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queerbaitingjuce · 6 years

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Metamorph - Chapter 3 - Part 5

"I see how much this is affecting you, and I feel worse. I should have stopped Harley. I want to make this right, buddy.”

“Thank you.”

There was nothing else to say as darkness dipped over Gotham, casting her into a haze of shadows and lemony streetlight. Less people prowled the streets, less witnesses to see them use the shadows clumped in an alley to gear up. Batman turned to face Joker, and remembered that he’d need to clear his schedule eventually so he could arrange to get some material for a new get-up.

“Ready?” he asked, although he turned away before he got an answer.

“Yes, boss!”

In the Bat Mobile, the trip to the Church was a very short one. Joker was excited the entire ride, eagerly pawing the car’s dashboard, staring eagerly at the buttons – but never touching, knowing not to touch. When they got out, he throbbed contagious energy.

“You can tell that this place went out with a bang!” Joker clasped his hands together eagerly, looking at the Church in starry-eyed amazement. This was true by half; some of the Church was demolished, but the upper half, with the alter, the lumbering window, they stood untouched, as though immortal. “Look at all the destruction.” He giggled, clapping slowly. “So much leftover toxic energy...”

Batman decidedly ignored him and stepped into the Church. Some of the chairs were dust; others were intact, and lined the remaining span of the Church like they were waiting patiently for more company. On the alter stood a camera on a tripod, and Batman wondered if he was being filmed. But the camera was off, and he suddenly realised that it had been left for him. So he hesitantly sauntered to it.

“A camera?” Joker sounded as confused as Batman felt.

“I think he wants us to watch another video.” Batman pressed the on button, and it immediately blinked onto a paused video. The thumbnail implied the footage was old, and it was in extremely poor condition. He pressed play, trying not to get irritated that Joker was breathing down his neck.

On the footage, there was a man waiting at the alter, with the camera positioned at least in the middle of the Church, if not further back, pointing at him as he laughed with his Best Man. He looked cheerful and young, with a halo of blond hair and sculpted eyebrows curved over his electric blue eyes. The smile that he turned on his fiancée as she walked down the aisle was simply breathtaking.

The camera was too old and too far away from the couple to catch their vows, but they looked happy. In love. Clasping hands, staring into each other’s eyes. Their kiss was a thing from fairy tales. He dipped her and kissed her over and over again, like he couldn’t get enough, always holding her closer. When they straightened, she looked flushed and happy. Hand-in-hand, they came down the aisle together, smiling joyfully at their families. When she got close enough, he realised she was the victim, and his stomach sank.

“It’s her.” Joker looked thunderstruck. “Which makes that man our killer. They look so in love...”

“And yet that love ended in toxic, fatal violence,” Batman said. “Why?” He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one. They replayed the footage, again and again, looking to garner evidence, but there was nothing. “He always leaves clues. If it isn’t on the footage, it has to be here. Somewhere.”

It took ten minutes to properly investigate the entire establishment. In that time, Joker straightened and triumphantly waved two slips of paper. “Hey, partner, I think I found something!”

“What?”

“Ballroom tickets!”

Batman stared – confused.

“It was under these rings at the alter.” Joker held up a pair of rings. One of them was splattered by dried blood. “Which means he wants us to go to the ball in Gotham Hall tomorrow night.”

“Jack will be there,” Batman guessed instinctively. “I’m sure of it. But why would he want us to go to a social event he’s going to when he knows we’re openly investigating him?”

“I don’t know, partner. But I do know something.”

“What?”

“It’s time to go shopping!”

Maybe there were worse things than homicidal shapeshifters after all.

((I've tried uploading to ao3 so many times that I just really couldn't go through adding italics again 😭 so I'm sorry but you'll have to imagine where they are. Hopefully this will be on ao3 soon, but as of now this is the only platform I can put it on.))

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Metamorph - Chapter 3 - Part 4

In the morning, John was already dressed and eating breakfast in the kitchen, drinking sweet coffee hot. Bruce came in, feeling groggy and drugged, and was directed to a plate of hot eggs. He scarfed them down without tasting them, or even feeling them, burning his tongue. Alfred wasn’t around, only John, so Bruce presumed that John had made the eggs, and suddenly he was glad that he couldn’t taste or feel anything.

“You’re in a hurry,” John observed over his coffee. “Going somewhere?”

“Work.” Bruce drained his coffee, shrugging on his coat. “I have some legal paperwork to fill out so I can get the company up and running again, and some people are coming in to do some more repairs.”

John got to his feet. “I’m coming with you,” he proclaimed decisively, without room, really, for an argument.

Bruce stopped. “What? Why?”

“It’s my chance to try... you know... help you out. I’m the one who did the damage. Well. One of the people.” John shrugged, but his expression was pleading. “Please, buddy? I’ll be on my best behaviour and everything!”

“Okay. But you have to promise not to distract me, John. Do you understand me?”

“Hey, I pinkie-swear.”

