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Chapter Text

Following his brutal assault on Oswald Cobblepot, Bruce, upon regaining his senses, finds himself in a padded cell in Arkham Asylum, still suffering from the effects of the drug injected into him. He is greeted by an orderly, who lets two of his father’s victims into his cell and gives them a taser. Though he puts up a fight, Bruce is subdued and beaten by the men, only to be saved by another inmate. As Doctor Leland arrives, she asks Bruce what happened, to which he can choose to tell the truth. As they leave for the recreation room, Leland introduces the inmate as their name for him, “John Doe”.

As they are taken through Arkham, Bruce sees how derelict the conditions are due to his father’s misuse of the asylum. Bruce and John Doe arrive at the recreation room, and Leland leaves them to attend to another matter. As John leaves to get the TV remote, he gives Bruce a key. When John returns, he switches to the news channel, showing one of Dent’s addresses to the city. If Bruce tried to use the key, John will laugh, revealing it to have been a fake and amused that Bruce “actually tried to use it”. 

Offering to help Bruce escape from the asylum, John asks for a favor, but will go through with his plan regardless of whether or not Bruce accepts. He starts a riot by cutting Victor Zsasz’s cheek and causing the killer to have a psychotic breakdown and attack another patient.

Bruce decides to use the opportunity to escape and use the phone. After calling Alfred to get in contact with the family lawyers, John will appear at the gate and tell Bruce to “ask the Vales”. Shortly afterwards, Bruce is taken by Doctor Leland and an orderly to his cell.

Following the riot, Bruce is questioned on the events and asked to tell Leland what happened. However, in the midst of these questions, Alfred arrives to take Bruce to Wayne Manor, having been able to rally the lawyers to release Bruce on bail. Despite Doctor Leland’s protests, Bruce is released into Alfred’s care and given permission to leave the asylum. As he leaves, he briefly encounters John, who tells Bruce that he will see him on the outside.

Returning to the Batcave, Alfred worries about the effects the Arkham drug is having on Bruce. Using a record of his DNA, Bruce is able to make and inject a cure. After being cured, he decides to follow John’s advice and investigate the Vales as Batman so he can work out Vicki’s plan.

But first, Alfred tells him to rest.

Bruce’s back hurt from how long he had been sitting bent over the Batcomputer, staring at the same image in front of him. The dull ache was just one more item on a long list of things wrong with his body; the cuts on his face, the bruised knuckles that he didn’t remember getting, the still-healing taser wound that had caused so much trouble, the usual scrapes and bumps and cuts that came from being Batman, the bruises from the inmates, and, of course, the fact that his head was still wildly spinning. It must have been a side effect of the drug that had been ravaging his system up until a few hours ago, combined with the bodily trauma that had been inflicted on him and the disorientation that came from waking up and finding himself in a blood-soaked bed in Arkham Asylum. 

Arkham. That prison. That nightmare. At just the thought reminder of the place, Bruce’s heart started beating frantically faster, like his body was priming him to run. And the thought of running made it even worse, because now he was thinking about how, in Arkham, he couldn’t run, he couldn’t escape, he couldn’t outfight them, he just had to lay there in the fetal position while they punched and kicked-

But, Bruce remembered, that was only for a few seconds. It felt like it had never stopped, but it was only a few seconds. Then he came with his whirling hands and his manic laughter and his bright eyes, and reached out a warm, soft hand to pull Bruce back into the land of the living.

Arkham was the land of the dead.

Bruce realized that he had gotten lost in his thoughts again, and shook his head, pulling himself back to the present, to where he could enjoy what was in front of him. A picture of him, the only picture that Bruce had been able to find. The same light purple shirt under the same white scrubs, the same wild green hair and too-wide grin. Oh God, that grin. Bruce would never forget anything about his savior, but especially not the grin. 

Bruce had been staring at this precious picture of his new friend for four hours, minimum; after giving Bruce the antidote and making a game plan, Alfred had implored Bruce to go to bed and rest his tired, broken body and brain. “In a minute,” Bruce had said. “I just need to stay here and finish up some things first.” And now, in the middle of the night, here he was. 

His thoughts were prone to wandering, especially into tunnels and dark places, but he had absolutely no desire to relive the terror that he had felt in Arkham, so every time he felt himself slipping back there again, he redirected his brain back to how he had felt when the grinning savior had reached for his hand; like a lone shining star had broken through the clouds of insanity and blame and fear and sadness and anger. Bruce had been having the hardest week of his life, and Harvey Dent had betrayed him, the Wayne company had abandoned him, Oswald had scorned him, and the public had all but crucified him. He had woken up in the dim, dirty room with greenish white padding that looked like something straight out of a nightmare, and he had been attacked as his world was shifting and blurring, and he had used every ounce of his being to hide it, to put on a good face for the world, even now, when the world had tossed him away, and he knew that he had never felt so trapped and terrified since-

Since the night that he had been forced to see in a new light, now.

And only one person had cared for him. Bruce knew he had blindly followed the madman around like a lost sheep; with his kind words and his help and his unwavering interest in Bruce, John had made it incredibly easy for him to do so. It was rare for Bruce to find someone who was completely willing to follow him through anything, through all the shame and all the mistakes he had made, without holding him to an impossible standard. It was even rarer to find someone who Bruce was just as willing to be devoted to.

John had known that Bruce Wayne was Batman. He had known that Vicki Vale was Lady Arkham. And he had known exactly what Bruce had needed, trapped in that dark, cold, unreal hell, more than anything: a friend.

Bruce didn’t know how to win his company back or make people like him again or keep Selina on the right path or protect everyone from the danger of Lady Arkham. He only knew that John would be on his mind for the rest of his life.

Bruce’s tired, obsessive thoughts were like a record player, repeating over and over. He knew Alfred was probably right about getting some sleep. He also knew that if John Doe ever got out of Arkham, which Bruce wouldn’t put past him, he would follow the madman to the ends of the earth.

Not out of any sense of obligation, or to return a favor, like he had promised in that dark hallway. Simply because when someone saved your life, when someone gave you the world, they also became your world. Arkham Asylum was dark. Arkham Asylum was blurry. Arkham Asylum felt like loneliness and terror. And in his cold, tired, drugged state, Bruce knew he had imprinted onto John Doe like a wet baby duckling.

It wasn’t rational. But Bruce was crazy now, according to the world. Why couldn’t he lean into it a little? Why couldn’t he hunch himself over the Batcomputer in the dead of night, staring into the eyes of someone who would probably never see the light of day again?

A soft bump behind him, and Bruce Wayne jumped up with all the frantic speed of a fighter. He put his hands in a defensive position. He clenched them into fists in front of his chest. He tried his best to purge the terror from his eyes. He would not be beaten again.

“Master Wayne?” a voice said softly from the shadows. “Bruce? It’s just me. Alfred.”

Bruce stood still. He tried to remember how to make his mouth work.

“Oh,” he said finally, in a small voice. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s understandable, Bruce,” Alfred said, and put a reassuring hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “You’ve been through hell these past few days. I’m worried about you.”

Alfred’s gaze went over Bruce‘s shoulder, to the image of John that Bruce had been staring at; the bright eyes, the wide grin. Alfred’s eyes darted back and forth over the codex entry about him. Bruce had tried to write something objective at first, he had tried to write what Batman would say, but then sometime around midnight he had changed his mind, deleted the objective paragraph talking about debts and drugs and a million other things that had had no meaning in Arkham, and below John’s name he had written one simple sentence:

He saved my life.

“What happened in Arkham?” Alfred said quietly.

Bruce sat down in his chair again with shaky limbs. He started talking, right from the beginning where he woke up in a strange place, in a puddle of fresh blood, with no idea when or if he would ever get out. He took Alfred through the long, winding hallways illuminated only by red lights, he described the other tortured inhabitants of that nightmare with enough detail to make Alfred suck his teeth in sympathy and horror. The words flowed out of him like blood from an open wound, as he described how the actual blood had flown when the man with the tally marks had stabbed someone over and over again. He described how he had appeared in a whirlwind of white and purple and green, and the striking colors of his voice, brown and dark sharp red. He described the false key, the tally marks, the maniacal laughter, the way the blood flew, every moment, every remembrance, in careful detail. He described all the madman had done for him, for no reason other than an obsession cut from the same thread as his own.

“If it wasn’t for him, I would still be in there,” Bruce finished. “Drugged, losing my grip on sanity, waiting until someone finished me off.”

Alfred was silent for a minute. Bruce understood. It was a lot to take in. It was even more to live through.

“Then… I understand why you’ve been fixating on this man,” Alfred said slowly. “I don’t necessarily agree with you, but I understand.”

“He saved my life,” Bruce repeated. It felt like a child’s petulant whining.

“You need to sleep, Master Bruce,” Alfred said gently, putting a hand on Bruce’s shoulders (just as he had done). Bruce leaned into Alfred’s arm - he had forgotten in his obsessive reverie, but he was beyond exhausted. A yawn forced its way out of his throat, and he became aware of an ache in his jaw. It could have been from a defense punch from Oz, or a wound from the beating he had received in his asylum room. There was no real way of knowing.

“Let’s turn this off,” Alfred said, pressing a button that made the Batcomputer’s yellow glow go black. Bruce had always thought the gold color was pretty; like candlelight. He had been too lost in the fog of his thoughts to notice it before. 

Bruce felt the sting of tears pricking his eyes.

“I know,” Alfred said, running a warm hand through Bruce’s hair. “You’ve been through so much. Now you need to rest.”

Bruce’s chin quivered and his eyes were wet, but he pushed it down. So many things had gone wrong. If he started crying he would never stop.

Alfred stood up, and Bruce Wayne stood up, and Alfred wound his arm around Bruce’s shoulder, walking him up out of the black Batcave and into his bedroom. Bruce laid down on his bed, still in his clothes, and curled up on his side. Wait, no. No. He couldn’t lay like this. Panic flooded through his veins, enough to register through the blanket of tiredness. He had been curled up on his side, helpless, when the two inmates were punching and kicking him-

Bruce adjusted, and rolled over onto his back, as Alfred tucked the blankets in around him. Bruce liked his blankets drawn over him heavily and tightly, and Alfred knew that from years of childhood nightmares. Alfred sat down on the edge of Bruce’s bed, and smoothed his hair tenderly. 

“If this man escapes from Arkham,” Alfred said, “if he hurts anyone, you’re going to have to take him back. No matter what he’s done for you.”

Bruce couldn’t meet Alfred’s eyes. 

“Can you do that?”

Bruce forced out a barely audible “yeah”. He didn’t think Alfred believed him. He didn’t think he believed himself.

Alfred stood up. “Sleep well, Bruce,” he said, and walked over to the bedroom door, turning the yellow light out, just like he used to do when Bruce had been a timid scared kid. He hesitated, looking back at Bruce. The bright gold light from behind turned him into a silhouette, and beamed a line over the foot of Bruce’s bed.

“I’m not going to wake up in Arkham,” Bruce said quietly, as if to convince himself.

“No,” Alfred said. “You’re not.”

Bruce’s limbs were heavy.

Alfred closed the door.

The room was pitch black, and Bruce’s thoughts flared up, John’s image flared up, in the center of the room like a lighthouse. Bruce saw John, his hands, his grin, his face, his laugh, he replayed every memory until he could recite what had happened to him like a chant, like a prayer.

Again, and again, and again.

Chapter Text

Bruce decides to go to the press conference as himself, in the hopes that it will help rebuild his reputation and show support for Gordon. Before the meeting, the two meet, with Bruce trying to reassure Gordon’s doubts about being Commissioner. If he unmasked himself to Lady Arkham, Gordon will notice the missing chunk of ear, which Bruce brushes off as having cut himself while shaving. Gordon offers support following Harvey’s fall from grace and tells him that his influence is more powerful, following his assistance in stopping Cobblepot. He also mentions how he wishes Batman was here to see this. During his speech, Gordon compliments how citizens have come out to help the city and tells the public about how Bruce Wayne is one of such. Bruce then delivers his speech, apologizing for his family’s actions and announcing his plans to put his wealth to use helping the city recover. After Bruce announces plans to improve Arkham Asylum, an assassin tries to attack the event by driving a van through the crowds at Bruce. Bruce dodges the attack and knocks out the assailant. As the event descends into panic, Bruce stares into the distance, wondering who could have organized such an attack.

At the Stacked Deck bar, John Doe, who has somehow left Arkham, watches the news report. After seeing the chaos unfold, he promises to see Bruce soon.

But not yet.

Bruce’s dreams were a troubled storm of images, splashes of blood and wild grins and dark green clouds. Red laughter. The yellowy browns and the tall dusty shining pillars of the church beneath Arkham. The dark unreality of the madhouse cafeteria. The pale green of his padded cell.

Bruce Wayne, the mild-mannered billionaire playboy, had been powerless in Arkham. Batman, the caped crusader, had fared a little better. Going back to Arkham so soon could have destroyed Bruce. It could have rendered him ineffective to save Alfred. It could have made him powerless again. So he had simply pretended that Bruce Wayne wasn’t there. Bruce Wayne was back at home, thinking about John Doe and Alfred and Selina and everything else that mattered. Batman was here, doing what needed to be done. Batman was powerful. Batman was strong. Batman could always do what it took, and Batman could save Bruce Wayne’s only family. 

Bruce had always meant for Batman to be a symbol of hope for the downtrodden people of Gotham, but this was the first time that he realized that the masked vigilante had also become a symbol of hope for Bruce Wayne. 

With Batman, Bruce didn’t always have to be himself. He could put on the mask, and all his earthly troubles would be put away, too, for a little while. The other troubles were bigger, and more dangerous, but they never felt real, as if Batman was a knight from a storybook, battling the monsters and saving the innocents. It was all simple that way. Only as Bruce Wayne did danger really sink in. Only as Bruce Wayne was he vulnerable. 

And in the asylum, he had been so, so vulnerable.

When Bruce was rescuing Alfred, there had only been one moment, up in the asylum, on the ground where his nightmare had played out just a few days before, where he had felt like Bruce again. That had been in the cafeteria, after the man with the tally marks had nearly gotten him and then had been shot by the newly appointed Commissioner Gordon. After the inmates’ and orderlies’ blood had spattered the walls, the same way a defenseless man’s blood had been spattered before, when the man with the tally marks, provoked by John, had stabbed him over and over and over again.

