce’s skin idly. “Try again. Pretend I’m one of your blonde bimbo models if you have to, but make. It. Good.” He actually looks furious, not even a shred of his usual humor about him, and Bruce almost shrinks away from the force of that resentment.
He considers for a moment taking the Joker’s suggestion. He could pretend it’s one of the lovely ladies he sees on the TV, or the ones that he dines with at expensive restaurants. A childhood crush (Rachel), a movie star, anyone but the Joker. But part of him balks against the idea. It’s not fair to them, to be used in such a way, even if they don’t know it. And when he looks at the Joker’s face, he sees the antipathy there, his own bitterness at his suggestion. The Joker doesn’t want him to pretend, not at all.
The Joker wants Bruce to kiss him. Him.
Bruce takes a moment to gather his nerve. He does not let himself forget what the Joker has done, the countless people that he’s killed or ruined with his machinations. That would still mean pretending the Joker was someone else. No, he won’t forget that.
He instead allows other thoughts to come to the forefront, thoughts that he’s pushed down and away because they break the picture of the perfect psychopath. He thinks of the sheer intelligence in Joker’s eyes, the watchful slyness, the way that he laughs at his own horrible knock-knock jokes with such childlike pleasure. He thinks of the uncomplicated look of glee on his face when he sees Bruce coming, and genuine exaltation that Bruce’s presence gives him. He thinks of the way that they fight, almost like a dance, of dodges and traded barbs and adrenaline.
He thinks of dark eyes watching him and not separating him out, judging him for one or the other of his personae. Just accepting him, the bat and the man, with open arms and closed fists.
It’s a scary realization that he can do this. He can actually do this. Jesus.
“Tick tock, Brucie.” Bruce doesn’t let himself think about it, just leans up and captures the Joker’s mouth with his own. This time he doesn’t pull away at the first brush. He tilts his head for a better angle, parts his lips just slightly and moves his mouth against the Joker’s in a slow, soft movement. The Joker is stiff against him for a moment, possibly surprised that Bruce is actually doing as he asked without further coercion, but then the man’s melting against him and kissing back with almost endearing cautiousness.
It's softer than it has any right to be, nothing at all like their fights, but Bruce finds that he cannot stop himself. He doesn't want this to be like their fights. It can't be one of their fights, because if it is, the thought that Bruce is losing this one becomes even more terrifying.
Bruce lets his tongue trace along the line of the Joker’s lips, the greasepaint heavy on his tongue, and the other man opens his mouth and leans closer still, deepening the kiss. There’s a hand in Bruce’s hair, pulling his head up and nearer, tangling in his dark tresses as though they belong there. He allows himself to mirror the motion, the thought of the knife not even occurring to him. The Joker’s hair is softer than he’d thought, slightly stiff from gel but not greasy. The man in question hums approvingly when Bruce allows his fingers to dig in and scratch gently across his scalp.
There’s another hand snaking across his waist and he realizes suddenly that Joker must have dropped the knife. He could fight back now, possibly apprehend the man, and wipe this kiss from his mind forever—
Joker sighs into his mouth, his hand stroking Bruce’s hair with more tenderness than the man had thought the criminal capable of, and instead of stopping he lets his other hand trail to rest on the Joker’s cheek. He runs his tongue along the inside of Joker’s mouth where the roughness of scars rasps against his tongue, and matches his tongue’s movements with his fingers on the man’s cheek.
The shuddering keen that comes from the Joker makes Bruce’s heart clench. It’s a shaken sound, a desperate sound. A broken one.
He repeats the motion with the other scar, the Joker gasping into his mouth as he does so.
“Bruce.” He breathes, breaking their kiss, and Bruce knows that he could stop there, but the surprise that Joker obviously felt at Bruce willingly touching his scars is still aching somewhere inside of him. Instead of pulling away he leans forward again and places feather-light kisses against each of the marks, before pressing a chaste graze of his mouth against the Joker’s parted lips and leaning back.