As it turns out, surprisingly, John didn’t always stay true to his pinkie-swears. It felt like an eternity after they arrived at Wayne Enterprises that Bruce realised, not for the first time, that John really hated silences. If he wasn’t plunging into lengthy conversations and debates, he was making ridiculous sounds and playing with everything in Bruce’s sprawling office, which on-looked the city.

“Say, buddy? What’s this?” John plucked a random book off his bookcase and wielded it.

“Read it,” said Bruce without looking up. “Then you’ll know.”

“Are you nearly done yet?”

“No.”

“Oh... How about now?”

“No.”

“I’m hungry.”

“You know where the shops are.”

John pouted at him, then hopped onto his desk and sat on it cross-legged, staring critically down at the paperwork he was working on. “You still think I could work here one day?”

“Why not?” Bruce said distractedly. “If you work for it. Nothing is for free.”

“You got this company for free,” John pointed out, which was technically true, not that the remark was appreciated. Bruce raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes,” Bruce agreed slowly. “But hard work is why I still have it. Or... had it. And hard work is why I’m getting it back again.”

John looked thoughtful. “I’ve never thought of it like that.” He beamed. “Thanks for enlightening me, bud.” He slid off the desk, suddenly holding up a globe. Bruce wondered where he’d gotten it from, surprised. “We’re here.” He pointed randomly at a green section on the globe.

Bruce sighed. “If we were in Africa, I’d feel overdressed. John, you’re distracting me.”

John winced. “Sorry.” But he didn’t sound very sorry. He scoped the bookcases with barely veiled wonder. “How do you do it? Be this and Batman at the same time?”

“Passion,” said Bruce instantly, giving up with his paperwork. “Determination.”

“Yes, but... why?”

“What?”

“What drives you?” John turned towards him dramatically and struck a pose. “What makes the handsome, mysterious Bruce Wayne... er... tick?”

“This was my parents’ company before they passed away. Working here, it’s in my blood. I want to continue to run it so that a part of them will always be here.” Bruce frowned, watching John pretend to write this down on an imaginary notepad like a reporter. “Sometimes it’s hard work, but it’s necessary. This is where I’m meant to be.” He picked up his pen again, tapping it against the desk. “And the businessman persona doesn’t hurt. Or the money. The money pays for Batman. Batman saves people and puts scumbags like Joe Chill in prison.”

“Good reason.” John unstuck himself from the pose. “The sun is going down.”

Bruce looked out the window. “Huh,” he said. “We were here longer than I thought.”

“Sometimes that happens to me. Except usually I’m at Arkham, and I’m so drugged that my memories of the day are scattered all over the place.”

“I...” Bruce didn’t even know how to respond to that. Instead of doing just that, he whisked to the workers inside the dead building to say his courteous goodbyes, and left them to work on the destruction of the Enterprises as he signed out.

The street smelled like vendor food and rain, and the air was sweet with music. There was a man playing a guitar on the street lining nearby, his head bent over the instrument lovingly. Bruce left him a splash of dollars, and hunched his shoulders against the snappy wind, keeping his arm touching John’s so he’d know if he slipped behind.

“Look! Bruce, look!”

Alarmed, Bruce looked... and relaxed. John was wildly pointing at an ice cream vendor. “What?”

“Could I maybe, just maybe, have an ice cream, please? Oh, please, buddy! I haven’t had one in... Well, ever, actually.”

Bruce took it as a serious sense of duty to buy him an ice cream after that, because he’d never heard of someone who hadn’t tried ice cream before. With the pink, fluffy strawberry treat in hand, John then resumed to follow him down the street at a brisk pace, knocking his shoulder against Bruce’s arm in comfortable companionship.

“Thanks for letting me come with you today, Bruce,” John said, and suddenly Bruce didn’t mind that much that John had distracted him the entire day, because it suddenly didn’t seem very important anymore. He minded more that John was biting his ice cream, not licking it, because it was stranger than him never trying it had been. “I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“It was a welcome distraction.” John bit off the last bit of his ice cream and moved on to the cone. The outline of his mouth was pink. “The tension... Eesh! It’s even making me feel uncomfortable!”

“Soon, he’ll be behind bars.” Bruce wasn’t sure if he was telling him or telling himself. “And then everything will be okay... until the next big criminal comes along.”

John beamed. “All in the job description, buddy!” he said cheerfully. “This ice cream is amazing!” He nudged his arm with his. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Bruce hesitated. “You have some on your...” He made a vague gesture at his face.

John frowned, stopped walking, and patted his face with a faint expression of alarm. Bruce stopped, too, and noticed that people were angrily buzzing to themselves as they pushed around them, so he reached out himself and used his thumb to clear the creamy mess from his skin. John stopped, his face a frozen mask. Bruce wondered if he’d overstepped. “Thanks.” He sounded weak. “But now you have ice cream on your thumb and nowhere to wipe it.”

Bruce looked appraisingly at his thumb, until John casually took it into his mouth and sucked the ice cream off, then started bounding into the crowd. Flustered and confused, Bruce followed.

“It was strange, being in those hallowed walls again,” said John thoughtfully. He was grimacing, his ice cream cone forgotten in his hand. “I do feel genuine remorse for what I did, Bruce.”