The near miss with the man with the tally marks had been awful, but even that wasn’t the moment that shook Batman out of his invincibility for a second. No, it was when he looked over and saw him, leaning against a nearby table and clapping as casually as if he had been watching a play. When John Doe had carved out a second in all the chaos to acknowledge him, even as Batman. It had only confirmed what Bruce already knew: that the madman was cunning, cunning enough to figure out that Bruce Wayne was Batman, and that he was devoted, devoted enough to be a friend to Bruce in the middle of a minor war.

It was one moment out of the blurry chaos that was Alfred’s rescue. But it had seemed so, so slow. He was sure John had seen the effect he had had on Bruce, to knock him off guard and right into the moment. Yes, John wouldn’t miss that. 

He could have escaped the asylum in the chaos. Bruce knew that. He had most likely been watching Bruce’s speech, over the news or maybe in person, when a crazed assassin had tried to shoot him. But as Batman or civilian, Bruce would not be victimized again. 

As Bruce woke up, he found himself wondering if his response had lived up to John’s expectations.

Bruce sat up and looked around his cold, empty room. His ear was bandaged, after the wound had started to bleed again. His body ached from a myriad of injuries, ranging from bruises to broken bones. It would take a while before Batman could perform to his full potential again. But even if Bruce had a few scrapes, that wouldn’t stop him from going out to the rooftops every night, trying to save the world one prevented crime at a time. Nothing short of death would stop him.

The asylum had tried to claim Bruce again. But they weren’t counting on Batman. Vicki Vale wasn’t counting on Batman. She was expecting that he would show up, sure, but she wasn’t expecting that he would be strong enough to beat her. She wasn’t expecting that he would challenge her view of Bruce Wayne. She wasn’t expecting that he would be Bruce Wayne. And he wasn’t. Not really. He was a role that Bruce performed, a mask that allowed him to set aside his human weaknesses and fears and do what was necessary to protect the city, his family, his friends, and himself. Batman was a shining statue that everyone could aspire to.

Alfred would normally have been coming into the room at around this time, to remind Bruce that breakfast was ready, usually some delicious combination of eggs, bacon, toast, and oatmeal, but the butler had been relieved from his duties so that he could take time to recover. It wouldn’t be enough on its own, though. A break was necessary, but it couldn’t magically fix everything. Bruce wished Alfred would see a therapist too, but it had taken enough arguing to convince Alfred just to take a break, so for now, at least, this was the best he could do. 

Bruce didn’t want to imagine what Vicki Vale had put Alfred through. He was just relieved that Alfred was back and could focus on healing, both mentally and physically. Maybe Bruce could take the time to heal, too.

‘Healing’ didn’t mean forgetting about him, though. No matter what Alfred said or implied. ‘Healing’ meant resting and training, making peace with his parents and his bygone old and new friends, focusing on taking back his power, on being the best Batman he could be, until he was ready to meet John Doe again. His gut told him that John would show up when Bruce was ready, and not a moment sooner or later.

Anyone else would have said it was insane for Bruce to be so fixated on a man he had only met twice. What did Bruce himself have to say about this? He would have been driven insane if not for John’s intervention, all alone in that place, in the dark, and there was no amount of itching obsession that could even come close to fully acknowledging that.

It really did feel like an itch. (That was ironic, considering the man with the tally marks had said the same thing about killing, before he had stabbed another man over and over again with John’s knife, before he had made the blood fly. Bruce had been too scared and blind to stop it.) Not seeing John felt like an itch, like Bruce just wanted to scratch something, punch something, do something, anything, to distract himself from the gnawing hole where John was supposed to be. 

With this thought, Bruce stood up from the warm bed, his bones cracking. All he could do was train, be ready, and then John would come to him. And Bruce knew he would enjoy it.

Bruce pulled back the dark red bedroom curtains. He wasn’t in Arkham. He hadn’t woken up in Arkham. The cell he had been trapped in didn’t exist anymore. Vicki had blasted a hole right through the center of the floor, the only thing Bruce would ever thank her for. Now the cell only had shape as it was in Bruce’s memories, and in his darkest fears.

The sun shone through the window panes, making patterns on Bruce’s bed and warming his chilled skin. It rested on the tops of buildings and trees like a fluid being, and reflected off the harbor with all the brilliance of God.

If only John could have been beside him to see the sun.

Chapter Text

Bruce, with Alfred beside him, attends Lucius Fox’s funeral. He consoles Tiffany, broken by the news, about her father’s death, and offers to look after her. Tiffany asks Bruce whether the device she had seen on the day of Lucius’s death was responsible for it. If he says so, Tiffany threatens to investigate what the two were involved in and expose it to the world. She leaves Bruce to talk to her mother and siblings.

As Bruce looks at Lucius’s casket, he hears a familiar voice talking to Tiffany. Turning around, he discovers that John Doe is here, and quickly pulls him aside to talk to him. John hands over a ‘get well’ card for Bruce, and reveals that he was released from Arkham Asylum after being deemed sane by Dr. Leland and the rest of the staff. He also asks Bruce to return the favor he promised by meeting a group of friends John made, called ‘the Pact’. 

Bruce also learns that John is an enemy of the Riddler. John leaves shortly after the funeral ends, promising to keep in contact with Bruce and give him information on how to locate the Riddler. As the attenders leave, Bruce and Alfred discuss the information they have learned and decide to inform Gordon.

But that’s not all there is to talk about.

John was nowhere to be found. He had disappeared as fast as he had appeared, unpredictable and interesting. Bruce walked out of the gray stone church with a spring in his step, humming a small tune, and he knew that he was out of place after a funeral but he couldn’t stop. John was here. John was back, and that news was the best news Bruce had heard in a long while. 

“So,” Alfred said, accompanied by a shaky hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “That was John Doe?”

“Yeah,” Bruce replied, still not looking at Alfred, or anything else in particular. His brain was busy replaying every detail of the interaction, and especially every moment that Bruce had gotten a reasonable excuse to touch John. When he had grabbed John’s arm to drag him away from a grieving Tiffany, when John had leaned into him to take a very conspicuous selfie, when John had squeezed past him through the tight wooden pews. Just the thought of it made Bruce feel like floating. John was back.

“What did he want?” Alfred asked, with a hand around Bruce’s arm. Bruce didn’t like how feeble Alfred’s arms had felt around him lately, but now wasn’t the right moment to focus on that. 

“To see me,” Bruce said with a smile. He came to the funeral just to see me. “He got released from Arkham a few months ago. He seemed a little lost, but he said he made a new group of friends. Something about a ‘pact’.”

Alfred’s face fell. “That sounds slightly suspicious,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” Bruce agreed. “He wanted me to go meet them. Said I owed him a favor, for helping me get out of Arkham. I’m going to give him a favor, all right. But it might not be the type of favor he’s expecting.”

“You think he expects you to participate in crimes?”

Bruce looks down at the ground. “I don’t know.”

Both of them were silent for a moment. Bruce tried not to think of, if John wanted him to go against his morals, whether he would be able to refuse. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“You want to get him away from these ‘friends’,” Alfred said matter-of-factly. 

Bruce nodded. “He’s a mental patient. Or, former mental patient. He’s vulnerable. I get the feeling he doesn’t have a lot of connections besides me. Exactly the kind of person a criminal gang would target.”

The trees shifted in the wind over Alfred’s and Bruce’s heads as they walked to the car, fortunately not in the same direction as Tiffany and the rest of Lucius’s family. That could have made this even more of a disaster. Bruce had thought that he could salvage their argument over the Riddler’s puzzle box, but after John’s entrance, maybe not.

As if reading Bruce’s thoughts, Alfred whispered, “Out of all things, why did you take a photo with him?”

Bruce looked down. There was no good answer to give. “He pulled out his phone and insisted. I don’t think he understands funerals.”

Alfred’s brow furrowed. “Doesn’t understand, or doesn’t care? ”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, but I see a million things wrong with this,” Alfred said. “It could be a trap. He could be manipulating you. Just because this John fellow saved you, doesn’t mean he can do no wrong.”

“I know,” Bruce said quietly.

And he did. He had seen John stab the man with the tally marks - Bruce had since learned his name, Victor Zsasz - and start a riot that ended with another man’s blood spurting out of his chest. He knew exactly what John was capable of. He knew that John’s attachment to him only meant that John could and would do anything to keep that attachment. He knew that. And yet…

It went both ways.

When Bruce came out of his scattered thoughts, he saw that the two had reached his gaudy sports car.

“Let’s go back home,” Alfred said, and climbed through the passenger’s side door across to the driver’s seat. Bruce followed in after him.

This was the same spot that Bruce had sat in when Alfred was driving him away from Arkham, when Bruce had lashed out against two civilians who didn’t deserve it, even though they had been berating him. Every spot in Gotham had bad memories attached to it, even home. Especially home.

From an outsider’s perspective, from Tiffany’s perspective, Bruce knew he would seem uncaring. First, he had told Tiffany point blank that he had given Lucius the tech that had killed him. Second, he had been obviously and loudly talking and even taking selfies with an out-of-place friend, a friend who had insulted Lucius’s memory to Tiffany’s face. Third, leaving the funeral and getting into his bright red car, as if he was obnoxiously flaunting his money and privilege. He could afford to drive away from the situation and get right back into his exciting, expensive life, only a beat of time wasted. Tiffany couldn’t wake up from this. She would be painting a picture in her head of Bruce Wayne as an inconsiderate billionaire, who only had time to care about things when they benefited him.

The worst part was that it might be true.

The car drifted down the shabby roads, under the shadows of skyscrapers, past the homeless people with cardboard signs on the sidewalks, and Bruce stared out the window the whole time.

If John was really caught up with a gang, how was Bruce going to convince him to cut ties with them? He had no idea if their bond was deep enough that John would abandon this ‘pact’ for Bruce, or if it was fragile enough that pushing too hard, being too condescending, not understanding John’s perspective, could snap it.

He didn’t want to risk that.

Bruce didn’t even know the depths of John’s illness, not really. He didn’t know how much remorse and empathy he felt or didn’t feel. He didn’t know if John was as utterly wrecked for Bruce as Bruce was for him. But there was only one way to find out, and it also happened to be the way that would alleviate the anxious itching under Bruce’s skin. Friendship.

And when Alfred pulled up at the foot of Wayne Manor, and the two walked out of the car and up to the front door, Bruce happened to have his head pointed in the direction of the doorstep. And a card had been left there, vaguely shifting position in the wind. Bruce knelt down and picked up the card, a typical Hallmark greeting card with a cartoon drawing of Batman on the cover. The text on the front read, “To a real superhero.”

“A little on-the-nose,” Alfred said over Bruce’s shoulder. 

Bruce thought it was adorable.

He opened the card, and there was a picture on the inside, the selfie John had taken at the funeral. It hadn’t turned out very flattering - John’s face was split open in his characteristic wide grin, and it looked as good as usual, but Bruce had managed to make the most awkward, nervous smile that he had ever seen on a human being. The picture was probably accurate for how Bruce presented himself, and no matter what, any photo with John in it was good enough to put up on his wall.

“How did he get it printed out so fast? ” Bruce said under his breath.

On the inside of the card, John had written: See you soon! There was a little smiley face drawn below the words, and Bruce’s fingers stroked the card, trying to imagine John’s hands pressing down on the paper, folding it up and tucking the photograph inside of it. 

“Come on, Bruce,” Alfred said from through the door. “Let’s hurry up inside.”

Chapter Text

After locating the Lady of Dublin to the Gotham bay, Batman infiltrates the ship and is caught in a trap. Riddler forces Batman to solve a number of riddles in order to save the agents’ lives, but at the cost of him and Agent Avesta being blasted with an ultrasonic cannon, which could kill her. If Batman chooses to go through with the game, sparing Blake and another agent, Avesta becomes deaf.

After Batman subdues Riddler, the criminal admits that he had staged the attack to draw his allies’ attention and prove his worth to them, having been abandoned when they deemed his schemes a threat to their secrecy. He also realizes that he has been set up by another member of the group, but before he can say who it is, is shot with a poisoned dart by an unknown sniper. As Riddler dies, he reveals that the group is the Pact, leading Batman to realize that John is involved. 

Gordon, Waller, and members of their respective organizations arrive and discover what has happened. Waller, furious at Riddler’s death, takes control of the operations from Gordon. If Batman confronted Mori, Waller will demote Gordon and take control of the GCPD away from him. As her agents clear up the ship, Waller reveals that she had been trying to capture Riddler to infiltrate the Pact, having known about its existence and his ties to the group. She reveals that John Doe is a member, along with his former psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Waller also reveals her knowledge of Bruce’s true identity, forcing Batman to promise to work with her and the Agency to capture the Pact or have his identity revealed. 

Waller advises that Batman infiltrate the Pact as his alter ego, believing that Bruce Wayne would be more likely to find information about the Pact than his vigilante persona. Moments later, a series of explosions are set off throughout the city, with reports of various robberies taking place at the same time. Batman realizes that the Pact is making a move and heads off to stop a robbery on the GCPD’s arsenal, while Gordon and Waller deal with other crimes throughout the city. 

Arriving at the warehouse, Batman finds that a group of masked men have taken over the building and murdered all personnel present. After saving a lone survivor, he confronts the men and is met by their leader, Bane. A fight starts and when it is clear Bane will not get the edge, he injects himself with a chemical agent, allowing him to defeat Batman. However, before Bane can kill the vigilante, the survivor attacks him, allowing Batman to escape briefly, but he is caught again and thrown against a wall, which collapses on top of him. Unable to escape, he calls Gordon for help as Bane and his men get away.

Bruce returns to the Batcave, receiving treatment from Alfred and going over the information gathered from each crime committed by members of the Pact. Bruce decides to follow Waller’s advice and infiltrate the Pact as himself, in order to discover their plans, and to start by getting in touch with John Doe. Via text, Bruce arranges to meet up with John at the ‘Stacked Deck’.

But first, Bruce needs to rest.

