Work Text:
Gotham is still smoldering around him, and Batman knows he should stay to help put out fires.
Yet when the city whispers to him that Joker’s moving south, that he’s running, Batman doesn’t think twice about tearing after him. It was, perhaps, the stupidest thing Joker’s done in a while; animals usually know to stay motionless when a predator’s looking in their direction. But now he’s bolted and Batman can smell his blood on the trail.
Joker had destroyed the majority of his gear when he’d effectively taken over Bruce’s life, but he’d missed this particular Batplane. It’s a considerably older model, one he’s cannibalized parts from over the years, and while he wouldn’t trust it on a cross-country trip, it’s good enough to take him down south with repeated stops. He shakes down criminals, questions truckers and waitresses, every question a variation on the same.
“Where is he?”
It’s been years, what feels like a lifetime, since he’s felt this anger. It sits in his chest, drapes over his shoulder, draws tense the muscles in his arms. The brightest burning parts of it lick at his ears, whisper that he should have ended this eons ago. That he should have stopped this madness in its tracks in the rain, when Joker refused his help.
The hunt takes him down the coast to Georgia, eventually curtailing in a nondescript motel off the interstate somewhere between Savannah and Brunswick. Perching on the edge of the sunset, Bruce tracks Joker from the rooftop, watches him meander back from a gas station with a plastic bag swinging from thin fingers. Dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, like he’s a normal person instead of a nightmare made flesh and bone. Of course the sweatshirt is his favorite shade of purple and the hood’s pulled down low, hiding his features in shadow. But Bruce knows him still.
He’d know him anywhere.
He waits for Joker to turn his back to him as he unlocks his room, unaware of the vigilante biding his time. The motel door swings open at the same time Batman swings down from the rooftop, planting his boot firmly in the center of Joker’s back. The connection feels good, anger buzzing louder in his veins, in his ears. Getting to hit him again feels right; every bruise and broken bone that Joker owes him.
Joker’s sent sprawling, snacks and cigarettes scattering out of the bag, but he rolls quick enough to his feet with a snarl, already reaching for a weapon in his pocket. Bruce doesn’t let him get to it, slamming into him with his shoulder, knocking him into the wall and rattling the cheap art framed there. With the hood knocked back, Bruce can see the bandages wrapped around his head and damaged eye socket.
It’s only then that Joker seems to realize who got the drop on him, and Bruce watches his snarl morph into that sharp, familiar smile. “Bats! Fancy meeting you here!” He laughs even as Bruce pins his arm at an awkward angle against the wall and before Bruce can bark out a reply, Joker headbutts him. Surprised enough to loosen his hold, Bruce steps back, which is all the room Joker needs to get the switchblade from his pocket. Bruce isn’t quite quick enough to dodge it, the space between them too small, but it’s a light slash across his chest, skin deep, instead of the more serious injury Joker was clearly trying to inflict.
Joker glances to the open door and Bruce reads his intention, barreling forward to slam him into the wall again before he can escape. The quick reaction earns him that knife plunging into his back and a loud cackle in his ear; it’s close, he thinks distantly, to the newest scar Joker gave him the last time they clashed, the one where he’d driven a batarang into Bruce’s back and twisted. There’s no time to ruminate on it as Bruce wrenches his arms back, feeling the knife pull free and the blood flow. Joker’s twisting, trying to kick him, but Bruce has him pinned tight to the wall, slotted between his legs. Finally, he settles, stills, but Bruce knows better than to trust this supposed surrender.
“I have to admit,” Joker pants, grinning despite the steel in his gaze, “I was hoping Georgia would have less of a bat problem than Jersey.”
The fury that’s been burning in Bruce eases, even with that wicked grin right in his face. The fire doesn’t feel quite so hot, now that he’s got Joker in his grasp, now that he’s searching for his opening. He feels Joker tense slightly in his grip, testing his hold, and then relax again. “Georgia has more bat species. Next time, head to Hawaii,” Bruce says simply and Joker scoffs.
“God, it’s so sexy when you tell me random animal facts. Please, go on. Maybe something about pigeons next.” Joker has a couple of weaknesses Bruce has come to rely on over the years, and the love for his own voice is the biggest. Bruce can tell he’s about to continue, probably some quip about robins or other birds, and he takes the second he’s distracted to wrest him around, slamming his face and chest into the wall. Joker groans as he does and Bruce pulls his arms back, gripping both boney wrists in one hand as he gets the cuffs from his belt out with the other.
