Chapter Text
Being inside Arkham is like being crammed into a giant clock. The room lights turn on at six in the morning on the dot, tic, and they shut off again at nine at night, toc. The noise from the kitchen starts before the lights, at five thirty, copper pots and running water and the revolving thrum of the industrial hoods, preparing the morning’s gruel, and that doesn’t change either. Gloppy grey oatmeal, gloppy grey scrambled eggs, gloppy grey sausage patties, no sharp edges, no sir. Can’t hurt yourself with this slop. Nothing requiring a fork or, heh heh, a knife.
Five fifty-nine fifty-seven, five fifty-nine fifty-eight, five fifty-nine fifty-nine, six am on the dot and here come the nurses, rubber soled shoes squeaking, wheeled trays squeaking, door hinges squeaking, and the inmates—no, patients—are all waking up now if the lights didn’t wake them already. Time for the first round of meds, the ones you take with food. The Joker hates this part, HATES it, so it’s nice of them to get it over with early. At least, until mid-morning meds, and lunch meds, and afternoon tea meds. It’s enough to make a man go, ha ha, crazy.
They’ve got a name for everything in this place (except, heh, for him). The meds, the ones in the morning, those are Clozapine. And then there’s Risperidone and Ziprasidone and Asenapine. The side effects, those have names too. The feeling like his head is full of cotton wool, that’s dysphoria. The feeling that there’s a bird in his chest trying to get out, that’s akathisia. When he licks his lips, that’s tardive dyskinesia, and that one’s permanent. He could stop the drugs tomorrow—if only—but he’d still have that tic (tic, ha! Get it?) for the rest of his life.
The nurse, her name’s Polly.
She comes in now, pushing a tray, followed by two orderlies. “Good morning, Mister J,” she says. “Did you have sweet dreams?”
He rolls his head to the side and hunches as far as he can go with these goddamn restraints. “Dreamed about you, Polly.”
“Did you?” she asks mildly, preparing his dose. Ben, one of the orderlies, comes over and starts opening his restraints. Patrick, the other one, stands at the ready. They’re both big guys, burly, because they found out pretty early on that Joker doesn’t like to be touched and, heh, he’s stronger than he looks. Most of the inmates don’t get this special treatment.
The Joker continues, ignoring the orderlies. “You should wear your hair down. You look better that way.”
Ben gets him undone and Patrick hands him the straight jacket. They manhandle him to a sitting position and get one arm into the jacket, then the other. Once in a while Joker will take this opportunity to struggle, maybe get an arm free, maybe break someone’s nose—the orderly, his own, whatever—just to keep everyone on their toes, but the week of sedation after that sort of a stunt is killer, so it’s more of a thing he saves for special occasions.
“Mmhm,” says Polly. She turns her back politely and Ben and Patrick get him out of the bed. The straight jacket’s got one buckle left—the fun strap—but first it’s the toilet. Pants down, Patrick’s cool hand perpetrating this particular indignity today. Aim, fire. Joker turns his head to look over his shoulder at Polly’s narrow back.
“And the eyes. You have such pretty blue eyes. There you were, pretty blue eyes, wearing those cute little glasses, at least until I removed them—” He starts to giggle, catches himself— “Removed the eyes, I mean.”
Patrick puts him back in his pants with a little more force than necessary. “Hey, hey, don’t I get a shake?” he exclaims, but Ben’s got the fun strap and pulls it tight. Ouch.
Back to the cot. Ben and Patrick both hold him in place when Polly comes with the tiny paper cup of pills. “Open wide, sweetie,” Polly says.
Somewhere in the building, there is a faint rattle, like beans in a can. Or gunfire. The Joker tilts his head, curious. Polly doesn’t even blink. “Open your mouth,” she says again.
“I think your clock’s broken,” says the Joker. Patrick’s thumb wedges into the corner of his mouth, cranks it open—and hey, Patrick, I know where those hands have been!—and Polly comes with the cup of pills, tips them onto his tongue. “Swallow,” she says.
He swallows. “Ooh, déjà vú,” he says. “I remember saying that to you—”
Ben shoves him back and his head hits the wall, but he’s laughing too hard to care. Polly wheels out the tray and Ben and Patrick follow, and the door closes, but not before he hears another rattle. Closer. And they are most definitely not beans.