The night was dark. The bedroom was vague, gray, staticky and easy to fill with imagined terrors. Bruce huddled under the blankets, and he wanted to be sick. He wasn’t entirely sure what had set him off this time. With all the chaos that had been going on lately, it could have been anything. The trauma of Arkham was always lurking just under his skin, waiting for the right - or wrong - moment to break out. Every line of his surroundings seemed to be radiating terror and helplessness. Bruce wanted to cry. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scratch his skin off. He wanted to fight against invisible assailants, to kick and claw until he could fight his way out of the feeling of helplessness he was drowning in.

He was pretty sure he was in love with John. It was an illogical thought - he didn’t think he had known John long enough or well enough to have the right to claim to be in love. But his stubborn heart insisted anyway. He needed to call John. Not to tell him anything specific - he just needed his presence. Bruce needed to be in the warmth of the same lighthouse of safety he had felt next to John in the bowels of the asylum. 

As soon as Bruce rustled the blankets off of himself, he became conscious of a cold, feverish sweat. It seemed like he was always a little bit sick these days. And his midsection hurt, a red, inescapable ache that made him want to tear his organs out of his chest.

In the dark, Bruce grappled for his phone on the bedside table. He couldn’t see it, but eventually his hand found it, and the cold metal surface felt feverish, too. His fingers flew to enter the password, and then to open the ‘call’ app. He entered the number that John had texted him with - he wasn’t sure why he could remember it without double-checking, but he could - and hoped with everything that John would answer.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang. Bruce would probably have looked pathetic from an outsider’s perspective; trembling in his bed, swathed in pitch black darkness, staring desperately into the bright beacon of his phone screen as if his life depended on it. Finally, John picked up.

“Hey, Brucie! What do you need?”

Bruce opened and closed his mouth several times. He didn’t know how to explain this. 

“I just… I need your voice. You.”

“Huh?”

It came out in a rush: “I’m not having a good time right now.”

There was a second of hesitation, and Bruce internally kicked himself, certain that he had crossed some invisible line.

“Want me to change the subject?”

Bruce’s voice wavered with relief. “Please.”

John’s voice was as red and brown as it had always been, wild energy and soothing familiarity.

“Did you find the Riddler?”

Bruce’s thoughts were pulled back to one of the many fights he had had today, the one his eardrums were still sore from. All the feelings of the day came crashing back; the guilt for not being able to protect Avesta, the fear and helplessness when Waller had said his real name, and then, later, the terror of being crushed by Bane.

Two innocent people had been seriously hurt under Batman’s watch today. One person had died.

“I did find him… but someone else made sure I couldn’t interrogate him.” Bruce took a deep breath. “Would you know anything about that?”

The response took a second to come.

“...Why would I?”

“He mentioned you,” Bruce said. “Not by name, but he called you a ‘white-faced prick’.”

“That could have been anyone,” John said in an easy, friendly voice. Bruce almost believed him. But he knew that John always had an agenda, even if he didn’t know what that agenda was. This was the man who had ruthlessly slashed someone and started a murderous riot just to get Bruce out of Arkham. Bruce would support John, always, but he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him.

Was it possible to love someone without trusting them? Was it healthy to love a trickster? Was there a way to keep his morals and stay loyal to John at the same time? These were too big and too aching of questions for Bruce to think about now, having an emotional flashback, in the middle of the night. 

“Everything hurts,” Bruce said in a small voice, like a complaining child.

Then, as another thought dawned on him: “How did you know where the Riddler would be?”

“I’ll tell ya about it soon, Bruce,” John said. “When you meet me at the Stacked Deck. We have a lot to talk about.”

The reminder of what Bruce was about to do hurt him like another bruise. Alfred and Waller wanted Bruce to pretend to be friends with the criminal gang John was working with, and then betray them. Even when Bane, a member of the gang, had just practically broken his back. Even when a woman named Harley Quinn and a man named Mr. Freeze had wreaked havoc and killed dozens of people. Even when Bruce was in love with one of the members of the gang. Even when he wanted that member to get out. Even when he was Batman. It was going to be a complicated and confusing act to play. Bruce didn’t want to go against Alfred, he didn’t want Waller to expose his identity, and he knew he didn’t have a valid reason to say no to the plan, but a heavy feeling in his gut still screamed at him that this was a bad idea. 

Then again, Bruce knew he couldn’t really trust his own judgment lately. 

“Your breathing sounds kind of… weird,” John’s voice said, snapping Bruce out of the spiral of guilt. “Are you okay?”

“A criminal really let me have it,” Bruce said, purposefully not saying Bane’s name so as not to touch on a vulnerable subject with John. “I think some of my ribs might be broken.”

“Ouch,” John said. “Do you need to rest or something? Are you sure you’ll still be able to meet with me?”

“Yeah,” Bruce hissed through clenched teeth. The pain was worse when he thought about it. “I need a distraction.”

There was a pause.

“Oh- someone else is calling me,” John said. “I have to go.”

“See you soon… wait ,” Bruce said, as a thought went across his brain that he couldn’t believe hadn’t come to him sooner. “How did you know to find me at the funeral?”

“I’ve been keeping tabs on you for a long time,” John said. “Even before I met you at Arkham. I had a little ~celebrity crush~ on you, haha.”

Bruce felt his face get warmer as John laughed. 

“And now I get to actually be friends with you! And do cool things with you and all of my other friends! It’s a dream come true!”

“If you knew how to find me, then why didn’t you come see me sooner?” Bruce asked. “I missed you.”

“Harley said I wasn’t ready yet,” John said. “You know. I wanted to wait until I was ready. I was a mess when I first got out. Until the Pack found me. They made me ready. Now I’m ready.”

“Who’s Harley?”

“I’ve really gotta go now, sorry! Bye!”

The call ended, and Bruce was alone in the dark again, left with his thoughts.

Who had called John away? Was it one of the members of the Pact? The mysterious Harley? How close was John with everyone in the Pact? Was there anyone in the Pact who could influence him for the worse?

Bruce supposed that soon, he was about to find out.

On bad days, his job felt like a losing battle. This was an awful day. And he had the sinking feeling it was about to become even worse. 

“Pull yourself together,” he said under his breath. You need to help John. You need to help the city.

But was it even possible to do both at the same time?

Chapter Text

Shortly after leaving the Stacked Deck, John receives a message from another member and the two leave to meet her. John confesses to Bruce that he has fallen in love with the person they are about to meet and asks him to help raise his reputation with her. John hotwires a car, and the person enters the car and threatens to kill Bruce unless he can give her a good reason not to. After convincing her to let him live, Bruce finds out that her name is Dr. Harleen Quinzel, and she has adopted the identity of ‘Harley Quinn’. The two discuss the introduction process into the Pact and why Bruce is joining the group. After sending John away to get her a slushie, Harley asks Bruce about his association to John and why he would be getting involved with them. When John returns, they drive away, avoiding the car’s real owner. Arriving at Wayne Enterprises, Harley tells Bruce that he is to get a device called a Phalanx Key from Wayne Enterprises for the Pact to use. Bruce agrees and leaves to get it from R&D.

After signing in at the front desk, Bruce tries to take the elevator to his office, only to find that John and Harley have followed him and knocked the guard out. Together they take the elevator to Bruce’s office, having an awkward encounter with Regina Zellerbach. After arriving in Bruce’s office, the group then takes the elevator down to his and Lucius’s secret lab. Bruce unlocks the vault and goes in to get the Key, only to find Tiffany inside.

If Bruce told her the truth about being involved in her father’s death, she confronts him about the gadgets in the vault and demands to know why he and Lucius had created such items. John then enters to find out what is holding Bruce up, only to discover that Tiffany is in there, but he promises not to tell Harley. Believing him to be involved with something dangerous, Tiffany is reluctant to give Bruce the Phalanx Key. 

If Bruce is unable to convince Tiffany to hand over the Key, she stuns John with an electrical gun and tries to escape. However, Harley catches her and reveals Bruce’s involvement with the Pact to her. Bruce is able to distract Harley from hurting Tiffany, and Tiffany flees while John gives Harley the Phalanx Key. 

After arriving home at Wayne Manor, Bruce learns of the actions Alfred has taken to shift blame for the robbery away from him, though he warns that Regina may take some convincing to stay quiet and Tiffany is closer to uncovering Bruce’s secrets. After discussing what may happen, Bruce sees the Bat-signal shining in the sky and leaves for the GCPD.

He has a lot to think about.

Bruce had had no idea what to expect from the meeting at the Stacked Deck. He had thought he would have been willing to spend time with John doing anything. He had thought that nothing could make him feel insecure about his and John’s relationship, that it was all uphill from here, at least between the two of them if not in the rest of his life. But in the excitement and the rush of meeting John and then seeing him again, he had jumped to conclusions. Despite having no concrete evidence, he had assumed that John felt the same way.

He had not been expecting to learn that John had a girlfriend.

The moment in the alley when John had said that he was in love, Bruce shouldn’t have asked if John was in love with him. He shouldn’t have assumed that the answer would be yes. He had been an idiot. 

Bruce had made the mistake of assuming that, because John wore his emotions on his sleeve, there was nothing left about John that Bruce didn’t know. But people were always more complicated than that. The only blessing was that there was still a chance of being friends with John, friends and nothing else. But considering who John was dating, even that possibility was more like torture.

Harleen Quinzel was playing John like a cheap kazoo. Bruce seriously doubted that she liked anything about John besides his susceptibility to manipulation. She had flirted with Bruce shamelessly, not even bothering to act like she wasn’t enjoying turning the two men against each other. And she had openly threatened to hurt and kill more people if Bruce didn’t cooperate, putting Bruce in the impossible position of trying to protect her feelings without hurting John’s in the process. Bruce was pretty sure he had failed at both tasks. 

He should have never accepted a sip of the slushie that Harley Quinn had offered him. In retrospect, it had been an obvious ploy at making John jealous. But that was early in the evening, when Bruce had still been naively hoping that Harley Quinn was decent enough of a person to be real friends with.

How could Bruce have misread John’s signals so completely? Of course he didn’t want Bruce the same way Bruce wanted him. And Bruce had made the evening awkward and agonizing in a million different ways. He was Bruce Wayne and Batman - he was supposed to be good at juggling the expectations of different people. But lately, it seemed like he could only make mistakes. And he was still, insanely, driven forward by the hope that he could somehow be friends with everyone. 

Heartbreak, frustration, shame, fear - too many feelings were like knives in Bruce’s side. He needed to do something, anything - he needed to talk to someone. Someone who had always been by his side, and had believed in him for his entire life.

But no. No. He couldn’t burden anyone with all this. Not even Alfred. Especially not Alfred, with how shaken and exhausted he was after being tortured by Vicki. It was a selfish thought to even entertain.

Before he had gotten in the Batmobile, the conversation Bruce had had with Alfred hadn’t exactly put his worries to rest about the old man. Alfred was strong, resourceful, determined… and he had been forced to be all those things for far too long. Now, more than anything, Alfred was tired. If Bruce’s worst fears were true, Alfred was coming apart at the seams. Alfred was the most capable person Bruce had ever known, but no one could bear the burdens of so many responsibilities and such extreme trauma at the same time, at least not without getting some serious damage along the way. Bruce should have known that better than anyone. He could feel his own mental state fraying, day by day.

Alfred always maintained that Bruce could talk to him about anything. In theory, it was true. And what a nice idea it was. Alfred was sure to have good advice, or just good comfort. But he was going through so much already. Bruce didn’t want to burden him further with his own petty problems. He was Batman, for Christ’s sake. He should be able to figure everything out on his own, find some way to make everyone happy, or what was he worth?

Now Bruce was in the Batmobile, fully suited except for his mask, speeding down the dirty streets to answer the Bat-signal. And bleeding. That was maybe the most damning evidence of how bone-tired Alfred really was: he hadn’t even noticed that, the entire time he and Bruce were talking, Bruce’s shirt had been bleeding. 

Apart from the unsuccessful nap earlier, Bruce had been going nonstop from place to place to place - and his injuries from the fight with Bane needed more medical attention than just a quick bandaging. He needed stitches, maybe some pins in his ribs if his instincts were right. But there was no time for that. Bruce didn’t want to be selfish any longer. He had a job to do, and a relationship to patch up. He needed to apologize to John for letting Harley flirt with him. He hadn’t flirted back - except for the fateful slushie - but he hadn’t made it clear that he disapproved of it, either. Bruce needed to be on good terms with John. No matter how much of a dumpster fire the rest of his life was, at least he could have that.

Bruce pushed a few buttons, and a light lit up indicating that the Batmobile was now on autopilot. The Batmobile had a built-in touchscreen, and Bruce looked through his text messages until he found what he was looking for - the photo of the pair that John had taken at Lucius’s funeral. Despite the awkward, nervous smile that Bruce was wearing, he knew this was a photo to treasure. John was grinning away, and his arm was curled around Bruce’s shoulder. A sudden ache flared up, not physical, but a longing desire to have John’s arm around his shoulder again. Or to hold John’s hand. Or even to k-

That wasn’t a feasible thought anymore. 

Bruce could appreciate John as a friend. He could get John away from Harley Quinn and whatever criminal friends she had roped into her schemes. He could make everything perfect. He had to. He was in an impossible position, but nothing was impossible for Batman.

And then an even bleaker thought came:

Batman is just an idol, a mask. He’s not you. All you are is human. A broken little human, flailing around and making everything worse. Helpless.

Bruce shelved that thought. Maybe it was true, maybe not, but that was a problem for Future Bruce to worry about. He could compartmentalize, and he would. After so many years of lying about his identity and hiding both physical and emotional pain, it was second nature by now to shed his negative emotions like an old sweater. He could be the hero or villain or whatever people needed. He could be everything to everyone. It was what he had signed up for when he had gotten out of Arkham. 

Another awful thought:

Arkham was hell, but at least when you were there, you didn’t have to pretend to be something you weren’t.

Bruce gritted his teeth as another wave of pain hit. He put his hands back on the steering wheel. Maybe concentrating on driving would allow this spiel of thought to go directly back to hell where it had came from. 

Bruce grabbed his mask and put it on. His weakness could be shelved aside for the moment. He was Batman now. And Batman was always in control.