“Is that a no on pigeon facts?” Joker’s voice is muffled slightly against the wall as Bruce cuffs him, then frisks him. He finds three more knives, a lightweight revolver, and what looks suspiciously like a vial of purple acid tucked away in pockets. Kneeling down behind him, he’s about to check his shoes for further tricks when Joker, lightning-quick, tries to kick him in the face. Bruce reacts instinctively, jerking to the side just enough to miss the intended blow, then reaches out to grab Joker’s calf, throwing him to the floor beside him where Joker groans again. Blood drips from his nose as he aims another kick at Bruce, and this time Bruce catches him by the ankle, twisting just enough to make him grimace, just enough to threaten.
He lets Joker weigh his options before he finally goes lax in Bruce’s hold, an unspoken, temporary white flag, and Bruce cautiously lets his ankle go, watching him rotate it once. With Joker momentarily subdued, Bruce pushes the motel door shut, trapping the two of them in four walls and poor lighting. There aren’t many other guests, but he’s already decided he’ll wait until darkness falls before he drags Joker out of the motel and back to Gotham. The fewer people around to get caught up in their madness, the better.
“So what comes next? You finally snap my neck? Tie me to a rock and sink me off the coast? Bore me to death with bat facts?” Joker asks, not sounding particularly concerned as he sits up, legs outstretched.
“No.” Bruce eyes him from behind the cowl as he grips Joker’s ankle again, checking one shoe and then the other. He’s not surprised when he finds another switchblade stuffed in the left sneaker. It gets tucked away into his utility belt, along with the other confiscated weapons, before he stands and flicks on the lone light, a squat lamp set on the nightstand by the bed that sends the shadows to the corners of the room. “You know I don’t kill.” Even men who deserved it, down in the barren depths of their souls.
“Do I?” Joker replies sardonically, a hint of a smile showing, a shark smelling blood in the water. “I seem to recall you holding onto me so I couldn’t escape during a cave-in, killing me. Killing us both, in fact. Then you left me to die after Harley’s parting gift,” he reminds with a sneer, “Left me to get blown to smithereens with your butler. I know you and I have a complicated relationship, but I didn’t think you’d leave him.”
Having Joker underhand had eased the fire of his anger earlier, but now it roars back to life, pounding in his ears. He’s done his best to block out those memories, Alfred’s greying corpse, shambling and giggling, but now they flood his mind again and Bruce’s fingers curl into fists. The blood on Joker’s lips calls to him, taunting him. He wants to slam that pale face into the wall again, see him bloodier, broken.
“Alfred was already dead; he’s been dead.” It's painful saying it, no matter how true it is, and Bruce spits the words out. “But you dug him up. You couldn’t let him rest in peace.”
Joker laughs, the sound bright and cold as he leans against the side of the bed. “Can’t allow me a little jealousy?”
“Jealousy?” Bruce barks a laugh, disbelieving. “You were jealous of Alfr–”
“I was jealous someone killed him before me,” Joker hisses back at him and Bruce sees red. “Your dear daddy figure. I wouldn’t have made it quick or in front of a robin; no, I would’ve made it hurt. I was saving that card, you know, but that’s the thing about timing.” He sighs dramatically, resting his head against the bedpost and keeping his eye on Bruce. “Sometimes you wait too long and someone else snaps up your chance.”
Nothing Joker said came as a shock. Yet his theatrics about his missed chance concentrates the fog of anger around Bruce, his rocketing pulse roaring in his ears. The world narrows to Joker, to his lazy recline and uncaring gaze. When Bruce gets down on his level, when his fist connects to his jaw, he feels the sick, satisfying crunch of flesh and bone even through the gauntlet. Joker makes a high, pained sound, his head lolling with the blow, and then Bruce is on him, fingers wrapped around his unprotected throat.