“I know.”

“I’m not... completely heartless.”

“I know.”

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queerbaitingjuce · 6 years

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Metamorph - Chapter 3 - Part 3

“But... But me and him, we are similar, Bruce. Were similar, anyway. So helping Batman take him down... well, it isn’t an honour I’m worthy of. Because I’ve killed people like her before. I did it to see that face you pulled. And, once, I took pleasure in it. Real, sick pleasure.”

“John, I... need help for this.” Bruce looked away, flushing. He felt too exposed, cracked open like a dismembered clam, spilling his blackened pearls. And he hated it, and part of him wanted desperately to subtract himself from the conversation, but, somehow, at the same time, it felt... like being free. Like spilling this, his feelings, it was puncturing him and spilling out the weight inside of him to make him feel weightless. “More help than I’d care to admit.” He looked at him now. “And I want you to help.”

“Really?” John’s eyes were wet and dubious.

“Batman couldn’t ask for a better sidekick.”

John looked away, but his lips were crooked, and his eyes were still misty. “Ah, well, shucks... thanks. Hey, buddy?”

“Yeah, John?”

“Have you ever wished into a fountain?” John gently disturbed the water with his feet, leaning over to look into it at their distorted reflections.

“Once,” Bruce recollected, moved by the memory. “I was five, and it was Christmas. The lights were strung around the square, and people were singing. The air was light and fluffy with snow. I wished for my family to be happy forever.” His eyes stung. He willed away the urge to cry; it worked. He was used to it, battling back tears. The air was so cold the tears would have frozen on his cheeks. “But wishes don’t come true.”

“Well, maybe you just got a bad fountain. This fountain might work!” John dug two quarters out of his pocket. “Here. Make a wish.”

“John-”

“Ah, ah, ah! Less talking, more wishing! Humour me, buddy.”

Feeling foolish, Bruce closed his hand around his quarter, hard enough it engraved marks into his skin, and closed his eyes. He tried to think of a wish to humour him, but nothing came. Maybe he wished for nothing, because he had everything that could possibly be given to him. Or maybe his brain was just too fried. Either way, he waited until he heard John throw his coin into the fountain before he followed suit. The ripples warped the clear water, water that looked black in the silky darkness.

“What did you wish for?”

“For all of this to work out,” Bruce lied, looking at their reflections. They looked like a visually appealing couple, one a starburst of colour, the other a drab blanch of it, both attractive and tall. John smiled at their reflections, and Bruce wondered if the same thought had occurred to them both. “What about you? What did you wish for?”

John looked at him, and his lips quivered. For a while... silence. Well, silence except for their breathing, anyway, which curled misty-white in the air between their faces. Then, he pursed his lips to quell the shaking and tipped up his chin, his face morphing into absolute resolve. “I wished that you would kiss me.”

Bruce felt the shock like a slap to the face. He wondered if he’d misheard, but, apparently, he hadn’t. The floor heaved, and the world disappeared around them, with nothing else in his universe except for John and his own breath, erratically coiling in the air: John, who stared back at him waveringly, with the same searching, hopeful look that he’d given him before Bruce had told him that he didn’t trust him; the same nervous mistiness to his eyes that he’d sported at the funeral when he’d given him a bizarre condolence card.

He leaned forwards without the intention to do so, drawn to his mouth, to him, to everything about him, every perfect and imperfect aspect of him – hopelessly, inevitably drawn to the strange existence of John Doe. Their noses brushed, which were cold at the tips, and the real contact, the anticipation, felt like live electricity across the sprawling expanse of his skin. He moved forwards slowly, tentatively, experimentally, and their mouths nearly brushed-

“Master Bruce,” said a voice from the manor doorway.

His heart pounding unevenly in his chest, Bruce jerked away, the warmness in his gut recoiling into frost. Alfred was stood there, looking proper and composed, as though he hadn’t just walked in – well, out – on them both nearly kissing. “Alfred,” he mustered breathlessly. John scooted away from Bruce on the fountain, looking flustered without the blush to match. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve looked some significant samples of evidence over, and I think it would be wise for you to come down to the cave.”

“Thanks, Alfred. Give us a moment.”

“Sir.” Alfred disappeared reverently.

“I get it,” said John, looking resigned and... angry.

“Get what?” Bruce managed, feeling drunk. Confused.

“I’m a criminal. I’m a man. You don’t feel that way about me. The nearly-kiss was a mistake. It won’t happen again. Blah, blah, blah.”

“Is that what you want?”

John stood up. “Well, Bruce,” he continued, undeterred, like he hadn’t heard him at all, “you don’t have to waste your breath with it. I get it.”

“Get what? John-”

“No. Forget you.” And, with that, John stomped inside, leaving his wine and his tequila behind.

For Alfred’s sake, Bruce took the dishes into the kitchen before he made his way to the cave. John was already there, slouching, looking upset and far away. Alfred was hovering by the computer, looking formally at him upon his arrival.

“What have you found?”