Chapter Text

After receiving a text from John, telling him where to go to meet the other members of the Pact, Batman heads to the location as Bruce Wayne. 

When he arrives, Bruce is “kidnapped” by men working for the Pact and brought to their hideout, an old subway station. Though Harley and John are happy to get Bruce involved, Bane remains skeptical and considers killing Bruce to maintain the secrecy of the group. However, after John “accidentally” activates the EMP generator, Bruce proves himself by deactivating it, despite threats from another member of the Pact, Mr. Freeze.

Afterwards, Bruce talks to Harley, Bane, and Freeze, gaining their trust by performing actions such as promising to look after Mr. Freeze’s wife, Nora, if Mr. Freeze was ever arrested.

And there is one more member of the group, one who Bruce will always trust…

The Christmas lights glowed outside the dirty windows of John’s Ha-Hacienda, and Bruce’s eyes kept wandering to them. Alfred had been too tired to put up Christmas lights at the manor this year, and Bruce had put them up himself, stringing them as high as he could, in wobbly knots and tangles. It hadn’t reached anywhere near what Alfred could do, and all the socialites who came over for the annual Christmas party had looked at Bruce in pity, still searching for compliments that they could pay, but only out of politeness. The lights had been red and yellow.

“I decorated this place myself,” John said with a big smile on his face, like an excited kid. “This is the photo wall! Look, you’re on it!” 

John had strung pictures up in the shape of a smiley face, with a sharp red grinning mouth, and the ‘nose’ was made out of the picture he had taken at the funeral. Bruce chuckled at his own awkward smile. 

He had to forget his own complicated feelings about John and Harley. Throw them out the door of the Ha-Hacienda, leave them out in the cold. Thinking about that wouldn’t solve anything. It would only make Bruce too sad to focus on what he was supposed to do - help John get out of the Pact. That was the end goal. 

No matter if he couldn’t complain.

Well, maybe he could complain a little.

“I have had such an exhausting day,” he sighed, leaning against one of the Ha-Hacienda’s walls.

“Did Harley get to ya?” John said. “She can be… rough, but don’t worry, she doesn’t mean it. It’s just her way of communicating.” He said the last sentence quickly, too quickly, like he had told it to himself countless times before.

“No, it wasn’t Harley,” Bruce lied. “Just…” His brain whirled as he tried to find a way to explain what was going on inside him without mentioning that he was only infiltrating the Pact so that he could destroy them. Wait, he had already fought the Riddler… why wasn’t John suspicious that Bruce would be doing the same to the rest of the Pact? Was he already suspicious, and just hiding it? Belatedly, Bruce realized that he had trailed off, and that John was still staring at him with those bright eyes, waiting for an answer. Bruce came up with the first thing he could think of.

“…I’m worried that I can’t impress your friends,” he said. “I don’t think they like me.”

“Really?” John raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated expression of surprise. “You could’ve fooled me. You looked so smooth and confident out there. Even when Bane had his hands around your throat, you kept your cool! I wish I could be like that.”

Bruce felt the corners of his mouth lifting at the flattery. If John kept this up he would blush, and then that would really ruin things.

“Thanks,” he said, a little awkwardly. “It’s just from all the galas and things I have to go to. You know.”

“Well, you did a really good job of it last year, when the media was all over you about your old man.”

Bruce looked down at his hands, fidgeting and picking at each other. It wasn’t a fun subject to be reminded of, especially since, with all the pressure in the present, his last few days had been the only time that the past hadn’t been living rent-free in his head.

John continues talking, impervious to Bruce’s change in mood. “I watched a bunch of your interviews on TV - you know, I was stalking you as Bruce and Batman even before I met you - and you were awesome about keeping your cool. Just flashing that playboy smile at everyone, talking about morals and ideals and everything. I guess you don’t believe in that as much anymore, now that you’re joining a gang, huh?”

Crap. Well, it was really only a matter of time before John asked about that. There was nothing Bruce could do but ad-lib.

“Yeah, um… you know, after I found out that my dad was just as bad as the people I fight, it made me think… is this city really worth protecting?”

Bruce kept glancing at John and then away from him, trying to maintain just the appropriate amount of eye contact. Was he selling it? It was hard to tell without really focusing on John’s face. 

“So I thought I’d try standing on the other side of the tracks, because, you know, I have to know for sure. I mean, Oz was just trying to expose corruption, same as me. Same with Vicki… vale.”

“She put you in Arkham, though,” John said quietly.

Bruce’s throat closed up. He turned away from John, like he was trying to run away from something, and accidentally knocked over a case of beer in the process, making a loud clatter on the floor. He knelt down to pick it up, with shaking hands.

“I haven’t asked about you yet,” Bruce said, changing the subject. “How are, uh, how are things going with Harley?”

“I thought you’d never ask!” John’s face lit up with another one of his smiles, and it made a little warm spark go through Bruce’s chest, despite everything. “Ya know, I was almost starting to think that you didn’t like Harley.”

“No, no, I like her,” Bruce said quickly. “She’s cool. But, uh, how did you meet her? …I don’t really know what you’ve been doing these past few months. Fill me in.”

“Oh, I’ve been waiting for this!” John flopped back in the wheelchair in the Ha-Hacienda’s corner. “Here, sit down, sit down. Let’s have some, uh, beers.”

Bruce looked back behind him, and saw an uncomfortable red bed that must have been John’s. He sat down, and grabbed a handful of blanket in one hand. They were incredibly soft. 

The lights in the windows behind John lit him up, a palace of his own creation. The sharp smile on the wall, and the sharp smile on John’s face, and Bruce was struck with a sense of being a pilgrim to it all. John was Bruce’s lighthouse. 

“We met in Arkham,” John began, and his eyebrows drew together as clouds passed overhead. “After you got out. She was a psychiatrist there - Doctor Harleen Quinzel.”

Bruce didn’t say that he knew that part. He had been doing some light stalking of his own.

“She was so nice, and shiny… ”

“Really?” Bruce said, taking a sip of a beer. “She doesn’t seem that nice.”

“That’s just because she’s in a bad mood right now,” John said quickly, again like he had already been telling it to himself. “She’s in a bad mood a lot of the time now, since… you know… some hard stuff happened in her life. Since she put on the clown face.”

Bruce cast a glance to the smile in red and collage on the wall.

“Have you always been into clowns?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve always been a pretty funny guy,” John said, and took a big sip of his own beer. “To survive in Arkham, everyone needed an angle. You know, something like I’m super tough, don’t mess with me, or I’m a basket case, take pity on me. Something like that.”

“I take it I was the basket case?” Bruce said, with a hollow chuckle.

Trapped. Small. No idea what to do, how to get out. Trapped.

“No offense, but yeah,” John said. He smirked a little, and then they were both silent for a moment, as John’s eyes swept over the floor, seeming to recall memories from the other side of a curtain.

“My angle was the nice guy, ” John said. “Laughing. Conversing. Always, always smiling. All the orderlies loved me. The inmates, that was another story… but half of them couldn’t tell me from a hallucination anyway. The doctors were who could make sure that I wasn’t strangled in my sleep or something. So I made them love me.”

Bruce thought to himself, he couldn’t imagine how much energy it would have taken John to walk through that hell, day after day, and pretend that he was fine, even enjoying it. 

“But Harley was different,” John said firmly. “She told me so many times, that she doesn’t love me because of anything I could do for her. She loves me just because of who I am.”

But did she actually do anything to live up to that? Bruce wondered.

“And we had so much good times in there!” John’s grin spread and spread, and another light came into his eyes. “I loved Arkham with Harley. It all looked new.”

John paused, taking a moment to savor that feeling, before he continued his story.

“And then Harley got me out of Arkham on good behavior,” John said. His face turned flat. “And the outside world is so… confusing. People look at me like I’m a freak or a charity case. I don’t really know how to, you know, connect with anyone. But Harley knows. Harley helps me navigate. I owe everything to her.”

I could help you.

Bruce squashed that thought down - not the time - and leaned forward to put a hand on John’s shoulder. John jumped a little, startled out of his memories, but then leaned into the touch, his face losing a little of its stiffness. His shoulder was warm and comfortable.

“I’m sorry that leaving Arkham was hard for you,” Bruce said. “I would have - if you had contacted me sooner, I would have loved to help you.”

John looked away.

“Nah, I’d rather you see me when I’m in my triumphant up-and-coming,” John said quickly. “And plus, you had things to take care of, too. And now we’re both here, and we’re both doing better, and it’s all great! It really was for the best!”

I’m not doing better.

Another thought to shove aside for later. Bruce could be a good friend, and he could make this moment about John, for once.

“I’m really proud of you,” he said, and gave John a genuine smile.

Their eyes locked onto each other for a little too long.

“Awww,” John said, breaking the spell, but that was okay, because A) they couldn’t do that, and B) John’s awww smile was the best thing Bruce had ever seen. “Thanks, Brucie! That’s the spirit! Hard times are over! Friend times are ahead!”

Bruce leaned back, taking his hand off of John’s shoulder, and sipped some more of his beer. Then, with a bit of inspiration, he held it up to John.

“To friend times.”

John lit up, and brought his own beer forward to meet the two with a clink.

“To friend times.”

Chapter Text

Following their surprise meeting, Bruce and Selina formally introduce themselves. While the Pact recovers from their battle with the Agency, Bruce and Selina scan Riddler’s eyes to create retinal records. Selina also gives Bruce her condolences on Lucius’s death and reveals how she got involved with the Pact. 

Shortly after they finish, Bane returns from fighting with the Agency. Suspecting a mole among them, Harley takes control of the Pact and injures everyone who disagrees with her. Shortly afterwards, she approaches Bruce and shows him Riddler’s laptop, which is currently encrypted. Believing there to be something in his hideout that will help her decipher the laptop, Harley asks Bruce and John to investigate, Bruce also asking Selina to come along and help them. 

As the group leaves the Pact’s hideout, John exclaims, “Road trip!”

Gotham in the daytime always looked not quite right, like the city was trying to be something that it wasn’t. Today though, sitting in a car with two of his closest friends, Bruce felt that the clear-skied wholesomeness wasn’t quite misplaced.

John had elected himself to be the driver, and unfortunately that meant he was also in control of the music. For the last forty-five minutes, he had been playing the Trololo song on repeat, and Selina had had to be banished to the backseat after a scuffle over John’s phone had almost crashed the car. Now Bruce was sitting in the passenger seat, and John was allowed to keep on playing Trololo because of Bruce’s chronic inability to go against his wishes on anything. As the buildings whooshed by outside of the passenger window, Bruce wondered if John had planned it that way on purpose. 

“...You should have seen his face!” Selina said, arms gesturing wildly. “I was trying so hard to convince him that I was a good-for-nothing thief, and he refused to believe it. ‘You’ve got good inside you somewhere!’ Just… staring at me with those big, wet, puppy-dog eyes.”

“Oh man,” John laughed. “I know what you mean about his eyes. And now you’re a member of the Pact! I guess Brucie here got proven wrong, huh?”

“I still think Selina’s a good person,” Bruce said firmly. “All you have to do is change your behavior to match your character.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” John said, taking one hand off the wheel to point at Bruce. “You’re the one joining a criminal gang!”

“But I’m joining them to see if they’re moral,” Bruce said. “And because you asked me to.”

It was a good thing that Bruce had already solidified his lie in the last chapter, so that he could casually reference the supposed reasons he was doing this. It would have been suspicious otherwise. Now he was able to joke about it, as just one of the dudes. One of the gal pals. One of the platonic buddies.

“Awww,” John said. “So sentimental.”

“This coming from the person who made me a welcome banner,” Bruce said. “Thanks again for that, by the way.”

“Wait, I’m curious,” Selina joined in. “How do you guys actually know each other? I wouldn’t have exactly guessed that a billionaire would be best friends with a gang member.”

“Well,” John said, “I wouldn’t have guessed that a billionaire would be best friends with a cat burglar who took the expression literally.”

“Touche,” Selina said. “But seriously. I want to hear the story. How did you two meet?”

“It was when I was in, uh, Arkham,” Bruce said slowly. Mentioning that place made his chest hurt.

“I was… it was a lot.” (Understatement of the century.) “And John protected me. He helped me get out of Arkham. I might still be trapped in there if not for him.”

“They would’ve released you eventually, right?” Selina said. “I mean, once they realized that you weren’t actually crazy.”

“I’ve never met anyone who Arkham made saner, ” John joked, and Bruce laughed along, even though it hit a little too close to home.

“Well, I’m glad you two met, then,” Selina said. “Otherwise, if Bruce wasn’t here, how could I steal stuff from him?”

“Anyway, I got released from Arkham pretty soon after that,” John continued. “It took me a while before I was able to find Bruce again, but I was always watching him. It was cool to track you on the news and see how far along the Arkham construction project was. And when you were reinstated on the board at Wayne Enterprises~! I cried! And then a few days ago, I bumped into him at one of the Wayne Enterprises people’s funerals.”

“The one who got blown up by the Riddler?” Selina asked. 

The smile dropped off of Bruce’s face. Listening to the audio of Lucius Fox’s last seconds had been a terrible moment. Realizing that Lucius Fox was dead had been like plummeting down off of the skyscraper that he died in. Bruce had been trying not to think about Lucius too much, but his death had woken Bruce up, that whatever the Pact was doing, whatever web he was being drawn into, with the Riddler and John and Harley and everyone else, was a real cause for concern. Bruce fought criminals every day. He had gone undercover with those criminals before. But none of those criminals had killed one of his oldest friends.

Bruce realized how long he had been silent for, and that the mood in the entire car had shifted and dropped. 

“Oh my god,” Selina said, her eyes widening. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”

“It’s fine,” Bruce said, and shrugged off the dark cloud that had formed over him. “I mean, it’s not fine, but you saying that can’t really make it feel any worse or better.”

Selina turned away to watch the buildings pass outside the windows. 

“Thanks for calling yourself out on that, though,” Bruce added on, a little self-consciously, but he needed to say it. “Lots of people in the Pact wouldn’t even do that.”

“You’re talking about Harley, right?” John chimed in.

Bruce shrunk down in his seat. Crap. He had indirectly insulted John’s girlfriend to his face. The criticism against her was deserved, but that was still a horrible way to get John closer to him.