Pushing Joker down to his back, everything in his vision blurs except the snarl on Joker’s lips. Vaguely, he’s aware of Joker struggling beneath him, saying something about killing him after all. That mocking voice sounds distant, a thousand miles away, as Bruce’s fingers tighten and Joker makes another sound, but this one isn’t distressed. It sounds…
It’s not the first time Joker’s reacted to pain this way; it’s not the first time Bruce has noticed it either. He’s ignored those moments in the past, despite the occasional urge to dig deeper, to keep hurting him and see how he came apart. He refused to let Joker think his flirtations and teasing ever got to him, that Batman could ever want him in return. He couldn’t let him know of another weakness to exploit.
But Bruce has been rapidly running out of patience to keep playing pretend. Joker, apparently, has too; Bruce had known Joker knew his real identity for years, but the villain had always appeared disinterested in pursuing more. Whoever Batman was behind the mask wasn’t nearly as fun was who he was when he wore it. Until recently, until he struck at Bruce’s heart: the movie theater, the manor, Alfred. If Joker was done turning a blind eye, so was he.
He could cross those lines too.
With Joker’s arms caught beneath his back against the scratchy motel carpet and Bruce’s hand wrapped around his neck, Joker’s largely motionless beneath him, though hardly defeated given his sharp glare. There’s a crushed pack of cigarettes peeking out from behind his shoulder, bags of chips scattered around the floor. He listens to Joker’s labored breathing, feeling the slight warmth of his throat under his fingers, and stares into that furious gaze. Shifting slightly, he slots himself between Joker’s legs, watching those bloodied lips curl in another sneer, before he rocks his hips against him.
The shocked expression on Joker’s face is one of the most honest looks he’s ever seen on the other man.
“What are you doing?” Joker asks, voice raspy and unsteady.
Bruce doesn’t answer him. There’s still that fury in his chest, the one that’s eating away at the boundaries between them, the ones he’s always told himself he can’t touch. The warning signs and alarm bells burn to dust, leaving only the roaring flames. He can’t feel much through his suit, just a vague warmth against him, but from the way Joker’s breathing grows faster as Bruce keeps rocking against him, he knows he’s having an effect.
“If I’d known,” Joker gasps out, “That this was what it took to get you going, darling, I would’ve gone grave digging ages ago. Maybe excavated that kid of yours before he came back himself.”
Bruce recognizes that Joker’s doing what he always does: hunt for weak spots. He wants to hurt Bruce again; he wants to feel like he’s in control, even with his arms bound behind his back. As much as Joker likes to pretend he thrives in chaos, Bruce knows better. While Joker’s flirted and hinted, subtly and less so, about wanting him for years, he obviously hadn’t envisioned it happening like this, Batman grinding against him in some motel, far from Gotham.
To be fair, Bruce hadn’t pictured it happening like this either.
Wordlessly, Bruce unzips the purple top, revealing Joker’s lack of shirt and scarred chest. Most of those scars were put there by him and he feels a deep, strange sense of satisfaction seeing them over alabaster skin. The slash across his own chest stings again as if in answer, the blood dried to his suit. The anger’s sharpening, morphing into something possessive and vicious.
“Maybe your parents.” Joker’s still going on, still searching for a place to sink his claws in. “I thought about it this time, but they’re probably all dust and starved maggots by now. Maybe getting them to skeleton dance on stage would’ve been worth it though. Hm?”
Joker always wants something from him. Now, he’s seeking a reaction, trying to figure out how to tip the balance of power back in his favor even if not physically. He’s sought out Bruce’s friends, his family, the very blood in his veins. It never matters to Joker who else gets hurt during his murderous games, as long as he can land his parting shot on Batman.
Unlike Joker, Bruce isn’t ruining anyone’s life but his own. No innocents are being hurt as Bruce feels the flicker of desire low in his belly, as he admires scars and bruises. Some of the latter are old and healing, molted yellows and purples, while the fresh ones inflicted during their fight are painful pinks and reds. He wants to sink his teeth into each of them.
Bruce knows Joker’s body better than any other’s. He’s spent long hours replaying their clashes in his mind’s eye, and he’s hacked into servers to read confidential medical records. He knows how much force to apply to rattle him but not break his jaw; he knows how much force to apply to break his jaw. He knows how tight he can hold his throat and let it be only a threat; how tight he can squeeze to knock him out and finally cease that incessant chattering. He knows the right angle to dislocate his shoulder versus breaking bone.
He knows some of the spots Joker likes. Tonight he’s going to learn the rest.