“The hair and the blood that you found on the victim weren’t hers, but, unfortunately, I can’t match it to anyone on the system.”

“Dammit.” Disappointed, Bruce sank into his chair, sighing. Stress had his muscles permanently lock. John was studiously not looking in his direction. “All right. What else did you find, Al?”

“Not a lot, really,” Alfred admitted regretfully, “crime scene wise. The killer was thorough. But I found something interesting that involves the glass that John said you retrieved from her corpse.”

“What?” Bruce leaned closer, intrigued.

“The glass is very old,” Alfred said. “Rare.”

“Were you able to narrow it down and find out where it originates?” Bruce asked hopefully.

“I looked into Maria and Jack, sir. Whether they are still together – were, sorry – is a mystery, but legally they’re still man and wife. They wed in a Church here in Gotham that is sat on the border of the city some years ago. It was bombed a few days ago in a supposed terror attack. Five people were killed, a dozen injured. I looked up newspaper clippings, and it looks like the Church had red on their windows...” Alfred shot his cuffs. “Of course, we won’t know for certain if it’s the same window unless samples are compared, but I think the coincidences call for an investigation.”

“I agree, Alfred.”

“But, first, you and Master John both need sleep. You won’t help anyone by stumbling around like the walking dead, least of all yourself.”

Bruce thought about that for a moment... and then grudgingly nodded. “I’ll investigate tomorrow as soon as the sun goes down,” he allowed. “You need sleep, too, Alfred.”

“I’ll retire for the night, sir.”

“Good.”

John left immediately, while Bruce lingered, because Alfred gave him an expectant look. He felt distinctly nervous, like he had as a child when he knew he was about to be berated for a wrongdoing.

“Master Bruce, it isn’t because he’s a man,” Alfred ventured, his expression inscrutable. “Frankly, I wouldn’t care if you found happiness with an alien squid. But John Doe is a criminal. He’s a madman that has murdered thousands of people. And you should do well to remember it.”

“I remember it, Alfred,” Bruce said tightly, defensively. “And it was a mistake.” He heard John’s voice caressing the back of his mind, and he grimaced. “Spur of the moment thing. He was drunk, and I...”

“What was your excuse?” Alfred prompted; then, he softened. “I just want you to be careful, Master Bruce. After all this time, I don’t want you to give your heart to someone with the supreme ability to break it.”

Bruce squeezed his shoulder. “I know, Al. Don’t worry about me.”

“I always do.”

They parted ways to their bedrooms. Bruce brushed his teeth in his small bathroom, stripped to his boxers, and climbed into bed. He thought that his mind was racing too much to sleep, but he was wrong. Almost immediately, he was asleep, drifting dreamlessly where there was no hurt or confusion.

#batjokes #telltale batjokes #batjokes fanfiction #juce #juce fanfiction #telltale juce #john x bruce #bruce x john #joker x bruce #brucexjoker #batmanxjoker #jokerxbatman

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Metamorph - Chapter 3 - Part 2

“Yes,” Bruce agreed, staring distantly into his coffee. “Yes, it is.” He turned to face him, nursing his hot cup. “It’s my fault.”

Alfred frowned at him disapprovingly. “Now, whatever gave you that impression, Master Bruce?”

“He’s doing this because of me,” babbled Bruce guiltily, uncharacteristically. “He said he wants to show me how I hurt him. The people that died in the arson attacks, the woman... they’re dead because of something that I did to him. And it eats me inside, and I can’t find the person or the words to let it out.”

Alfred adjusted his glasses, looking stern. “You have no evidence to suggest that you did anything as of now, Master Bruce,” he said. “So blaming yourself and getting all worked up is foolish. If you start thinking like that, then you’ve let him win. He wants you to feel terrible. Don’t feed into his desires with distress.”

Bruce took a long sip of his coffee. It burned his mouth. He didn’t care. “You’re right,” he conceded, swallowing his distress to be replaced with a spark of resolve. “It’s just been a long day.”

“Maybe it’s time to retire?” Alfred suggested.

“I can’t. I found plenty of evidence that needs analysing immediately. He keeps killing. I don’t have any time to waste, Al.” Bruce sighed, taking another sip of coffee. Caffeine zipped in his nerves, but he was so exhausted it barely made a difference at all. “You can go to bed if you want. It’s late.”

Alfred shook his head. “Maybe it would be wise to contact Miss Kyle and ask her for her assistance in this case. She’d make a useful ally, what with her abilities.”

Bruce sighed impatiently. “Alfred, Selina and I are on bad terms,” he pointed out, taking a larger gulp of coffee to bide his time. Selina was a touchy subject; they, at this point, had a mutual disrespect for each other.

“Master Bruce, I know how you feel about each other-”

“I don’t feel anything for her,” said Bruce firmly. “She was a friend once – if that – but I have never had any romantic feelings for her.” He added sternly, “And I didn’t sleep with her that time in her apartment, no matter what Harvey said.”

Alfred blinked in surprise. “Master Bruce-”

“Sorry, Alfred.” Bruce rubbed his eyes with his hand, torrents of frustration intensifying his exhaustion. “It’s just frustrating that everyone always claims there’s a romantic bond between us – you, John, Gordon. And there isn’t.”