“Yeeeeeeeeeeeess,” Bruce said quietly.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not offended or anything,” John said. “I see it too.”

“Anyway,” Selina said, “where were you two in your story?”

Bruce was grateful for the redirection. “John found me at Lucius’s funeral,” he said. “And the rest is history. He struck up a conversation with me, and told me about the Pact. And I was interested. So here I am.”

“It must have been a boomerang for you,” John laughed. “Right from a funeral to a group initiation.”

“Oh, it was,” Bruce said. “But in a good way. You were a great distraction.”

John stage-gasped, and then broke out one of his customary excited grins. “I’m distracting?”

How the heck was Bruce supposed to answer that in a way that wouldn’t overstep some boundary? His face got redder, and he just opted for a small nod.

“You two seem pretty… close, ” Selina said, casting a meaningful look at Bruce.

What did that mean?

“Oh yeah, we are!” John said cheerfully. “Best of buddies. We even made a pinky promise about it!”

Whatever meaning that look had had, it had appeared to sail completely over John’s head. It was strange to see how John held himself now that he was out of Arkham - sometimes he noticed how the smallest of actions fit into a pattern, and sometimes he was oblivious to the most obvious of things.

“That’s… sweet, ” Selina said.

For a few minutes after that, there was a comfortable silence as the car whizzed past more gray looming buildings. Bruce turned his head to the window and watched the scenery zoom by, and his drifting thoughts landed on how nice it was to spend time with just John and Selina, away from the rest of the Pact. Around Bane, Mr. Freeze, and especially Harley, Bruce had constantly been second-guessing everything that came out of his mouth, paranoid that he would do or say the wrong thing and somehow make everyone hate him, or at least piss off Harley enough that she would go out and kill more people. There was a small element of that with John and Selina - Bruce wasn’t the kind of person who could have it truly perfect with anyone - but they were still both vastly different from the other members of the Pact. He would trust, and had trusted before, either one of them with his life. 

“Hey, can we stop at a gas station soon?” John piped up, breaking the silence. “I kinda have to go.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Bruce said.

“And then we can get more ~snacks~! ” John said, singing the last word. “What do you want, Brucie? Chips? Gummies? I’ll pay.”

“I’ll have… uh, some salt and vinegar chips, thanks,” Bruce replied. “What about you, Selina?”

“Can you just get me a soda?” Selina asked.

“Sure,” John said. “What kind?”

“Surprise me.”

John raised his eyebrows and broke out into another grin. “That’s a big show of trust. Do you want me to make you take a pinky promise, too?”

Selina opened her mouth to respond, but it seemed like she didn’t actually know how to respond. 

“Well, too bad!” John said cheerfully. “My pinkies are reserved for Bruce only. I don’t pinky promise around.”

Bruce had to use an incredible amount of willpower to keep himself from flopping over and short-circuiting after that. Somehow he was able to keep his expression mostly neutral, although he was definitely blushing. 

“Thanks,” he said awkwardly.

That was the kind of show of commitment that Bruce would have expected to hear from a romantic partner, and John, according to himself, was already in love with someone else. But there had been that comment earlier about Bruce being handsome, and that itself had only been the cherry on top of John’s constant attentiveness to Bruce, his open obsession, and his never-failing generosity. At this point, Bruce didn’t know what to think. John’s actions painted a picture that contradicted his words. Did he have some feelings for Bruce that he wasn’t aware of? If so, did Harley Quinn have a role in his denial of those feelings? Or was Bruce just desperate and inventing things that he wanted to be true?

“Oh, there’s a gas station!” John exclaimed. “I’ll pull over.”

Bruce shoved that train of thought out of his mind. He didn’t want his worries about the past and future to dampen his enjoyment of the present. 

“Hey Bruce, why don’t us two stay in the car?” Selina said. “You know, since this is Gotham. We wouldn’t want someone to steal it.”

“Ooh, good idea,” John said, as he backed their car into a parking space. Once the car was in park, John swung open the driver’s seat door, nearly hitting the gas station kiosk thingy with it, and got out, swinging his long legs over the seat.

“Don’t drive away while I’m gone!” John said. “Byeeeee!”

He slammed the door closed with just as much force as he had used to open it, making Bruce jump, and then he was off.

For a few seconds, no one said anything while Bruce watched John walk away. Then Selina spoke up.

“Well, he’s… talkative,” she said. 

“Tell me about it.”

“Where did he get the car?”

“From, uh…” Bruce paused, and racked his memory to see if John had ever mentioned that. “You know, I have no idea.”

Selina laughed. “You think he stole it?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You really know how to pick them, huh?” Selina smirked at Bruce. 

A moment of silence, and Bruce listened to the rustling and talking and the wind blowing, as life went on quietly outside the car.

“Hey, why were you looking at me like that earlier?”

Selina paused for a moment, taking a deep breath.

“You have feelings for John.”

Bruce felt his own eyes widen. 

“...Is it really that obvious?” he said with a small, nervous laugh.

Selina smiled wickedly. “So, that’s a yes, then.”

Bruce let his face go slack into his palm and sighed. This was embarrassing.

“John saved my life,” he said. “Is that what you want to hear?”

He could hear Selina snickering in the background.

“Well, that explains why you weren’t interested in me,” she said. “You really do gravitate towards criminals, though…”

Bruce stayed silent. 

“So, what’s the real reason you’re in the Pact?”

Crap. “What do you mean?”

Selina’s eyes stared into Bruce’s, like she was trying to see behind them into his brain. It was uncomfortable, and after a second of squirming Bruce looked down at the car’s floor.

“John might have bought it, but I know you’re way too idealistic to join a criminal gang. Your mission is to stop crime. You wouldn’t abandon that just because you have the hots for a criminal.”

“I… I’m trying to help him,” Bruce said, quietly at first, but then more sure of himself. “He’s lonely. Easy to manipulate. If I can be his friend, then maybe I can help him learn that he deserves better than his new… friends.”

Selina’s voice lost all its earlier playfulness. “What if you can’t?”

“I…”

Bruce looked down.

“I don’t know.”

There was more fear and weakness and guilt intertwined with his plan than Bruce would have liked, and it all piled up into one big heavy load of doubt that snuck up on him in moments like this. Bruce didn’t feel like he knew much of anything nowadays.

“You look tired,” Selina said.

“I’m going through a rough patch right now,” Bruce responded. “To be honest, ever since the rough patch last year.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I don’t think so,” Bruce sighed. “Everything I’m dealing with are things that I should be able to carry on my own.”

“Why?”

Bruce paused. There were a lot of different answers he could give. Because I have to be everything to everyone. Because so many people are counting on me. Because if I make even one mistake, someone could get hurt. Because people have already gotten hurt. Because I signed up for this. Because there’s no one who could help me.

He went for the simplest answer.

“Because I’m Batman.”

“That attitude is going to end up sending you into a mental breakdown,” Selina said. “Again.”

“Hey, that time wasn’t my fault,” Bruce said. “And after you were gone, I used Wayne money to fix up Arkham. It’s a lot nicer now. Or so I’ve heard. I, um, I haven’t actually been back.” ( Ever since the fight with Vicki that almost ended up claiming Alfred’s life.)

“Still…” Selina said. “Be careful.”

“Thank you for your concern,” Bruce said. It was the kind of generic, fake line that he would use to fend off too-pushy interviewers. Selina raised her eyebrows, but she didn’t push it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce spotted John walking back, dangling a plastic bag of groceries in his hand, with a spring in his step. Perfect timing.

“Do you think John actually got me a normal soda, or something insane?” Selina said.

“I mean, what kind of crazy beverage could he find at just a normal gas station?”

“I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

“Fair,” Bruce said, with a smile on his face. And then John opened the driver’s side door, and the heavier questions were put aside, as John pulled out his salt and vinegar chips for Bruce, and his soda for Selina, and his extra bag of candy hearts, also for Bruce (“a little extra something special for my best pal”), and his sour gummy worms for himself, and the trio drove and drove. The buildings of Gotham whooshed past them, and the sky beat down on them, but the car’s roof shaded them, as they cracked jokes and ate snacks and exchanged stories, laughing all the way.

Chapter Text

After learning about Harley’s laptop, Catwoman decides to steal it and stop the Pact’s plans in retribution for their possible involvement in the Riddler’s death. She steals Riddler’s decryptor from Bruce, and a fight ensues, during which Selina mentions Harley’s laptop. John asks to talk to Bruce about this new development, and the two meet at Cafe Trisle. 

John considers helping Bruce steal Harley’s laptop, but he is more focused on finding a way to get Harley Quinn to pay attention to him. Seeing an opportunity, Bruce offers to give John relationship advice in exchange for helping steal the laptop.

If Bruce tells John to be himself, John admits to being unsure about who he is, but says that he has felt his ‘true self’ trying to burst out. John asks Bruce to pretend to be Harley, so that John can practice impressing her. 

Bruce sees the Batsignal, and leaves, but not before John promises to help steal the laptop. 

Bruce, as Batman, finds Gordon on the roof of the GCPD headquarters, and Gordon informs him that he knows Catwoman has returned, and that he is organizing an ambush to arrest her. After Gordon leaves, Bruce has the opportunity to let Selina know. 

If Bruce fails to inform Selina, he then discovers John on the roof, making shadows with the Batsignal, and John offers to help steal the Riddler’s laptop from the Pact, but asks that Harley be spared from arrest. He also takes a selfie with Batman.

Later, John and Bruce agree for Bruce to distract Harley while John steals the laptop from her office. It goes according to plan, and John leaves with the laptop, without a word to Bruce. Bruce meets up with John as Batman, and John gives the laptop to Batman, despite his conflicted feelings about stealing from Harley. John then asks Bruce to teach him how to throw Batarangs, which he does.

Bruce arrives at Wayne Manor, and discovers Selina in the parlor, nursing injuries she has sustained during her fight with the GCPD. Selina tells Bruce that she has noticed the effects of Alfred’s torture, and then talks to him about the ambush and the Riddler’s laptop. 

Bruce and Selina go to the Batcave, Bruce hooking up the laptop to the Batcomputer and using Selina’s goggles to access the laptop. Selina thanks Bruce for trusting her enough to let her enter the Batcave.

But doubts remain.

The Batcave was dark, and once again, Bruce was bent over the Batcomputer, with the fluttering of distant bats’ wings, his own steady breathing, and the click click click of his fingernails against the keyboard as his soundtrack. Selina was here, bruised and bloodied, after Bruce had let the police come after her. They had talked a bit, looked over Riddler’s data together, and then Selina had wandered off, probably to wash the blood splatters off of her torso and face.

She wasn’t mad. Bruce had lied to her. She had asked him if he had known that Gordon was coming for her, and Bruce had looked her in the eyes and said that he didn’t. It had been surprisingly easy.

Selina had betrayed him again. She had stolen the Riddler’s decryptor, and she had fought Bruce and left him. She had come back later, and returned the technology too, but next time, what if she didn’t? Selina had always insisted that she was a bad person, who would betray Bruce again and again, and Bruce had always said that Selina would do better next time, that she could be a hero. And even if Selina wasn’t a hero, she was his friend.

And time and time again, Selina had proven herself right. Acted like the criminal that she said she was. 

Bruce didn’t want to be the type of person who would shut Selina out just because of her past mistakes. But he needed a friend who he could trust.

And John was shaping up to be that friend.

John had never betrayed Bruce; John had sought out Bruce in both of his identities. John had saved Bruce from a living nightmare, John had been a single ray of light in Gotham’s darkest corners, and John had continued to enrich Bruce’s life with his grins and his jokes and his gestures and his words.

And Bruce was obsessed with him. But now, it was easier to hope that the obsession was mutual.

Even if John hadn’t realized that it was. Even if John was dating someone who hated everything about him that Bruce loved. That just meant that John was in denial. And it was Bruce’s responsibility to stay by him, at just the right distance, not too close and not too far, to walk the line and do everything right, until John was able to break away from Harley once and for all. It was only a matter of time before John realized that he couldn’t depend on Harley. Bruce knew that. John was smart. He knew who to trust and who not to trust.

And John didn’t trust Selina.

Bruce knew that he was a naive person. It came with the position of being a vigilante. He needed to save everyone. Despite everything the world threw at him, he refused to stop believing that he could find a way to be on good terms with everyone. He needed to be the savior, the friend, the everything to everyone. And it was stifling. It was impossible.

Trying to play both sides had gotten Gordon to lose trust in Batman for being friendly with Waller. Trying to play both sides had gotten Agent Avesta to lose her hearing, when Batman had let her put herself in danger so he could break the two out of the Riddler’s grasp. Trying to play both sides had gotten Tiffany to think that Bruce was a criminal. He had managed to tell her the truth about his identity before their relationship was irreparably broken, but Bruce would still never forget how it had felt when she had looked at him with nothing but hate and betrayal in her eyes. Trying to play both sides had hurt John’s feelings, and even though his flirting hadn’t ended up being a big deal to John, it still was to Bruce. He just couldn’t rest easy after doing that.

Trying to play both sides had led to John and Bruce’s “date” at a cafe, when Bruce had given John romantic advice despite himself, and listened to John’s beautiful pondering about Arkham and his proclamation that Harley was his guiding light, and wishing with his whole heart that he himself was the one who those words had been meant for. 

And now trying to play both sides with Selina was turning Bruce into a liar. 

Being a vigilante meant trying to save everyone. And being a vigilante meant not being able to save everyone. And Bruce was starting to realize that he needed to make choices sometimes, hard choices and ruthless calculus about who had to be sacrificed, because not making choices would just lead to more death anyway.

Bruce couldn’t keep this up forever.

————

The warm orange flower in John’s lapel was the color of the rush going through Bruce whenever he saw John, and the brightness in John’s eyes and grin were Bruce’s light in the dark.

And at the moment, John was asking Bruce to let Selina take the fall.

There were three options. First, Bruce could be honest, tell Harley that John had stolen the laptop for him. But that was only an option in another universe. Second, Bruce could take the blame himself. But that would throw a wrench right into the center of every plan. It would compromise the operation, and all trust Bruce had managed to foster between him and Harley. It would put Bruce’s own life in danger. And it wasn’t what John wanted.