Pressing gloved fingers against the largest spot of pink over Joker’s ribs, he knows what Joker’s reaction is going to be. On cue, Joker gasps wetly, shuddering; Bruce feels him arch underneath him, hip to hip. Joker’s finally shut up, however temporarily, staring up at Bruce in surprise; disarmed in a way Bruce can’t remember ever seeing before.
Finally, this battle between them feels like it’s going in Bruce’s favor.
Bruce stares down at him, hidden behind the cowl, as he presses over the same angry bruise and listens to him inhale sharply. “Bats…” Joker starts and stops, gaze unfocused but still searching. Bruce doesn’t give him anything, keeps quiet and steadfast, and he can see the shadow of annoyance as it moves across Joker’s face before his gaze sharpens. He’s decided something and Bruce waits briefly for a sign of what.
If Joker wants him to stop…
He’ll stop. He’ll hate it, but he’ll stop; there are yet lines he refuses to cross, trenches that run too deep in his psyche. However, Joker doesn’t tell him to stop, doesn’t try to get away, doesn’t do anything but stare back at him as his chest rises and falls shallowly. There’s a challenge in his eye that Bruce can’t quite decipher.
Experimentally, Bruce presses on another fresh bruise on his chest and he purposefully grinds his hips against Joker’s. This time, there’s no gasp, no groan; he watches Joker’s throat work, watches the way his lips press together in a thin line.
So that’s his game.
Even like this, even half-naked beneath him, Joker wants to fight him. The realization brings with it a storm, two warring factions. There’s the part of him that wants a fight too, rising with excited teeth. Followed by the howling fury that Joker won’t ever give him what he wants without a fight. That even now, likely fulfilling a decade’s old fantasy of the monster beneath him, Joker won’t roll over and give in.
Dipping his head low, Bruce drags his tongue over the column of Joker’s throat and listens to the sharp intake of breath. Ignoring the throb of the wound in his back, he sinks his teeth into the soft skin underneath his jaw and feels him shiver beneath his hands. Starting to rock against him again, he sucks bruises against the side of his neck, leaving a new collection of marks over his flesh, and listens to him swallow back a litany of moans.
Denying him his spoils of a battle won.
Bruce wants them, he’s earned them. After all of the times Joker’s tried to shatter his life into pieces, Bruce is allowed to shatter him in return. He wants to take him apart, find his weak places and soft spots. Anger rises in him like a flood, turning the tide of the war in his chest.
Giving in to his earlier urge, Bruce ducks his head to bite the darkening bruise on Joker’s chest. He feels the way the other man squirms beneath him, listens to the strangled noise he makes in his throat. Bruce follows his instincts to seek out the others, breaking skin twice, one over his ribs and once against his neck. All these streaks and spots of red, and he still doesn’t hear a moan, only faint whines, stalled behind Joker’s tightly closed lips.
Fine, he decides, fine; he’ll see how much longer Joker can pretend he’s unaffected. Bruce sits back and tugs off sneakers and socks, then works open the jeans, sliding them and the heart-print boxers underneath down skinny hips and legs. Joker doesn’t do a thing to help but doesn’t try to stop him either, doesn’t even try to kick him in the face, and it ignites fiery vindication in Bruce’s veins. He’s right; it’s only Joker’s pride, only his love for senseless games, that has him biting his tongue. This horrible, infuriating, monster of a man is still hard beneath him, he still wants him.
Without preamble, he wraps one gloved hand around Joker’s length, relishing the jerk of his hips. Bruce is just as hard in his suit, but his focus isn’t on the heat pooled low, it’s on the beast on display in front of him. He strokes slowly as he catalogues the bruises and scars on his hips, his thighs. He thinks of the stories he’s heard, of the roughness he knows Joker likes. There’s a world where he forces Joker’s mouth open and shoves his fingers in, where he finds out if he’d be good and suck, or try to bite through the leather. But roughness hasn’t yielded the results he wants, no matter how beautifully Joker’s trembled beneath him.
Good thing Batman is always prepared. He hooks his hands underneath Joker’s knees, not meeting with any sort of struggle. The other man’s breathing grows faster, anticipating, and it’s Bruce’s turn to bite back a smile. For all the fight he’s put up, his body gives him away. But Bruce isn’t satisfied with just that, he wants to hear his surrender as he hitches pale legs over his shoulders. Pulling off one gauntlet, he reaches into his utility belt for a packet of clear gel. Joker snickers quietly, but shockingly doesn’t say anything as Bruce spreads it over his fingers before sinking one into him.