“I understand,” Alfred said. “My apologies, sir. I saw Master John head out into the garden,” he told him evasively. “He looked forlorn. I dare say he needs some company right now. You can join him while I analyse the evidence.”

Bruce could have hugged him. But he didn’t. He only said, “Thanks, Al.” He finished his coffee and put his cup in the sink with a clatter.

“Oh, and take this with you,” said Alfred, holding out an expensive, imported bottle of red wine.

Bruce was surprised, because this was Alfred, and Alfred liked to store the wine he bought for special occasions, not the odd drink on a glum October night. “Are you sure?”

“Well, we’ve run out of whiskey, and this is the next best thing...” Alfred’s face softened imperceptibly. “Trust me. He needs a drink right now. And so do you. So go. I’ll take over in the cave.”

“Thank you, Al.”

“Take some teacups. Dreadfully, all the wine glasses need washing.”

Bruce took the mugs and the wine outside, where John was sat on the rim of the new instated fountain, his feet in the water. As he came closer, basking in the quietness and the fresh chilly breeze of Gotham’s nighttime, John sighed, and it was true – he looked desperately forlorn. Bruce kicked off his shoes, and, without a second thought, he sat on the edge of the fountain and dug his feet in, consumed in his company. The water was cold, cold enough to shock his skin. The air was heady with the smell of tequila, and sat next to John, on the fountain, was a refilled wine glass of it.

“I brought wine,” he said awkwardly, because what else was there to say? He suddenly envied Alfred’s eloquence; Alfred, who was always composed; Alfred, who always knew what to say. He wished he knew what to say, because he ached sweetly to comfort him. The ache shocked him, honestly; he, never in a thousand years, would have thought he’d genuinely care so vehemently about John Doe, not now, not ever. He’d never experienced an ache this strongly for a person, either; not anyone outside of family, anyway. Well, except for maybe Harvey, but he’d been his best friend once; of course Bruce had cared for him. He still did, in a more distant kind of way.

He supposed it had only been a matter of time before he’d let John wholeheartedly into his heart. Despite the dastardly Joker episode, John was a sweet soul. Curious. Excitable. Caring. Selfless. Sick – regretfully sick. There was something undeniably loveable about John Doe, though, something his sickness couldn’t take from him. Bruce would have been heartless to not adore his swelling, warm soul eventually.

John stopped staring miserably at his own reflection, and looked at the mugs perched on the fountain. He looked puzzled. “Are they... mugs?”

“Ah, well... yes.” Bruce stared accusingly at the mugs, wanting them to disappear. “The wine glasses were all in the sink.”

John stared at him for a long moment... and then threw his head back and laughed.

Bruce was perplexed. “What?”

“Oh, buddy!” he howled, wiping hysterical tears from his eyes. “I just can’t stay miserable around you!” He smiled at him. “Bruce Wayne, drinking wine from a mug... I never thought I’d see the day.”

Bruce peeled the metallic film off the top of the wine bottle and opened it, inhaling the sweet-bitter smell of the wine. It smelt familiar; of nights in his office, and the cave, drinking from wine glasses; of galas, and dancers whisking into each other as he drank; of his parents’ breath as they laughed during parties; and he inhaled it boldly until he could practically taste it, serving it into the mugs expertly. “Why not?” he asked, a little defensively.

“Because,” said John laughingly, “drinking wine from mugs is practised by middle-aged mothers who break out the cheap wine while their kids are in bed!” He gave a pause, his smile ebbing. “Well... they do in movies, anyway.”

Bruce shrugged, and picked up his mug. “It doesn’t matter what cup it’s in,” he rejoined to quell his embarrassment. “It still tastes good either way.”

“True that! Hey, I’ll drink to that!” John laughed, picking up his mug and knocking it against his clumsily. Wine sloshed out of it, but John didn’t seem to notice. His breath was bitter with tequila.

They both drank. The wine was lovely, and the air smelt of it, tart and warm, and the water felt warmer now that he was getting used to it. He wiggled his toes and sighed, exhausted but, for once, content. They sank into a companionable silence for a short while, enjoying their wine and the scenery: the cropped garden, carefully tamed; the groomed roses, the shaped bushes, what lay beyond the manor’s supreme gates. And then Bruce felt inclined to ask something, because, really, what friend would he be if he didn’t? A bad one, and the point of them working together was to prove he could be a good friend – if John returned it with equal dedication.

“John?”

“Yes, bud?”

“Something... earlier...” No. That was the wrong way around. Bruce thought for a long while, planning his sentence before he said it. “Earlier, in the house, something was clearly bothering you. I mean, more than... you know... seeing the woman did.”

John sighed, looking like a deflated party balloon. “Got it in one, buddy,” he said glumly. “But why are you bringing it up?”

“I just wanted to... check in, I guess?” And then he scolded himself for making it sound like a question, but John didn’t seem to blink twice. “I mean, I wanted to check in.”