Joker watches him with dark eyes wide, no laughter in them. There is shock there, certainly, and a heavy sort of arousal in the dilation of his pupils, but also a sense of dazed wonder. He didn’t expect Bruce to do it, Bruce realizes, and he’s suddenly fiercely glad he did. It’s worth it to see the man shaken out of his madness for a moment.
“That—“ The Joker starts, still breathing a little heavily. “Consider me, uh, impressed.” He says, hearkening back to his earlier threat, and Bruce can’t help the lazy grin that overtakes him as he hears the banked amazement in the man’s tone. Then a surprisingly bitter look overtakes the man’s features, dampening his dazzled countenance. “Whoever you were thinking of is a lucky lady.”
The thought seems to upset him, because his hand clenches in Bruce’s hair and he pulls back, standing and turning away from Bruce. He’s leaving, Bruce thinks, and he surprises even himself by swaying forward and catching the Joker’s hand. Joker pulls away roughly.
His brain feels like it’s filled with fog. He can’t control his words.
“You.” He says hurriedly, before he think better of it and lie. The Joker freezes.
“Come again?” He says, voice full of forced insouciance. His shoulders are taut as a bowstring, head bowed. Bruce swallows and squares his shoulders. He’s already damned himself tonight. If he’s going to do this, he’s going to do this right.
“I was thinking of you.”
“Ah.” The Joker says, succinctly. It seems to be the only word he can muster for a moment. He whirls on Bruce, anger alighting in his eyes. “Ah. Ha ha. That’s not funny, Brucie. Leave the jokes to me.” He growls the words, and his smile is all bared teeth.
“I will, don’t worry.” Bruce tells him wryly, and then allows his grin to soften. “Joker.” He stands, ignoring the Joker’s flinch away from him, and gives him a soft, closed-mouth kiss. Pulling away, he says quietly, “I was thinking of you that time too.”
Joker watches him warily for a moment, gauging his sincerity. He must see something, because with an almost hysterical bark of laughter he whirls around in a little circle, as though he cannot contain the sheer amount of emotion he’s experiencing.
Bruce cannot help but soften at the childish display. It is even, perhaps, sacrificing the small amount of dignity that he has, admitting his feelings about the kiss to the Joker.
Joker lunges in and wraps him in a brief, bone-crushing hug that Bruce has no time to respond to before Joker is darting away, back towards the window. He stops before it, smiling at Bruce, hands tucked behind his back like a naughty child.
“Flattery will get you everywhere. Just for that, no broiled butler--tonight or any other night, promise.” He makes a little x on his heart.
“I thought I already guaranteed that with the kiss.” Bruce tells him dryly. Joker cackles unrepentantly.
“I did say that, didn’t I? And what a kiss.” He pauses, pursing his lips. “You know, I really only wanted to see if you’d do it. Sort of an, ah, experiment, you understand. But I gotta say, now that I know…” He licks his lips. The devious look in his eyes makes Bruce’s hair stand on end in conditioned response, no matter how attractive he is realizing he may find this man. That look spells trouble.
“Joker…” He warns.
Joker smirks at him shamelessly, sauntering forward until he’s close enough to run one long finger languidly down Bruce’s chest and then back up. He stops when it’s above Bruce’s heart and taps over the pounding beat there gently, angling his body closer until Bruce can feel the feverish heat of him prickling against his skin.
“So, one kiss for Jeeves.” He tilts his head up, smirk promising all kinds of mischief. “Hey, Brucie?”
“Yes?” Bruce asks warily, trying not to lean into the hand splayed across his chest possessively. Joker’s Cheshire cat smile shows far too many teeth for Bruce to rationally want to kiss it off his face. He still wants to.
“How attached would you say you are to Good Cop Gordon?”
“Joker!” Bruce growls, reaching for him. Joker laughs and goes willingly, so that Bruce’s threatening grip turns into something dangerously close to an embrace. Joker doesn’t look frightened at all. In fact, he’s still laughing, winding his arms around Bruce’s neck and tugging him closer.
“All’s fair in love and war!” He chuckles darkly. “And you, darling, are the best of both worlds.”