Joker jolts like he’s been hit with an electric current, his lips pressing together thinly as Bruce adds a second. He’s clearly trying to muffle himself, trying to deny Bruce any satisfaction. Bruce stews in his warring emotions, his vindication with every swallowed moan, every rock of Joker’s hips against his fingers, and his resentment that even now, even as he’s slowly stretched open, Joker refuses to give him what he wants. Bruce is so tired of playing pretend.
An idea takes root and bitterness strengthens its branches. Bruce fucks Joker slowly with his fingers, feeling the way his body clenches greedily around the digits even as Joker keeps his mouth shut. He wants, suddenly, to hear him beg, he wants it so badly that his teeth ache with it. But, as Bruce traces slicked fingers around his rim even as Joker shudders pleasantly, when Joker opens his mouth next, it’s to give a pointed, theatrical yawn
Bruce’s eyes narrow and he slips his fingers free entirely, quickly opening the lower half of his suit to draw his cock out, spreading the last of the gel over hot skin. He should use a condom; only the devil knew what Joker got up to in his free time. But the thought of Joker feeling him leak down the back of his thighs as Batman takes him back to Gotham ignites a fire in him he can’t ignore as he lines himself up, the blunt head nudging against Joker’s heat. Joker’s defiant gaze is locked on his face, a shadow of a smile on red lips. The monster thinks he’s winning.
Bruce tears off the cowl.
“Don’t–” Joker chokes out, startled, and that bitter idea tastes so sweet now.
“What’s wrong? You wanted to ruin Bruce Wayne’s life, didn’t you? Here I am.” There were few times in Bruce’s life he felt more powerful without the cowl on, but this was one. Wielding his name and face like a weapon, watching Joker’s gaze narrow, the ire in his eye. Whatever Joker is about to say next is lost as Bruce grips his hips and sinks in.
Joker’s back arches even as he turns his face away, swallowing his moans, and Bruce nearly shouts in fury. He settles for gripping Joker by the jaw, turning his face back towards him as sheathes himself in fully. “Look at me,” he hisses, “This is who you’ve wanted all along.”
“Who would want you?” Joker gasps out, even as his lips curl in a snarl, even as he tightens around him. He feels Joker’s ankles hook behind him, undercutting his words and the glittering anger in his gaze. “Some– some sad orphan spending his inheritance on stupid costumes.”
“You would,” Bruce fires back against Joker’s sneer, feeling him shudder around him. “You’re pathetic. You have a bad day and instead of picking yourself up, you make it Gotham’s problem. You weren’t strong enough to pull yourself back together, so you try to shatter everyone else. But no one else is as sick and sad.”
“Shut up,” Joker gasps and finally, finally moans openly as Bruce slowly draws back. Usually only blood or bruises colored Joker’s skin, but like this he can see the flush of arousal on porcelain cheeks. The last time they’d been this close, Joker had been the one on top, a victorious grin on his lips as he threatened to carve Bruce’s face into ribbons. It’s deeply gratifying to be on the other end, to see the shadow of his fist on Joker’s jaw, the dried blood on his skin, the pink on sharp cheekbones. His marks, his influence.
“I built something off of my bad day,” Bruce continues as he thrusts back into that heat, driving a cry out of Joker and pushing him back against the cheap carpet, “I created something, but you– you’re not strong enough for that. You only know how to destroy.”
“There’s no point in building,” Joker snaps back, panting, “You idiot! Everything’s rotten! Everything gets ground to dust anyways! Why not speed it along and save yourself the trouble?”
“Trouble or disappointment?”
“Shut–” The rest of Joker’s words are lost to a groan as Bruce hikes his legs higher over his shoulders, nearly folding him in half as he fucks into him deeper, relentless.
“Pathetic,” Bruce snarls again in his face. There wasn’t any shame or moral failing in struggling after tragedy, or being afraid of heartbreak and disappointment. To take that pain and seek to give it to others ten times over, to create tragedies in innocent lives as if it might somehow lessen his own… It’s an unforgivably wretched worldview.