John took a deep drink from his mug, smiling at him patiently. “Well,” he said softly, “thanks for doing that, buddy. I know that doing that is outside of your comfort zone.”

Bruce embraced the smile, tentatively returning it, even though it felt a little forced. He drank a bit more wine, letting the alcohol warm him on the inside, and waited for him to talk... if he talked at all.

“Well... I don’t know, buddy... It’s hard to explain.”

“Take your time, John,” Bruce encouraged quietly.

“I guess I just... I saw your face when you saw her. That moment before you covered it up, the moment you really saw her for the first time, the moment where the invulnerability disappeared. And I hated it. I hated that face in indescribable ways, buddy...” John paused, overcome, and started doing his breathing exercises.

Bruce patiently waited, finishing his mug off. He refilled it, the splash of the wine hitting the bottom of the mug sounding exaggerated in the silence, while he thought about what John had said. He didn’t have a lot of thinking time.

“I’ve killed people, too, buddy.” John grimaced. “The agents... among other people. Some of them to hurt you, just like he’s doing.” He looked down into his drink, his expression tinged by remorse. “You spoke about the killer like he was a monster. And I can’t help but think that, while you had that face, and spoke in that voice, I’d done what he had done. But you forgave me.” He shook his head. “I don’t deserve that.” He looked at him sideways. “I’m just like him.”

“You’re nothing like him.” Bruce knew there were similarities, the drive to kill people for the sake of getting to him, the gory violence – but John was different. He knew that; he believed in that. So he believed his own words as they came out his mouth. “This man, he is faulted and cruel. You’re...” He paused, uncomfortable, but John was looking at him expectantly, and he felt inclined to press on. “You’re, you know... kind. Selfless. Playful. Enlightening. Loving. John. And people like him? They don’t understand that, much less how to be that.”

John frowned. Bruce thought he looked lovely in the ribbon of moonlight, and the thought made him feel woozy and confused. Or maybe that was the wine... “I just feel like I don’t deserve to be part of this investigation as your sidekick,” he sighed.

“You said you wanted to help me. Have you changed your mind?”

“No, not at all!” John held up his hands. “Geez, buddy, who do you think I am? Working with Batman, it’s been an honour!”

“But...?”

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queerbaitingjuce · 6 years

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Metamorph - Chapter 3 - Part 1

Batman was too surprised to even breathe, much less move, with the portrait of sickening violence flushed out in front of him like his own personalised nightmare. He’d dealt with this kind of crime scene before – corpses strewn brokenly where they’d staked their claim, with their memories in frames and the hazy ghost of their personalities bringing life to the very room where they’d been cruelly reminded of their own brittle mortality: he was inside the painting of a quaint modern household, clumsily splattered by a jet of ruby-crimson blood that kissed the air around his face with a sour, metallic smell. It induced a roiling sickness to spasm through him, up and down, over and over, until he was gulping surreptitiously for air. Joker couldn’t noticeably blanch, what with the impossible lack of colour in his face already, which was even more ice-white now with his black get-up, but his expression was clearly an etched mask of horror. Batman figured that took a lot; he thought involuntarily of the mindless violence he’d seen Joker commit in the past.

Batman, as he shattered the ice in his veins and took one tentative step closer to the woman, supposed grimly that he’d never get used to violence, not even if he spent until his own death in the suit. The blood, the glassy eyes, the rubbery-ness of fresh corpses, the discoloured, bloated skin, the broken wrongness of bodies whose lives had been beaten out of them – they were all horrific physical aspects of crime, and ones that easily took mental toll, especially when it took him back to Crime Alley twenty-two-odd years ago.

He remembered familiar glassy eyes (that had once glittered with parental love like mortal magic), bullet holes through elaborate strips of fabric, into pale skin (shearing through their life – and could he have stopped it?), and his own screams vibrating in the terrified emptiness of his own head.

But it was the mental aspects of crime that really got to him. The thought that they were a person once, with a family, lovers, places in society, and that, a certain period of time before their death, whether it be a few seconds to a few days, they had no idea that they’d never die old, like so many people expected themselves to, and that their family members had expected to hold them for many moons longer than they got to – it always managed to thicken the horror and the sickness more than broken, spilling corpses and arrayed blood splatters could morbidly hope for. Because this woman had probably had a family; people who cared about her. She’d probably had a job somewhere. If none of that, she had had self-awareness, and the capacity to have a present and a future, and that was enough.

“Don’t touch anything,” Batman finally asserted, but Joker looked like he couldn’t move to touch anything even if he wanted to. Shaking the baffling sensation that something was wrong with him, because Batman was a symbol, not a man, and conversations like that came later when the mask was off, he moved deeper into the house to consider the crime scene, leaving his paralysed partner behind him.