You can’t play both sides forever, a voice hissed in Bruce’s head. 

The third option… Bruce could throw Catwoman to the wolves. Betray Catwoman’s trust in the same way that she had scorned his, over and over again. But with much higher consequences. 

You need to choose, the voice said. There is no third option. You can’t save everyone. You can only be loyal to one. Selina or John. 

And you know who you will always choose.

No. There was a third option. Bruce could find some way to keep himself, Selina, and John all safe. 

“Go ahead, Bruce,” John said. “Tell Harley what you told me.”

There had to be a third option.

“Come on.”

…Right?

————

You couldn’t save everyone.

Bruce only winced as Selina was gagged and bound by Harley’s goons, as Mr. Freeze froze Selina’s arm solid, as Selina struggled and kicked like a trapped animal, as Bane threw Selina into a Riddler box, as Selina banged on the door and screamed and screamed for Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, please help me, help me, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, BRUCE-

You couldn’t save everyone.

He had only winced. He had only protested. He had only watched. He had only begged Harley that Selina was too useful, please, there had to be another way-

And all that was only good intentions. It was only guilt. In the end, none of it mattered.

You couldn’t save everyone.

Selina was-

Bruce still walked away with everyone else.

And the entire time, John had watched and smiled.

Later, John had found a quiet moment of uninterruption to give Bruce a quick pat on the back.

“Good job, Bruce!” he laughed. The words were red, and sharp. “I knew you could do it!”

And he grinned, and Bruce said nothing.

The next moment, John’s smile fell off. “It doesn’t feel very good?”

“No,” Bruce said. 

“You were right about that,” John said, more to himself than Bruce.

You couldn’t save everyone.

Bruce knew what John was referring to: the conversation that John had had with Batman. John had asked if it would get easier to do bad things for the greater good, and Bruce had said, no. It always hurts.

————

Betraying Selina had not been for the greater good, though. Betraying Selina had been nothing but a selfish attempt to keep himself safe and show John loyalty. And it had had the worst of consequences. What had Bruce really thought? That Harley would be merciful? No, Bruce had had every reason to know that framing Catwoman was the same as letting her die. 

You couldn’t save everyone.

And even now, by attacking himself with guilt, Bruce was making Selina’s

death

her predicament more about himself than her. Bruce shifted everything back onto himself. How John deserved a real second chance to live in the real world - it always shifted back to Bruce’s selfish attachment to him. How Alfred was good and kind and deserved more rest than he got - it always shifted back to how Bruce benefitted from Alfred’s support, no matter what it was at the expense of. How Batman protected Gotham’s people - it always shifted back to how it was exciting, how it allowed Bruce to step out of his own body and finally stop feeling powerless.

In the end, Bruce was a creature motivated by selfish desires.

You couldn’t save everyone.

And he had let Selina-

You couldn’t save everyone.

He had-

You couldn’t save everyone.

He-

You couldn’t save everyone.

He couldn’t think-

You couldn’t save everyone.

-about it,

You couldn’t

save

couldn’t save

couldn’t 

save 

Bruce was barely aware of where the Pact was going

couldn’t 

as they left for the heist

save

he repeated the words to himself so many times

couldn’t save everyone 

until they didn’t sound like words anymore.

Chapter Text

Arriving back at the Pact’s lair after the heist, Bruce and Avesta discover that someone else has already been there and stolen the samples of Riddler’s blood. If Bruce gave up Catwoman as the traitor, he discovers her cage empty.

The two hear a noise coming from Harley’s office, and they investigate to find a drunk and heartbroken John at the desk. John complains about Harley’s betrayal, his one-sided friendship with Bruce, and how his life is seemingly over. Bruce is able to convince John to tell him and Avesta what happened. John decides to locate Harley for Bruce, and he is ready to leave and track her down.

As John walks away, he has one more rebuke.

“It’s funny,” John said. “When you first walked through that door, I honestly thought you came here to check on me.”

A frown split John’s face. He gave one last look back at Bruce, and through the eye contact Bruce got a glimpse of a wild animal, wounded, unpredictable, about to bolt away. 

Then John turned, and walked out the door.

Bruce felt regret like an ache in his chest. It was supposed to have been different. Bruce was supposed to have had more opportunities to be a better friend, to not get caught up in all the nuts and bolts of his mission and the whirls and clouds of his own doubts, and he should have been able to take the time to make sure that John was doing as well as he could be. He was supposed to help John with his relationships, not just because it was the path to getting something out of him, but because he cared, and he wasn’t supposed to stand by silently for fear of being imposing until the two of them deteriorated into… this.

“Wait!” Bruce called out, reaching one hand forward as if he was wrestling with the impulse to physically grab John and pull him close, because he was.

John turned around, his normally bright eyes looking dull and dark.

“What?” he said.

Bruce grappled for something, anything to say.

“Come outside and sit down with me,” he managed. “We can talk about anything you want. Harley, or something completely different, just… whatever you want.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bruce could see Agent Avesta politely becoming very interested in the collection of hammers on Harley Quinn’s desk, with one hand on the desk and the other brought up to her ear, fiddling with something on her hearing aids. Bruce wondered if she was lowering the volume to give the two men privacy. He hoped so.

John stood in place for a few seconds, a blank look on his face, like he wasn’t sure whether to rage, laugh, or cry. Maybe all three at once would be appropriate.

“All right,” John said, and all of a sudden his face changed, softened. Bruce took that as a good sign.

Bruce followed John out the door, not bothering to look back at Agent Avesta, which he felt a little guilty about for approximately two seconds before squashing it. John was more important. John was always more important, but especially right now, when he was like this.

John, a few steps ahead of Bruce, plopped down on the first step of the wooden stairs going down to the rest of the warehouse. He patted the space next to him, silently inviting Bruce to come and sit with him. Bruce walked over and sat down slowly and carefully, trying not to upset his injuries from fighting Bane. 

John’s eyes darted from Bruce to the now-closed door behind them to his own hands to Bruce again. This close, Bruce could see that his eyes were damp and shining. Bruce pretended not to notice, and silently looked at John until John found something to talk about.

“I remember the way you looked at me when you were in Arkham,” John said, looking away from Bruce, and smiling off into the distance. “Like a lost puppy, with those big sad eyes and your eyebrows all scrunched up. You were mesmerizing.”

Bruce hated to remember how alone he had felt in Arkham, but he loved remembering how John had made him feel. Every wide grin, every maniacal laugh, every confident smile had made Bruce’s skin shudder, in a way that had terrified and enticed him. To his traumatized, drug-riddled brain, it had seemed like higher forces had put John in that hell for the sole purpose of helping Bruce out of it. John’s every move had been captivating. He had held a hand out to Bruce, and now, and a million other times, Bruce recalled how warm John’s skin was. Every time he thought about it, the desire flared up in him to hold John’s hand again. But out of Arkham, things were more complicated.

Inside Arkham, Bruce had learned that there was some truth to the idea of love at first sight.

“Did you know,” John said, “I was worried that you had only seen me that way when we were in Arkham?”

He paused to let out a bitter chuckle.

“I was confident in there. It was my turf. I had that magic spark, or something, that made me the king of the freaks. You know what I’m talking about. You saw it. I saw it.”

John was gesturing wildly with his right hand, but his left hand, the hand closest to Bruce, was laying flat on the step, almost like an invitation.

“And then I left Arkham,” John said with a harsh laugh, “and suddenly I was the only outcast. I had to follow all these rules, and I thought I was prepared for them, but I wasn’t. And it all seemed so… stupid.”

Bruce reached out a hand to John’s, tentatively. John took it and squeezed with trembling fingers.

“And now I’m the biggest loser around,” he finished. “I only have one real friend. And I can’t trust that friend. Not really.”

Bruce wanted to say, you can trust me, or something like that, that would make John feel better, but he couldn’t. Because he had just betrayed the Pact. He had betrayed Selina. To some degree, he had lied to everyone in his life. John had no reason to trust him.

As John kept talking, his eyes blinked faster and faster, and his words became wobbly. 

“I’m thrown around by a freaking criminal gang. I don’t even know why I was supposed to care about what they were trying to steal. I mean, I knew, but I didn’t - it wasn’t my fight. All I wanted was to follow along. Fit in with the group. You know, be cool again.”

“Oh,” Bruce said softly. He squeezed John’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not,” John snapped, glaring at Bruce and yanking his hand away. 

“Of course I-”

“You came here when I was in the depths of despair, and all you asked about was Harley, Harley, Harley,” John said, spitting each repetition of the word like it was poisonous. “And then you asked me to go find her, like I’m your little - errand boy!”

John stood up, his arms jerking a bit at his sides, facing away from Bruce.

Bruce had to make this right. “I didn’t realize-” 

“I’m the one who just got dumped and punched in the, in the face,” John said, his voice gaining volume. “Isn’t this supposed to be my moment?”

“That’s why I asked you what you wanted to talk about!” Bruce shouted, defensively. “I wanted you to tell me how you were feeling! Because I care about you!”

“Really?” John chuckled. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it. God, you’re so- so- it’s all about you.”

“I’m trying to help you,” Bruce said angrily. “I’m trying as hard as I can.”

John didn’t look back. “Are you?”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “I betrayed the Pact to help you. I betrayed Selina to help you. I’ve been helping you this whole time-”

Bruce’s voice caught, and he had to look down, away from John.

When he looked back up, John was blurry. Bruce’s vision was smudged with tears. He was glad - he didn’t want to see what the expression on John’s face looked like.

“Just…” John’s voice had lost all of its anger, but it was replaced with something worse.

Emptiness.

“Just forget it. I’m sorry for lashing out at you.”

The words sounded automatic, again, and Bruce realized that John must have said versions of this apology to Harley, a million times before.

“John, wait…”

Bruce pressed his fists over his eyes, wiping out the tears, but when his vision cleared, John was walking away.

What did I do wrong?

Chapter Text

John contacts Bruce to tell him where Harley is hiding, forcing him to leave Alfred and Tiffany to investigate.

Bruce arrives at the location, a disused carnival outside of Gotham, and investigates the funhouse, which Harley was using as a base. He discovers John in a room, surrounded by the bodies of Waller’s agents. John claims to have killed in self defense, but Bruce finds holes in the story, including a gunshot wound in a victim’s back. 

Desperate for Bruce’s trust, John tells him that Harley is planning to hold the Gotham bridge hostage for Riddler’s blood and offers to help him capture her.

If Bruce chooses to believe John, the two head over to the Gotham bridge to stop Harley, who is now in a standoff with the Agency. Unable to meet her demands, Waller is forced to turn to Bruce and John, asking them to help negotiate with Harley. When Bruce tries to talk with her, he is unable to convince her to surrender, and only makes her more volatile. 

Knowing that it will only get worse, John asks Bruce to let him try. If Bruce agrees to let John through, John is seemingly able to get Harley to hand over the detonator, though his actions cause Waller to become suspicious and order her agents in.

If Bruce trusts John and stops Waller from sending in her agents, Harley is subdued and handed over to the Agency. Waller tries to get John to hand over the virus, but he refuses, believing that she will only use it to create more trouble. When Waller turns her agents on him, John attacks them and uses a smoke bomb to disorient them. Bruce fights through agents sent to capture him, and is only able to watch as John detonates Harley’s bombs and attacks Waller. John promises to bring the Agency to justice and that Batman will help him. Bruce fails to stop John as he jumps off the bridge and escapes into the night.

It had been several long, lonely days since John had fallen backward into the waters beneath the Gotham bridge, and Bruce had been helpless, again, to watch. 

Things had settled somewhat. In the time since then, Bruce had been waiting for John, but he hadn’t only been waiting for John. He had gone to the doctor and finally treated his rib injuries from Bane. He had held Alfred’s hand as Alfred had walked into his first therapy appointment. He had patiently listened to - and promptly declined - Alfred’s insistence that Bruce start going to therapy himself. Even if Bruce wanted to talk to a therapist, there were too many secrets that had to be kept. How was Bruce supposed to explain the tangled mess of his feelings for John, and his guilt about how he had handled them, and the fear of being responsible for so many civilians’ lives, and Catwoman, and Harvey Dent, and Oz, and Tiffany, and Lucius, and Alfred, and the never-ending list of all the friends he had let down, to someone who had no idea what kind of life he led?

No, it simply wasn’t a viable option.

But anyway, the point was that Bruce had been waiting. And apart from the new metal pin in his side, and a few crumpled-up pieces of paper on the floor of the Batcave in which Bruce had tried and failed to write his apologies, nothing had been accomplished. 

The first week was a quiet week of recharging, of getting used to life without John’s constant presence. It was a week of quiet mornings and stock meetings and small talk ignoring the tense underbelly of it all.

And, of course, Bruce had been going out to fight criminals. Not the Pact. Thieves, gangs, normal stuff. 

(Bruce knew it was a sign of how messed up his life was, that being Batman seemed normal.)

And on the seventh day, Alfred took a deep breath and asked: 

“Do you think John will be coming back?”

Bruce looked up from his bowl of cold oatmeal. The morning sun was cutting through the window and dividing Bruce into sections, fading Alfred into a concerned silhouette across the breakfast table from him. As far as backdrops for awkward conversations went, this morning was one of the best.

“That’s all I’ve been thinking about,” Bruce said, scraping the bottom of his bowl with the spoon as a distracted fidget. 

“Do you think he’s alive?” Alfred said.

“I know he’s alive,” Bruce said. “He has to be. And I don’t think he would leave Gotham without talking to me - at least, I hope not. So he has to be lying low. Waiting for someone else to make the first move.”

“Or maybe he’s planning his own move,” Alfred said. “If-”

“When,” Bruce said.

“When John comes back… how do you know which side he’ll be on?”

Bruce looked down into the remains of his oatmeal. “I don’t.”

“Then it’s anyone’s guess whether you’ll be fighting alongside him… or against him.”

That possibility made a dark pit ache in Bruce’s chest. 

“If - and I’m saying if, that happens…” Alfred hesitated, as if he knew Bruce wouldn’t want to hear what he was about to say.

“Would you be able to stop him?”

“I don’t know,” Bruce said quietly.

