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10. Get out of Arkham
As they approach New Year’s in Arkham, the counsellors start talking about fresh starts and resolutions. There’s a calendar up in Dr. Quinzel’s office that says JANUARY in big happy letters, and she’s been inviting each of her patients to write down a list of ten goals for the new year.
Bruce doesn’t write anything down, so Dr. Quinzel tells him to think about it. “Try to be honest with yourself,” she tells him. “Try to figure out exactly what needs to get done. Visualizing your goals makes them easier to accomplish.”
He can’t think of anything, though. Later, walking the halls back to the library where he spends most of his time, he tries to force his thoughts into order. He should have bigger goals than a lot of the people in here. His sentence will be up in eight months. Commissioner Gordon’s testimony had absolved him of all the deaths caused by Harvey Dent, and the murder he’d actually caused, the one that he’d turned himself in for, had been ruled manslaughter. All in all, he was given a year in Arkham. This time next August, he’ll be a free man.
Always give yourself a freebie, Dr. Quinzel had said. Something that you know you can accomplish. He mentally puts Get out of Arkham on his list. He’s pretty sure he can accomplish this one.
##
9. Stop this relationship
The Joker makes sounds when Bruce fucks him, tiny animal sounds of desperation. This is the real you, Bruce thinks. I don’t know your name but I know what you look like when you’re about to come. It’s almost intimate.
The Joker licks up Bruce’s palm and then drags it down to his own cock. Bruce takes the hint, grabs and pulls in a rough stroke, just once. The Joker grunts and bucks into his hand and Bruce lets go of him, grabbing the Joker’s hands and pinning them to the counter.
They’re in the bathroom, which is currently empty although someone could come in at any minute. Bruce is beyond caring if they get caught, because he’s long since decided that what happens in Arkham will stay here when he leaves. This is a different world in here, one that doesn't have any link to the so-called real one.
The Joker tries to twist his hands free, digging his fingernails into the back of Bruce’s hand, and Bruce pushes all the way inside him, bending him further over the counter. The mirror reflects back impressions of them, but Bruce doesn’t look. He doesn’t want to see the animal look on his own face.
The Joker rears his head back, trying to get Bruce in the teeth. This is a game they play. Bruce hangs onto his wrists, and for a brief second they catch eyes in the mirror. The Joker’s eyes are dark, pupils wide.
The Joker squirms in his grip, his lips parting to let out a half-gasped noise. Bruce knows that noise, knows it better than his own heartbeat, and he bites down on the Joker’s shoulder, slamming into him. The Joker shudders around him, clenching tight. He makes shaky jerks of his hips, his hands squeezing Bruce’s.
Bruce keep it going just three more strokes of his hips before he spills over. For a span of time, there is nothing in his head but white noise. When it comes back, his face is buried in the Joker’s shoulder, his eyes closed. The Joker is pressed against him, his flesh hot, his flanks shuddering with his breath.
When they part, it’s in silence. The Joker slips away to wherever it is he goes after these things. Bruce goes to the library, or his cell, and plays that white-noise feeling back like a news reel in his head.
##
8. Get my life back
By ‘life’ he means routine; by ‘my’ he means Bruce. The therapists have scraped the last of Batman out of his skull now and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He thinks back on the life that he had before but it's hard to remove the Batman threads from it. You can’t take half of yourself away and call yourself whole.
He’s pretty sure he’d be able to do the day-to-day stuff, wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, read the paper, etc. It’s just that that doesn’t make up a life, and when he starts to think about goals, he thinks saving Gotham and when he thinks about hobbies he thinks about jumping from a rooftop with his arms spread wide and when he thinks about romance he thinks about—
Anyway he doesn’t think there was a time in his life that Batman wasn’t present one way or another. Because Batman is vengeance and that entered his life when he was eight years old.
##
7. Buy Gordon a drink
The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that not telling Gordon his secret identity was kind of an asshole thing to do. He had his reasons, of course, and they were damn good ones. But Gordon put himself out there on the front lines for Batman, risking his life, giving him his trust, and Batman refused to pay him the simple courtesy of a name.
It’s hard to say if they’ll still be friends after this. Their relationship was built in shadows, at crime scenes, on rooftops. Bruce Wayne moves in a different world now. Still, the least he can do is buy the man a drink.
##
6. Visit my parents’ grave
This is the longest he’s ever been without visiting his parents’ grave. He almost wonders if they will recognize him. It’s not so much that he’s changed on the outside, because he hasn’t. But he’s a man wearing a Bruce suit right now and he wonders, if they looked into his eyes, whether they would notice.
##
5. Take up smoking
Because really that’s what it’s going to take for him to forget this. He needs some sort of addiction, something that really gets under his skin, something that squeezes in tight in his life and pushes out everything else.
The Joker gets under his skin like nothing else and he doesn’t mean that in a “he’s so annoying” way (although he certainly can be). He means that in a “I think of you so much that I hear your heartbeat in my ears” kind of way, a “I taste you in the back of my throat” kind of way. Because if Bruce is half a man, the Joker is too, except where Bruce is a secret identity without an alter ego, the Joker is a mask with nothing behind it. Bruce can put him on and maybe together they make something whole, however grotesque it might be.
And once New Year’s comes, he’s giving it up for good. He needs something to replace it.
##
4. Stop lying to myself.
Bruce doesn’t put that one on his list.
##
3. Raise the dead
The police must have seized his replacement Batman masks and tools. They must have cleaned out under the manor. If Bruce knows Alfred, there are probably some bits and pieces hidden away, but the second he goes out as Batman, everyone is going to know who he is. He can’t risk it. Can he?
##
2. Diversify my portfolio
There are other cities in America that could use a helping hand. There probably are other cities in America that haven’t even heard of Batman. Bruce Wayne is a man who has money to travel. He doesn’t even need to leave Gotham permanently to do it. After all, Gotham doesn’t exist in a bubble. Organized crime has webs stretching all over the globe. He can make a difference out there, and still have time for Gotham and his other hobbies. Like base jumping.
##
1. Give up
They get virgin egg nog with their dinners and in the hour that remains before they have to report to their cells, Bruce and the Joker steal away to the library. It’s quiet in there tonight; most of the inmates are in the television lounge, watching the fireworks on the news as the new year hits the time zones ahead of them.
In the dark corner they find, Bruce fumbles with the Joker’s prison uniform. Bruce can smell the prison soap on the Joker’s skin and the egg nog on his tongue. He feels the smooth silk of the Joker’s skin under his knuckles when he manages to get the uniform out of the way.
He doesn’t have much time. Less than an hour and this is over. The Joker is ready in his hand and Bruce’s own erection is pushing against his pants. He wants this so badly his hands are trembling.
The Joker’s lips find his and they kiss clumsily, sinking down to the floor. Bruce sheds his pants and drags the Joker on top of him. Their bodies fit together comfortably. The Joker finds his way inside of him, filling him up, and as they strain together on the floor Bruce forgets about the time slipping away. All he can think about is trying to pull the Joker closer, let him in deeper, jam themselves together into one whole person for this short length of time. He’ll never be able to give this up. He knows this so completely that it seems absurd he ever thought he could.
When they’re done, they lie together for a moment, just breathing. Bruce is still holding the Joker tight. The library floor is gritty underneath him. The Joker finds his mouth with his own and they kiss, slow and lazy. Somewhere down the hall, they hear the inmates cheering the new year in a different time zone. Bruce feels the Joker’s heart beating against his throat.
Happy New Year.