He looked at one of the photographs on the mantel with a crack rayed at the corner, the one where the victim’s arm was around the weedy boy from the videos. She was smiling in it, with the matching radiance beaming through her eyes; in comparison, the boy’s eyes looked bleak, although the corners of his mouth were crooked. She was probably twenty or so in the picture, definitely young for a mother, but now, her corpse looked forty to forty-five, appropriately, with the odd line marring her face, and a charming peppering of silver in her hair. He resisted the urge to pluck the broken photograph off the mantel to look intricately at her as she’d been before her death, because it would contaminate the scene, and instead moved on to lift latent prints from the immediate area busily. He stored them appropriately, with a cautiousness for no mistakes, as Joker slowly thawed and started to ghost around the room, looking lost, as he was obediently careful to keep his hands to himself.

“Blood splatters means cut arteries, right?” Joker asked, who stopped in front of the wall that was garnished by a thick, gloopy layer of congealing blood. He seemed to take it in, his expression set with focus. He giggled, but the sound was rushed and high-pitched and wrong, and somehow managed to sound as stressed as a garbled whine.

“Yes,” said Batman after a moment of silence, where he intricately assessed his unreadable expression. Usually, he was good at reading people – he had to be – but trying to read Joker now was like trying to read something underwater, all blurs and estimates. “Her throat was slit. Probably with a sharp instrument.” He jerked his chin towards something near her head, something that was cluttered next to a broken vase, where water diluted blood, and blood seeped through the svelte petals of daisies and stained them pink-red artistically. A knife, sheathed with a glove of blood. “Probably with that.”

Joker looked between them, his expression inscrutable. “Oh. Have you found anything?”

“No. I’ve just been picking up latent prints.”

“The... er... The sweat between the papillary ridges of the fingertips, right?”

Batman was secretly almost... pleased. “Right.”

Joker nodded, short and thoughtful, before he cleared his throat and did a dramatic salute. “I’ll let you get on with it then, Detective Holmes.” And, with the forced humour left to drift between them heavily, he turned on his heel and stalked deeper into the house, to apparently inspect a cluster of photographs collected neatly on the kitchen table.

Batman shook his head, stricken by concern, and turned back to the scene to analyse it with his tech, and to try piece together what had happened to her. He let his feelings over Joker bleed out of him, like blood from an open wound, as he cleared his mind until it was merely a blank slate. He spent hours scoping the house, garnering evidence to take to the lab for analysis, trying to piece together the chronological order of how the woman had lost her life. He finally straightened up, and activated a hologram on his cowl, as Joker came back from the kitchen glumly and asked with careful evenness, “So, what happened here, Detective?”

“Nothing good. It seems that the offender came in through the open door.”

“What does that mean?”

“It suggests that the victim invited them in, or they had access to the home via living here through a key – which then goes on to imply a trusting relationship between them, which isn’t surprising, considering our guess is that it’s the offender's mother or their wife,” Batman told him simply. “If not, they used a spare key that they found outside.”

“Okay,” said Joker slowly. “They came in through the door, maybe with the trustful invite of the woman. Got it. How did you figure that out?”

“There’s no sign of a break-in,” Batman informed him, who’d industriously inspected all the possible entryways to find them all secure and locked, with no possibility of forced entry. “The door was open. Maybe the offender picked the lock, but... I just have a feeling.”

“Right. So they came in through the door?” Joker parroted, managing to make it sound like a question. “Then what?”

“It seems that they moved to the kitchen together before the murder happened, which suggests again that the victim and the offender were likely familiar with each other. That’s where the killer took out a knife and stabbed her at least five times. I found knife wounds studded up her back. It had been done from behind, in the most vile act of severing trust imaginable...” Batman took a second to centre himself, stealing an inaudible breath. He usually never broke his composure, but something about this whole case felt personal. “There was a struggle. Blood and hair on the floor. Hair and blood on her hands. The DNA could be from the killer, so I collected it to take it back to the cave for analysis.” He pointed so Joker could see where he was referring to when he said, “She died there.” Joker looked at the very thin strip that separated the kitchen and the living room, which was in actuality just a change of flooring, from brown carpet to white-black vinyl. “Look. The way the blood looks... She was definitely dragged from there to there, bleeding openly, which brought a smear of blood through. And the broken shards of the coffee table, and a wound to her temple, suggests that the coffee table was eventually her demise, not her stab wounds.”

Joker took a moment to respond, his face a frozen mask. “I found something in the kitchen near a piece of card that has your name on it.” He handed over two envelopes from behind his back, one of which was large and brown, the other of which looked like an average envelope. He was expressionless, although both envelopes were opened.

Tucking the brown envelope under his arm, Batman opened the white envelope first, which was devoid of anything except for his name, which had an ‘x’ scripted underneath it like a mockingly flirtatious remark. He expected to pull out a letter, but he gaped it open and saw that the writing was inside the actual envelope. Peeling tape, he unravelled it. It simply said, in elegant scrawl, Inside her.

“What does that mean?” Joker asked, reading over his shoulder.

“I’m not sure... but I’ll figure it out.” Batman moved on to the other envelope, the brown one, which was stiff with a supporting slice of cardboard inside. He pulled out a series of thick-paper letters – documents, actually, he saw upon closer inspection. A marriage certificate, signed twenty-two years ago by Maria Jade and Jack Danish.

“What do you think it means?”