I’ve already hurt him. If he fought me, it would be my fault. If he hurts anyone else, it will be my fault.

“Before he… when we were looking for Harley Quinn,” Bruce began, “he tracked her down to an abandoned carnival. The Agency was there…”

Bruce took a deep breath, preparing to string his thoughts into words.

“When I walked in, John was talking to himself. Distressed, paranoid, standing over three Agency bodies… covered in blood.”

“Good Lord,” Alfred said quietly.

“He told me that it was in self defense,” Bruce continued. “But it wasn’t. I know that.”

“And yet…”

“I told him that I believed him,” Bruce said. “That I trusted him.”

Alfred didn’t say anything.

Bruce knew that he had a blind spot when it came to John. ( And yet, it’s not enough to keep him in my life.) It had become glaringly obvious just what he was willing to let slide, if it was John who had done it. He knew why this blind spot was there. It had started the moment that John had seen a drugged, scared, lost man in Arkham and chosen to reach out his hand.

“You don’t think he would come after…” Alfred hesitated.

“Do you think he would do anything… violent towards people close to you?”

Alfred’s hands were shaking.

Bruce felt a wave of guilt. “No, no, no, no. He wouldn’t t- he wouldn’t do that. He idolizes me. He wouldn’t do anything that could jeopardize his relationship with me.”

Alfred spoke up again, quietly.

“How do you know that?”

Bruce’s hands clenched into fists. He opened his mouth, but no words came out. He should have been able to say that he just knew, to use his authoritative Batman voice to mask himself. He should have been able to say that he knew.

“Don’t let yourself be blindsided,” Alfred said. “Don’t let your obsession with him keep you from doing what’s necessary. Think about why you started this. You know-”

“I know,” Bruce said. “I know what I should be doing.”

Alfred stopped talking, and stood up from the table.

“I know that I’m being selfish,” Bruce said. He didn’t know why he was saying this. The conversation was over.

“I’m being stupid. I don’t - I know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m not doing it. I can’t do it. I’m not cut out for this, Alfred.”

Bruce’s eyes widened as he realized what he had said.

“I’m not cut out for this.”

Alfred stood still, a few feet away from the table. He looked back at Bruce.

Bruce felt like a deer caught in headlights. Even though he was the one who had brought the burden of vulnerability into this conversation. He was the one who had said those things.

“Of course you are,” Alfred said, after a long hesitation. The pause told Bruce everything he needed to know.

—

In his work as Batman, Bruce had helped several victims of abuse, parental and spousal, physical and emotional. He had seen too much to believe the ignorant people who say, “Why don’t they just leave?” He knew that that misconception was built around the idea that the realization that you’re being abused is an easy one to have. But no one wants to confront the harsh truth that a person who they’ve built their entire life around has done so much damage to their sense of safety and happiness. No one wants to be cast out of the false reality where they are in a perfect relationship, with a perfect person, into the reality that that person is a monster.

Bruce knew that somewhere, this realization was crashing down on John like a hurricane. John needed Bruce to be by his side. Or maybe Bruce was just being selfish. Maybe Bruce was the one who needed John by his side.

Bruce’s relationship with John was like an inflatable house leaking from an increasing amount of holes, but he would figure out how to patch them. It would be a long, hard process, but he would find a way. He had to. He had to fix his mistakes, be the best person he could be. Even when everything looked broken, there had to be something he could do to start and repair. Bruce didn’t like the alternative, so he wouldn’t think about it. There had to be some way to salvage the tangled mess that every single one of his relationships had turned into.

There had to be.

Chapter Text

John Doe tries to contact Bruce, several weeks after his assistance in Harley Quinn’s capture. He reveals that he has been organizing a crusade to bring Waller and the Agency to justice. John promises to see Bruce again, and sends his followers to the Riddler’s former lair to attract the Agency’s, and Bruce’s, attention.

Batman arrives to investigate the area, and stops the agents from executing one of John’s gang members. The agents accuse Batman of helping John escape and preventing justice, firing at and incapacitating the vigilante with their stun pistols. 

Suddenly, a Jokerang knocks one of the agents’ guns out of their hands. John appears, dressed as a clown, and attacks them. He helps Batman up, and the two easily defeat the rest of the agents. 

John introduces Batman to the rest of his gang, and reveals that he is going by a new name:

Joker.

Joker was a whirl of colors and music and blood and smiles.

Joker was confident, in a way that he hadn’t been since Arkham, his own turf.

Joker was violent, stabbing Bane over and over again like the man with the tally marks had, and Bruce would have liked to be horrified.

But he couldn’t care less. He was blind to the worst deeds that John had done, and that purple coat and vicious grin sent a shiver through his body and mind that wasn’t dread. Bruce should have been terrified by his own devotion, by the tornado he had tied himself to. But he wasn’t.

He was excited.

It should have been the most stressful moment of the past few weeks. But it was all a relief.

Joker, with his makeup and his coat and his gelled, pointed hair.

Joker, with his quick words and his scribbled Jokerangs and his carnival music and his ruthless justice.

He wasn’t exactly a hero. But Bruce wanted to believe that he wasn’t a villain. 

And Bruce had never been more in love with him.

———

That was before what had happened on the roof. That was when Bruce still hoped that he and Joker could be on the same side.

The pain of metal, piercing through his side, blood and burning, a collar choking Selina’s neck, a rock and a hard place, strangled groans as he was lifted off the corkscrew shape - 

So much was happening, and yet one question rose above everything else.

Where is Joker?

Joker should have been here, with Avesta, pulling out the metal cord skewering Bruce. Bruce blinked unconsciousness and blood loss away from his eyes, and then Alfred was comforting him in the Batcave, and bandaging his wounds, and Joker should have been here. John should have been here.

John hadn’t abandoned him. The mess with Waller, the Pact - it could all be sorted out. Bruce would find Joker, and he would talk him down before he did something that would put the two at opposite sides forever. Bruce could talk with John. They were friends. They would always be friends, even though Bruce had made more than his fair share of mistakes, and even though John was giving Bruce more and more reasons to see him as the rest of the world saw him; a strange, sharp, dangerous thing.

And Joker was gone.

Was John wondering where Bruce was? When the roof had come down on them both, had John been hoping - the way that Bruce had been hoping - that Bruce would comfort him?

Bruce needed to find John, and he needed to do better.

Bruce had refused to hand John over to the Agency. It wasn’t enough.

The days of hunching desperately over the Batcomputer, searching for the smallest scrap of proof that John existed, were over.

Now, Joker was shining bright. A firework, a burst of confident, dangerous glory. Joker was burning his name into the streets of Gotham, leaving deep wounds. How severe the scars would be was yet to be determined.

Bruce knew, at least, that the mark of Joker would never leave him.

Wherever John was, he had to be worrying, the same way Bruce was, that Bruce regretted him. That Bruce would abandon him.

Bruce didn’t think he would ever be capable of that. He would do everything he could to repair his bond to John, if only he could find John. He would figure it all out from there.

Chapter Text

Bruce had really tried to be a good friend to John, he knew that. Or, at least he had wanted to. 

But it had only led them here.

Ace Chemicals.

And Batman and Joker, scraped and bloodied, cut and beaten and worn out, laying on opposite sides of the control room’s floor.

Bruce would always remember John’s face as he had killed the agents; the dark red color of the blood staining his skin, drenching the broken smile to such a degree that it looked like someone had carved it into his face, the lost, demented look in his eyes, the blood and soot and the laughter. Bruce knew he would take that to his grave. But he couldn’t remember the faces of the three agents John had killed, or even their names, what they did in their free time, what family or friends would forever be waiting for them. He had never bothered to learn.

Bruce knew this was one more reason he was a bad person. His cracked brain was too tired to even reprimand him for it.

Joker’s hand was pinned against the dashboard, a Batarang piercing through and letting loose a lazy stream of red. Blood trickled from his nose, and his coat was so thick with dirt and blood, some of it his own and most of it not, that Bruce wouldn’t have been able to tell what color it was supposed to be if he hadn’t already known.

Bruce lay in his own growing red puddle, and so many things hurt that it all blended together into one exhausted haze. Black danced and taunted him at the edges of his vision. Red was spattered across everywhere else.

Laughter spilled out of Joker’s - John’s - mouth. After a few terrifying moments, he managed to choke it in.

“I guess that’s it.”

John’s voice was dark red and sharp, the same voice it had always been, and it drew Bruce in like a whirlpool, the way it always had.

He sighed. “I really wanted to be a hero, you know?”

His eyes briefly flashed with excitement, even now, and he succumbed to another gasping laugh. Bruce didn’t know if he could call it laughter, not anymore. He didn’t know what it was, and at the same time, he knew exactly.

“But I-I-I. Just. Can’t.”

Bruce wanted more than anything to reassure him. He searched himself for some hero’s spark that he could use to pull them both up out of the abyss. But he wasn’t a good friend, and he wasn’t a hero.

“I know you used me.”

A fresh pang of hurt. John was right.

Bitterness seeped into John’s voice, even more red spilling out.

“I know I should hate you for that.”

John laughed again, and it turned into a cough. He was losing blood, and strength. So was Bruce.

“But I don’t, because…”

He coughed again. His eyes gazed up at Bruce, still bright. Bruce wondered, if the cowl was off, what John would see in his own eyes.

“I had such a good time with you, Bruce.”

John smiled.

“Did you ever…?”

His voice became quieter, and as he smiled, his eyes fixed on somewhere in the distance.

“Did you ever think of me as your friend?”

John’s face contorted with hurt, and he closed his red-and-black-smeared eyes.

He coughed again.

“Like, a true friend. Someone… you actually… care about.”

“Of course.”

Bruce hoped John could hear the emotion in his voice, even if he couldn’t see the sincerity in his eyes. 

“Of course you were my friend.”

No matter what else he was blind to, at least he knew this.

Another emotion, longing, maybe, filled John’s eyes.

“Did you ever… love me?”

Bruce’s words came out in a choked whisper.

“How could I not?”

John dissolved into another low, quiet fit of laughter, and now it only sounded sad.

“You are one messed-up guy,” John said, and a red smile broke across his face, and he laughed and laughed and laughed.

Chapter Text

Returning to Wayne Manor, Bruce finds Alfred in the parlor, having packed his things into a suitcase. Alfred reveals that he has decided to leave Bruce and a life of vigilantism behind, believing they are responsible for John Doe’s transformation into the Joker. Alfred tells Bruce that he is going down the same self-destructive path as his father, and that his tremors have ceased since deciding to leave Batman’s operations. As Alfred walks out the door, Bruce can either let Alfred leave or give up a life of vigilantism so he can stay.

Either way, something has already been lost.

Alfred was right.

Bruce didn’t know if being Batman had actually made anything better, if he had really done anything that he could be proud of. 

Bruce didn’t know if he could be proud of himself. Not anymore.

Bruce had tried to help John, and it had only pushed him over the edge.

Bruce had had to fight him. 

Bruce had had to hurt him.

Bruce had had to stab him and bruise him, and defend his own footing as, in between hysterical and terrifying laughter, John tore his life’s purpose apart. John had found the weaknesses like chinks in his armor, and he had spared no pain when he had stabbed in. And everything that John had said had been right.

John had always known exactly what Bruce needed, maybe even better than Bruce himself. John was under no delusions about what Batman stood for, not anymore. 

Bruce said he did this for justice, but he didn’t. He did it because, more than anything, he needed to feel in control. There had to be something he could do to make all the losses worth it. His parents, Harvey, Selina, John- they couldn’t be for nothing.

But what if they were?

What if he couldn’t stop tragedy from ravaging his life, again?

What if he was just making it worse?

Bruce had wanted, more than anything, to keep John close. But everything he did had just pushed John further away, turned him into the hysterical monster that Bruce had wanted so desperately to believe he wasn’t.

And now, with Alfred, it was happening again.

Maybe Bruce wasn’t made for friendship, or justice.

Maybe he wasn’t made for anything.

———

Faced with an ultimatum as he was, the decision was surprisingly easy. Bruce wasn’t being Batman for the right reasons anymore. Maybe he never had. And it was taking a heavy toll, both physical and mental, on him and everyone who got close to him. 

He had betrayed Selina for Batman’s sake, and for John’s sake. He had done something that he would never have thought he could do, something that was wrong. And if Batman’s morals were corruptible under the right circumstances, then what separated him from the people he was fighting? What made him different from Joker?

Bruce had made Batman to be a symbol, to give hope, both to the city and to himself. But if Batman couldn’t even be that, then what purpose did he serve?

Batman was a shining statue, that everyone could aspire to, but no one could be. Not even Bruce Wayne. He was a human, who had limits and made mistakes. Trying to force himself into the role of the city’s perfect protector had been a doomed endeavor from the start.

So Bruce called Alfred back with no hesitation. He was tired, the most tired he had ever been, and he could not continue on the same path anymore. With Alfred by his side, he could survive the guilt, but alone…

Bruce promised that he would put down the cowl. The Bat-signal was shining outside the window, and Bruce would not respond to it. He had thought that it would be hard to ignore the signal, but it only felt like a relief.

And when Alfred wrapped his arms around Bruce, finally absent of tremors and confident as he should be, Bruce was hopeful for the first time in a long time.

Chapter Text

Tiffany was disappointed when Bruce announced his decision, but she would get over it quickly. She was young, with infinite possibilities in her future. She could work for the GCPD, and put her inventions to use that way. Or she could do something entirely different. The important part was that Bruce knew she could do something.

As for himself… that part was more difficult.

Bruce didn’t know who he was without Batman, without the conflict that had shaped his life over the years. Until it was over, he hadn’t realized just how much he had let the hardship define his identity. At least he had a public persona that he could continue to maintain. Bruce Wayne, the celebrity, the philanthropist, who believed there was still good in the world. Bruce was grateful that he could still help the city that way, maybe in a more organized and concentrated effort than Batman had ever been able to do. He could donate millions to charities; heck, he could set up more of his own charities. He could use his influence to create jobs and opportunities for the people of Gotham. He could clean up Arkham Asylum…

Arkham.