Joker lifts his head suddenly, a promise of murder written clearly across his face, and Bruce jerks his head back just in time to avoid the snap of sharp teeth. Wrapping a hand around Joker’s neck, he pushes him back down and listens to him curse.
“Quit. Be good for once in your miserable goddamn life,” he warns.
“I’m really going to kill you,” Joker mutters, but the fight finally seems to go out of him as Bruce tightens his fingers around his neck; he sees it in the softening of his glare, in the way he doesn’t try to speak again. The fury in Bruce sings in victory at that; no more arguments, no more mockery, no more fighting him.
In reward, he loosens his grip, letting Joker gasp freely for air as Bruce sinks deep in him. All he wanted was this surrender, Joker finally responding openly, giving himself over to Bruce’s touches. A little bit of honesty between them, after all of their years of masks and make believe.
Joker had fancied himself Gotham’s new architect. If Gotham could see him now, quivering and moaning. If all of his devoted followers could watch how he clenched greedily around him. Would they follow him if they knew how pitiful he really was?
How dare he sneer at Bruce’s dream and claim he didn’t understand Gotham, that he’d tried to make the city pretend to be something it wasn’t. When all he was was this, this exasperating man panting beneath him who was always playing games. Who tried so hard to keep his real face from Bruce, who had fought back the cries Bruce was now driving out of him, who refused to tell him his goddamn name. How dare he accuse Bruce of pretenses and refusing to see the truth.
Overcome with anger once more, Bruce wraps a hand tight around Joker’s throat, pressing down and listening to him gasp and struggle. He’s going to have a collar of bruises around his neck to match the new ones littered over his torso and Bruce is struck by the ridiculous idea that he wants to mark him all over, let him see the evidence of their fighting and fucking over every inch of him the next time he looks in a mirror.
He recognizes the signs when Joker’s starting to struggle a little too much under his grip, the increasingly unfocused look in his gaze, and Bruce releases his hold, listening to the other man suck in shuddering breaths as his cock twitches and leaks between them. This is the one side of Joker he hadn’t known before tonight, the side he’s committing to memory now. The heat around him is demanding, Joker tight around him like he doesn’t ever want to let him pull back.
“Bats,” Joker gasps out and Bruce instantly knows what he’s asking for, but he’s not going to capitulate that easily, not when Joker fought him tooth and nail earlier. “Bats, come on.” Joker’s voice is small, pitiful, but Bruce’s mercy towards him has long since dried up.
“If you want something,” he grinds out, breath hitching as he sinks back into that unforgiving heat, “Ask me nicely.”
“Fuck you,” Joker hisses, teeth bared. But the fire and fury is short-lived, Joker’s head tilting back against the carpet, baring his throat as Bruce drives more soft sounds of pleasure from him. His cock is weeping steadily, flushed dark pink between them and Bruce briefly wonders about the taste, if it’s as sharp and bitter as the rest of the man.
“Please.” Joker finally breaks, desperate in a way that almost sends Bruce over the edge, the world briefly going hazy around the edges as he staves off his impending orgasm. Not yet, not yet. “Please Bats, touch me goddammit, please.”
He should, and yet… For once, it’s Bruce who wants to take more.
“Keep trying,” he taunts, breathless, and Joker groans, an angry edge in his tone and his eye. He doesn’t doubt Joker can come like this, on his cock alone; he’s already dripping all over his own stomach. Joker’s warring with himself and Bruce relishes it, watches him fight his pride and demons even as a string of increasingly desperate oh-ohs leave his mouth. He’s writhing under Bruce like a wild thing, trying to tilt his hips and grind against him, but Bruce’s grip on him is tight; he’ll take what he’s given and nothing more.
The sound Joker makes is high pitched and anguished, and Bruce’s climax is held off solely by spite as he drives into him again and again, sure as a knife.
“Please.” The word comes out like a sob, Joker shaking against him. “Bruce, please–”
Bruce touches him, though it’s not in the way he knows Joker wants. Instead he wraps a hand firmly around Joker’s neck again, listening to him curse his name once more. Bruce tightens his grip, listening to him choke wetly, his breathing growing shallower. Bruce could keep going, he could end him, just like this, in a cheap motel room buried to the hilt inside of him…
He stares into the blown pupil staring back at him, and angles his hips just so, hitting that buried spot in the other man as he releases his throat, letting him finally breathe deep again. Joker wails when he comes, untouched despite his begging, and Bruce fucks him through it, keeps fucking him even when he’s gasping and trembling around him. He chases his own orgasm doggedly, finally letting the fire overtake him and groaning low when he floods Joker’s insides.