The screaming starts a few minutes later, and that just sends the whole thing to hell. One scream and off go the inmates—like clockwork!—banging and shouting and wailing and probably pissing themselves if Joker knows crazy and he does—(guilt by association, he’s not crazy. He’s not)—and there’s the squeak of rubber soles on the floor, nurses running like mad (heh) and a burst of gunfire so close that he can see the noise like flowers behind his eyes not see, you can’t see noise, what are you, cr—
The door opens.
Of all the people in the city Joker could have expected to come into Arkham, guns a-blazin’, this guy in a bird suit was not even on the list, though maybe because he’s never seen him before. Blue suit, pecs like a Greek god, a mask that covers his face down to the indent over his upper lip, a strikingly familiar square jaw, pointy little ears—
“The Joker?” the man says in a growl. Familiar growl too, yet different.
The Joker tilts his head to the side and licks his lips. Tardive dyski-FUCKING-nesia. “Guilty as charged. And you are…?”
The man studies him. His eyes are barely visible behind slits in the mask, and how weird, they’re yellow? He comes into the room and there is another burst of gunfire in the hallway, a flash of someone running past. The Joker sits up from his slouch, automatically flexing his muscles against the uncomfortable pull of the straight jacket.
“They said you were the worst criminal Gotham has ever seen,” the man says. He reaches out, grabs a fistful of greasy hair, the tips still green, the roots growing out dark blond. He leans in close and yeah, those eyes are yellow ringed around black, like an owl or something. Color contacts? Seriously?
“Who said? Remind me to send them a fruit basket—” The Joker stops, annoyed, when the man gives him a sharp shake.
“Funny,” says the man. “To me, you just look like a no-talent stand-up comic.”
The Joker squints up at him, haloed by the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. “And you came all this way to hear my jokes.”
The man studies him for a moment longer, his eyes hard and his expression unreadable. He doesn’t blink, and that’s just freaky.
“They call me Owlman,” he says. His suit smells like rubber and talc. “And I didn’t come all this way just to hear your jokes.” He lets go of Joker’s hair and straightens up, absently wiping his gloved hand on his thigh. “Have you ever heard of alternate universes?”
The Joker plants his feet on the floor. He could lunge forward, plow into the guy and knock him over, then get to the door and take his chances with the guns. Sure, he’s in a straightjacket and his head feels like someone took out his brain and replaced it with crumpled newspaper and he doesn’t have any weapons except for his teeth, but he could ride the guy to the floor, bite off his lips, distract him a bit.
Owlman is watching him, his arms relaxed at his sides, looking calm, but there’s some sort of dangerous awareness there. Something vicious. Something that maybe wouldn’t be the slightest bit distracted by having his lips bitten off.
The Joker smiles, showing his teeth. “I’m in an insane asylum. Of course I have.”
The man doesn’t look amused, but it’s always hard to tell with a mask. “You gambled on the selfishness of real people and brought this city to a standstill for a couple days. Others tried to bring down the city with fear and panic and succeeded for an evening. People try. Everyone fails. And why?”
The Joker feels his mouth forming the word before he’s even conscious of the thought. Batman.
“Lack of ambition,” says Owlman. “You cause panic and reveal the dark underbelly of Gotham and challenge authority as if that’s an end in itself. Chaos for the sake of chaos is no way to take over the world.”
The Joker licks his lips. “And you’re going to do it better how?”
“Delegating.” Owlman takes a slice of metal from his belt, a wicked thing shaped like an owl. He holds it loosely in his hand. “I have done it better, and my Gotham runs so smoothly there’s no challenge to it anymore.”
“Your Gotham,” the Joker giggles. “And how did you get from there to here? Where’s your Delorean?”
“There is one man in this city who even bothers standing up to criminals,” Owlman says, ignoring his question. “Take him out and the city collapses.”
Anger floods up behind the Joker’s teeth. “You don’t touch him,” he snaps. “Batman is my game.” He surges to his feet, head angling for the unprotected square of jaw in front of him, but his limbs move like he’s drunk and Owlman sidesteps, grabbing his shoulder and slamming him into the opposite wall, body flush against Joker’s back, the owlarang pressing firmly up under his jaw. The Joker takes a breath and the blade moves slick against his flesh, already lubed with blood.
“I told you,” says Owlman, his voice quieter. “I’m delegating.” The blade moves away from his neck and there is the squeak of rubber. “I’m not interfering with your game. I’m going to give you a piece of the puzzle.” Owlman shifts behind him and then his breath is against Joker’s ear. The Joker turns his head and the face next to him is close enough to kiss, close enough to bite, and the mask has been removed.
“He’s my little brother,” Owlman says with the face of Bruce Wayne, and the Joker starts to laugh.