John was back in Arkham, and it was an open question if he was ever coming out. Apparently his lawyers were trying to spin the sympathetic angle, convince the judge and jury that, if given proper rehabilitation, John would be safe to set his feet on outdoor ground and see the sun again. Bruce didn’t know for sure, but he hoped it was true.

Normally, people in Arkham didn’t get lawyers - their arguments generally hinged on the idea that the person they were defending wasn’t a lost cause, and Gotham had already given up on you if it determined you were messed up enough to go to Arkham. Bruce knew that all too well. Arkham wasn’t a place where sick people went to be helped. It was a place where sanity went to die. 

That was the standard right now… but Bruce was trying to change it. Fortunately, with his money he could hire the best of the best, get lawyers who could convince a fish to leave the water, to help earn John any chance of a future.

He never stopped to question whether John deserved that. 

One small victory had already been accomplished: Bruce’s team of lawyers had managed to win John the privilege of seeing visitors.

Bruce knew that Arkham was better now… in theory. As he made sure to reassure Gotham in all of his public appearances, Bruce had been deeply involved in the development of the asylum, or at least as involved as he could be without actually setting foot in the place. 

Whenever Bruce even considered returning to Arkham, a dark swirling mass of dread churned deep inside of him. In his memories, every line of the building seemed to radiate malice and terror. Bruce knew on a rational level that it was just a building, that returning there now when it was different, bigger, and brighter wouldn’t be the same as returning to his memories, but still the sick feeling had been enough to keep Bruce away. 

Until now.

Now John was back in Arkham, trapped there when everything had gone wrong, and that made the situation different. Bruce’s feelings seemed not to matter as much when John was concerned, and right now John was Bruce’s lighthouse, shining lonely through the fear of Arkham like a beacon caught in the middle of a storm.

When Bruce had first met John, he had been worried about the effect that John would have on him. It was almost funny, now, that he should have been worried about the reverse.

Bruce suspected that the word funny had been ruined for him forever.

His feelings about the past few months were like a storm in his heart, a tangle of rage and fear and guilt and a wordless howl of a million things he could have done different. He had gotten John admitted to Arkham. Arkham. 

How could he do anything for the life he had ruined? How could he ever face John again? 

There were two people involved in this, though, and Bruce couldn’t let John down anymore. He needed to see John, to see where they stood, to apologize, to kneel to the barred window like a confession booth, to ask John for his forgiveness. And more selfish reasons played a part of it too.

Bruce didn’t have a lot of friends left.

So he found himself behind the wheel of his flashy red daytime car, driving on a route that he knew he had been on before, but in no state to remember.

Gnarled trees lined either side of the road, and the grating wind blew so strongly that Bruce could feel it even from inside of the car. That bone-chill was still the same as it always had been. The building had some noticeable differences, though. Most notably, the palatial walls had been scrubbed, restoring some aspect of cleanliness to the place. But that didn’t help the uneasiness that set in as Bruce drove under the forbidding gates proclaiming that he was, indeed, entering ARKHAM ASYLUM.

The moody gray sky prevented any rays of sunlight from brightening up the atmosphere, though Bruce was pretty sure that even with sunlight, nothing could make the place look less oppressive.

Alfred had offered to accompany Bruce in the car, or even all the way inside the asylum, but Bruce had refused to take Alfred back to the place where he had been held hostage and tortured by Vicki. Bruce could handle this on his own. Now, almost a year later, he was definitely strong enough.

Right?

He went through a series of routine checks, being patted down, making sure that he didn’t have a weapon, et cetera, et cetera. His mind was completely absent during the procedures, his eyes busy scanning every inch of the rooms for resemblance to his memories. Bruce knew that focusing on the events that had happened here would only make his discomfort worse, but he couldn’t stop himself. Some morbid part of his mind wanted to catalog and detail every inch of his pain, to turn it from a real event into a story he could tell himself. He saw the logic of it. Books could be closed and walked away from. Shady, half-blurred memories couldn’t. They lingered. They haunted you.

Once again, Bruce had a desperate thirst to be in control.

“You’re here to visit him?” the guard who patted Bruce down said incredulously. “I figured you’d never want to take one step here again.”

“Normally I wouldn’t,” Bruce said, unsure why he was volunteering this information. “But John is my friend. He helped me while I was in here. I can’t let him think that I want to forget about him.”

To Bruce’s surprise, the person who showed up to escort him to John Doe’s cell was none other than Doctor Leland. Bruce had mixed feelings about seeing her again. She had been nice enough to him during his short time as an inmate, but she was still a reminder of that time, and that made her presence an unwelcome surprise. 

“How have you been doing?” Leland asked Bruce as she led him down the halls. The lights had been fixed, and instead of a dim creepy atmosphere, the hallway lights now buzzed bright and giving the long hallway an air of sterility. There were new posters on the walls, sporting information on everything from mental health advice to first aid tips to schedule instructions to motivational slogans. The walls themselves had been repainted, from a dark green to a cheery yellow. There had been changes, that was comforting, and it helped Bruce to feel less like he was in the same space, but still, he worried that the changes were only superficial.

“Not… super well,” Bruce said truthfully. “My, uh, job… has been stressful.”

“Are you seeing a therapist?” Leland asked, her eyebrows creasing together in concern.

“No,” Bruce said, breaking Leland’s gaze and looking down at the (retiled) floor. “But Alfred - my butler - keeps saying I should get one.”

“I suggest you listen to him,” Leland said. “No matter what you’re going through, I promise that it’ll seem smaller if you have someone to talk about it with.”

“Maybe,” Bruce said. Even he was unsure if he was just agreeing to be polite or if he would actually give in to Alfred’s demands eventually. Alfred had really been laying the guilt and concern on thick, and Bruce could feel it whittling him down. You promised me you would create a healthier life for yourself, Alfred would say. Now you’ve got to commit to doing it right. 

Alfred was probably right, of course. He usually was when it came to these things. But somehow, that knowledge wasn’t enough to change Bruce’s mind.

Maybe John would have something to say about it. Maybe Bruce would ask him.

There were still guards patrolling the hallways, but they looked less openly hostile. That was something. New security cameras were mounted in every corner, and out of the corner of his eye, Bruce could see a guard standing in between two inmates in scrubs, calmly breaking up the makings of a fight.

That calmness was new, and much welcomed. From what Bruce had seen in those awful few hours a year ago, the normal policy in Arkham was - or used to be - use violence first and ask questions later.

Leland stopped suddenly, in front of a room looking much like the others, blocked off by a solid gray door with only a small dog flap-esque window connecting the room inside to the outside world.

“Well, here we are,” Leland said, before turning her head to the nearest guard.

“Larry, could you hand me the keys?” she asked, and the guard walked over, handing them to Leland and saying in a loud voice, “Visitor for John Doe.”

It was really happening.

The guard lifted up the window, and Bruce stepped in front, head peering in close to see as much of John and his living conditions and everything as he could.

“Bruce?”

John’s face watched from the other side of the window, and his eyes darted back and forth over Bruce, as if to confirm that this was real, that he was really here. When he was satisfied, a smile spread across his face. Not the broken smile that he had worn while fighting Bruce, almost impossibly wide and accompanied by lost eyes and hysterical laughter. No, this was a real grin, and it made Bruce happy to see it, in spite of everything.

Maybe this is going to be okay.

There was a brief silence, and while Bruce thought of something to say, John’s smile dropped lifelessly. Just for a second, and then it spread back across his face.

“You came to see me!” John said, and laughed, normal, sane laughter. “I wasn’t sure if you would! Leland said I should hold out hope, I think, but I really thought I might’ve scared you off! I should have known better.”

There was a pause, and something held Bruce back from talking, from sharing in John’s joy at the reunion. Maybe it was the mist of the old Arkham, which felt like it was lingering just out of Bruce’s sight.

John’s smile dropped, or at least lessened, and without it, Bruce realized with a plummet in his chest how exhausted John was, from the dark semicircles under his eyes to the droopiness of his expression, as if his usual endless grin was too taxing to maintain. Bruce hadn’t known what he was expecting to see on John’s face - bitterness? madness? heartbreak? - and he knew, he knew that John wasn’t going to be okay, but it still hurt to see.

Bruce was making things worse by being silent. He needed to say something. Show John that he could handle this. Handle the thing that had happened between them.

Finally, Bruce said the first thing that popped into his mind.

“Uh… how’s the hand?”

“Pretty much as well as it can be,” John said. “Doc said that you missed most a’ the little bones and tendons. I’ll have a cool scar, but the rest will heal up as good as new.”

Bruce shot John an awkward smile.

“How’s the head?” John said after a second. “I’m sorry I electrocuted you.”

“It’s okay,” Bruce said, and his brain flashed back to the time where, right in this building, two resentful inmates had cornered him in his cell and incapacitated him with a taser. “I’ve had worse.”

The memory of Arkham inmate mistreatment reminded Bruce of what was at stake, and he mentally scolded himself for not asking John the right questions immediately.

“How are they treating you?” he said. “Has anyone attacked you? Are you getting too much medicine? Or not enough medicine? Is your room big enough? Do you need anything?”

John chuckled.

“Nice to see I haven’t killed your protectiveness yet,” he said. “And no, I haven’t seen a single fight since I got here. The food is better. The beds don’t have bloodstains anymore. You’ve done wonders.”

Bruce suddenly felt exposed. “So you know about…?”

“…The renovations you did on Arkham?” John finished. “Yeah, I’ve known about those for a long time. Thanks, by the way.”

Bruce felt his face warm. “I didn’t do it for you,” he said. “Well… I didn’t do it entirely for you.”

“Aww, but don’t you loooove me?” John said, and batted his eyes.

“Yeah,” Bruce said in an oddly strangled low voice. 

He had been going to play along to the joke, say something more, but his voice had abandoned him. The playful grin dropped off John’s face, and he stared at Bruce, looking thoughtful.

“I stopped being Batman,” Bruce blurted out.

John’s eyes widened. “I did not know that.”

“No one’s mentioned it?” Bruce said. “The news has been wringing a lot out of it.”

“I don’t exactly have reliable access to the world in here,” John laughed. “And my psychiatrists have been trying to avoid the subject of… him.”

“Oh,” Bruce said quietly.

“So, what pushed you?”

“What you said, what Waller said…” Bruce paused for a second, searching for the right words. “It got me thinking. About whether or not Batman was actually doing what I hoped he could do.”

John nodded, eyebrows raised in interest. There was no sign of judgment on his face. That should have been a relief, but it made Bruce worry for when the other shoe was going to drop. The future was a blank.

“And then Alfred gave me an ultimatum,” Bruce continued. “He was getting burnt out from all the stress and the pressure, and he could see that the same thing was happening to me. So he said that he would leave the manor. Forever. He didn’t want to be a part of it all anymore.”

“And you gave up Batman for him,” John said with wide eyes and an awed voice.

Bruce looked down. “And for you.”

He cleared his throat.

“Because of you, I should say. Because of…”

Bruce’s voice failed him, but John still nodded as if Bruce really had communicated what he had been trying to say.

Bruce didn’t want to leave it at that.

“How did things get to where they were between us?”

John picked at the bandage on his hand.

“I don’t know,” he said. “There are reasons that I could have written an essay about, but… I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

“No,” John laughed quietly. “No, it doesn’t.”

For a few seconds, the cell was silent.

What could either of them say to that?

“I really have a hold on you, huh?” John said, recovering first. “I don’t know how I did it.”

“Well, you saved my life.”

“So did Avesta,” John said. “Heck, so did Waller. There’s gotta be more to it than that.”

“Are you asking me to give you the full story of how and why I love you?” Bruce laughed.

“Yeah, I am,” John said. “I… it’s kinda stupid, I guess, but I - it would be helpful to have more evidence to argue against… when my mind wants to be Joker again. You know.”

Bruce’s smile froze.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, I - that makes sense.”

Bruce took a deep breath. It was hard to look back to such a blur of red and black and blue and white - anger, sadness, terror, loneliness, shame so strong he had almost choked on it - but he tried to think back and make some sense of it.

“When I first met you…” he started, “I was having the worst time of my life.”

“You were researching me - you know what was happening around me when we first met. Oswald Cobblepot and Vicki Vale and Harvey Dent and the truth about my father, about Ark- Arkham… and then I… ended up there. Here.”

Bruce paused for a moment.

“You saved me,” he continued. “You treated - you were my friend. I felt ineffective, and you seemed so… active. Confident. Lively. It impressed me more than I - I don’t think I ever told you how much it impressed me, that you knew exactly what to do.”

Bruce had been looking down as he was talking, and now his eyes landed on John’s face. 

It threw him off balance for a moment.

“And maybe I built up an idealized version of you in my head a bit.” Bruce laughed quietly. “But then I got to interact with you more, and learn more about what you were like outside of here. Different parts of you. I saw that you were funny, and resourceful, and earnest, and… and warm.”

Bruce could feel his skin heating up as he continued to talk, but he didn’t really want to stop.

“I thought I was getting a sense of what was happening behind the scenes. And…”

Bruce’s mouth opened and closed a few times.

“I didn’t have the full picture, but I had something. We had something.”

John blinked fast.

“Only five more minutes ‘til visiting hour is over!” a guard shouted across the hall. 

John and Bruce shared an awkward laugh, and Bruce made a mental note that he would have to arrange for more visiting time in Arkham. 

“You’ll come visit me again soon, right?” John said. 

“Of course,” Bruce says. 

Now that he had broken the ice and actually talked to John, he knew it wouldn’t be as hard to come here again.

“We’d better wrap this up,” John said. “Just, uh, just one more question.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said.

“The lawyers… they come from you, right? From Wayne Enterprises money?”

“Yeah,” Bruce said again. 

“How much time do you think it’s going to take before they get me out?”

Bruce took a second to think before he answered, to not just give John the answer he wanted to hear. “It depends,” he settled on saying. “If you cooperate, if you do all the therapy and show signs that you’re making progress? They say it could be a few months to a year from now.”

“Wow,” John said, and whistled. “That Wayne influence really goes far, huh?”

“Well, Batman - the thing that… influenced you… is gone.”

It hurt Bruce to say those words, more than he had expected.

“Are you going to try to… to put Joker away?”

“I really am,” John said quietly. “I want to get better.”

Bruce cleared his throat.

“So do I.”