Bruce has only just enough wits about him to notice the changes in Joker as they both catch their breaths; the soft, unfocused look in his eye, the way his skin’s flushed pink, a sign of life in his usually corpse-like pallor. The hair sticking to his forehead and temples, the slight parting of his lips as he pants.
Strangely, Bruce wants to kiss him. It has nothing to do with affection, he tells himself; fondness doesn’t enter into their equations. It would only be another way to own him, to make a point, to win. But he swallows back the urge and slips out of Joker, further cataloguing the quiet sound he makes as he does. Drawing back, he eases legs from his shoulders and listens to Joker groan as his spine finally straightens back out.
Sitting in the aftermath of his choices, Bruce expected to feel worse than he does. He feels burned out, anger finally embers, but not hollow. He’d stopped himself from crossing this line for so long, always with good reason, certain that it would change things for the worse. Yet now, listening to Joker catch his breath, practically naked beside him, only his sweatshirt a bunched mess around his arms, he doesn’t feel guilty. Instead satisfaction radiates in him right down to his bones; he thinks this must be how knights in storybooks feel after slaying their dragons.
There’s a vague, minute concern that Joker will use this against him somehow, that he’ll announce what they’ve done in front of Jason and God, but Bruce doesn’t think he will. For once, this doesn’t feel like a fight that Joker’s won and they both know it.
“Well.” Naturally, Joker can’t stand being quiet for too long. Bruce watches him slowly struggle to sit up and doesn’t offer a hand. There are scratchy red lines over his shoulder from where he’s rubbed against the carpet, and the messy imprint of zippers over his biceps. Leaning against the side of the bed again, he casts a disparaging look at the crushed pack of cigarettes, squashed flat in their plastic and paper. “I suppose that’s one point for grave robbing.”
Refusing to take the bait, Bruce just breathes in the humid, stale air as he tucks himself back into the suit, mindless of the mess. He hopes he looks steadier than he feels as he checks the time on the room’s clock, and it declares the hour in red back at him. It’s earlier than he expected. Glancing down at Joker, he meets the other man’s gaze and decides there’s plenty of time.
Bruce has him twice more. Once, shoved up against the wall, Joker’s hands caught between them as Bruce bites at the rug burn on his shoulder. He draws blood and Joker shouts when Bruce finally wraps his fingers around his neglected cock; a kindness. Bruce doesn’t even make him beg this time, listening to him chant curses instead as he comes against the wall.
After dragging him to the bed for round three, there’s not even a token struggle when Bruce briefly releases his wrists, finally tugs purple fabric off his arms, and then rebinds him to the headboard. He’s stopped fighting him, giving in entirely the way Bruce knew he could. Bruce rewards this good behavior with more bites, more bruises, still burying the odd urge he has to kiss him. When Bruce sinks back into him, Joker’s warm and loose around him, and his legs wrap around his back, welcoming him. The clock on the nightstand proclaims it’s nearly midnight and this would be a good time to get Joker to the Batplane and back to Gotham, but Bruce can’t drag himself away from the body beneath him, can’t stop chasing the victory high as he comes inside him again. When he draws back, it’s on exhausted limbs before he relaxes over his captured prey.
Resting his cheek against Joker’s battered chest, he listens to the rapid beat of his heart, feels the rise and fall of his chest. He hears the soft clink of metal as Joker shifts slightly, but thinks nothing of it; when Joker brings the lamp on the nightstand down on his head, he thinks of nothing at all.
Bruce wakes with a headache, a groan, and the realization he’s been cuffed to the bed. It's not much trouble to get loose and he sits up slowly, vision swimming. The plastic bag and its previous contents are still on the floor, the pieces of the lamp are all over the bed, and the clock tells him it's now long past midnight. There’s no sign of Joker, either in the room or its bathroom, though Bruce does find a note scribbled on a torn piece of paper beside the clock. He brings the flashlight from his belt close to read it.
See you soon, Bruce