Batman felt cold and ill, although his face betrayed nothing, not even surprise. “I think that Jack Danish visited his wife earlier tonight and killed her in cold blood. And I think he’s taunting us with it.”

Joker looked confused. “So, that’s his name? Jack?”

“Maybe,” said Batman, giving Joker the envelope to hold. “It makes sense. She trusted her attacker enough to invite him into her home and take him into the kitchen to talk. And then the killer left behind the marriage certificate for us to find – it makes sense it’s the birth certificate that binds him to his wife. I’ll look into it more on the computer back at home – look where they were married, if there was a divorce, those kinds of things. I might be able to find a motive as to why he might have killed her. Maybe a divorce that led to unfair consequences, like not enough custody over a child...”

Joker pointed. “What about that?” he asked, but he looked resigned, like he already knew.

Batman lifted the white envelope again, slitting his eyes at it like he’d see new text decrypted in the paper. Of course, there was nothing, and he sighed, converting to common sense and not careful intellect. His eyes subconsciously strayed to the victim, and then he understood. Any colour that might have been in his face before leeched out, making him feel sick and hollowed. “He wants us to cut her open,” he said, his face impassive. “The clue to find the next piece of the puzzle is inside her.”

Joker looked at her. “Huh,” was all he said. And then he giggled, quick and cold. The sound was over in seconds.

Reluctantly, Batman picked his way to her and gently rolled her over onto her back, her head lolling limply on her neck as her frosty eyes flashed lifelessly at the sky. Her shirt was cut into two ribbons, and down her pudgy stomach was a long, thick line of stitches. The smell of her decay was nauseating, and her blood smelt sour and sweet and salty and metallic.

“Don’t you want me to do it?” Joker asked in surprise, already stepping forwards. It would have been easier, so much easier, for someone else to do it, Batman conceded, hesitating; but he didn’t think he’d be able to cope with seeing John Doe cut into another human being again, not without fraying parts of their relationship he hadn’t known existed. Things were too fragile right now, the trust between them existent, but also strained, like pulled violin strings.

“No. I’ll do it.” Batman knelt next to her, unsheathing a Baterang with a gentle metallic sound that sounded familiar and comforting in the silence; like patrols; like adrenaline; like The Bat. “I’m sorry,” he said to her quietly, and meant it. He dug the sharp left-hand-corner tip of the Baterang into the top of the line of stitches dotting her abdomen. It pierced her with a sickly sound. He brought it down, splitting her stomach, and her dead skin resisted to the pull, like he was cutting through rubber. The comparison made him feel clammy. Her blood was wrong – the wrong colour, the wrong texture. And the smell...

At first, he thought there was nothing. “Do you think he tricked us?” Joker asked into the stifling silence, both of them peering grimly into her open abdomen, which spilled starbursts of innards like a mature flower.

“No. If he said there was a clue, then there is.” And he believed that. So Batman sheathed his hands in her body, and he started to rummage around inside her, feeling for anything that didn’t feel like fat or muscle.

“So... much... gore.” Joker giggled quietly, wrapping his arms around himself. “Feel anything?”

With morbid triumph, Batman pulled his hands out of her, holding up a wadded-up plastic bag. It was slicked with sickly fluid.

Curiously, Joker came closer to him, peering over at the bag. His breath ghosted over the Kevlar over his neck, and Batman had the alarming vision of him breathing directly onto his neck, and he shivered privately to himself. “What’s in it?”

Batman opened it. Inside there was... a mountain of powdered red glass. “It seems to be glass,” he said blankly, incredulous. “Red glass.”

“Any idea what that means?”

“Not yet.” He stored it. “I’ll take it in for analysis.”

“Yes, sir.” Joker hesitated. “So... are we going now, buddy?” And there he was, John Doe eroding wearily through The Joker, and that’s how Batman knew the investigation was closed.

“Yes,” he said. He’d scoped the entire place, and had a suspect, and some things to follow up with in the cave. And he felt as exhausted as Joker looked. “Yes, we’re going.”

Batman contacted the GCPD to take over the scene, and prepared for leaving. And then they did, neither of them talking, as the silence enveloped them like a bitter fog of poisonous gas.

When they got back to the manor, Joker unceremoniously disappeared without a word, probably to change. Bruce didn’t follow him, thinking that he probably needed some time to himself. Instead, he got changed into a comfortable pair of brown jeans, paired with his favourite button-up, and picked his way to the kitchen, where Alfred was wiping down the counters with cleaning spray and a ragged cloth.

“Ah,” said his butler upon his arrival. “Master Wayne. You’re back. Dare I ask if you had any luck? You look terrible.”

“I found a woman dead, Alfred,” Bruce confided exhaustedly, immediately crossing to the coffee machine. He switched it on after checking it was full, and watched trickles of hot black coffee ooze into his favourite mug. “It was probably the killer’s wife. He stabbed her in the back over five times, in the comfort of her own home, after she willingly let him inside... unless he threatened his way in, but...” He shook himself free of his vulnerability, loathing himself.

Alfred stopped cleaning, going white to his collar. “That’s terrible, sir.”

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