5589/A Happy Delivery

A Happy Delivery
Date of Scene:	18 October 2018
Location:	Gotham City
Synopsis:	Batman delivers the Joker to Arkham Asylum.
Cast of Characters:	Batman, Joker

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Batman has posed:
    The GCPD and the Gotham Department of Corrections have an 'arrangement' with Batman. After many years and many losses of security guards and police officers moving the Joker from one place or another, they call in the Bat to do it for them. It isn't legal, not by any stretch, but when you have one of the world's greatest combatants volunteering to perform a dangerous job nobody else wants free of charge then you don't pass it up. As such, the Batmobile roars down the narrow bridge leading to Arkham Asylum with the Joker tightly bound and secured in the passenger compartment save for his head. The trip across the river from New York has been largely uneventful, with the Bat refusing to engage or speak so far.

Joker has posed:
"Oh this service is so much better than Uber!" quips the Joker as he rides along with Batman. "I got to try that on my holiday in New York. I even met a real live Amazon. But she was very rude. I have holiday snaps I'll have to show you Bats. But there is no place like Gotham. Or my home in Arkham. Thanks for picking me up from the airport. Did you know Jerry Seinfeld maintians that is the highest tier of a male friendship? Beyond even driving someone to the sirport? I am so lucky to have a best friend like you Bats." The Joker gabs on cheerily.

Batman has posed:
    The Bat's gloves audibly crinkle as he squeezes the wheel tight. Theirs is a strange relationship, and almost every moment between them seems as though there is something dark and bestial within him straining to slip the chain just long enough to choke the life out of the Clown. But his will is iron, and his eyes remain glued to the road. They turn down the leaf-strewn stretch of roadway in the scrubby outskirts of Gotham, the Lovecraftian parapets of Arkham Asylum beginning to loom on the horizon. Then, without warning, the Batman speaks in a low, even tone: "I have a question for you."

Joker has posed:
"Oh how exciting - I don't believe you've ever been so talkative. So what is the question? Dare I ask? Is it where I get my suits? Never! That is something I will never disclose not even to the very best of my friends. How about how I get legions of disposable henchmen and where they come from? Oh but you wouldn't ask anything so practical. Anyway I can't answer that question as I don't know - they seem to just materialise. And have you noticed how every seventh or eighth of them looks exactly the same? I find that unsettling." The Joker can often volunteer more information than wanted.

Batman has posed:
    "Would you like to keep talking, or do you want to keep your teeth?"
    The Batman's voice is calm, even and entirely bereft of emotion. But beneath the surface there boils a hatred so intense that, were it made substantial, it would be blinding to look at and too hot to touch. His fists grip the steering wheel, his jaw a tense line that causes the tendons beneath it to pop against the tight cowl he wears.

Joker has posed:
"That's my Bat's - we are one two of a kind violent unsound of mind," Joker sighs. Cranes his neck back. He is not intimidated but somewhat disapointed that the 'question' was not something more interesting. And that this car ride was apparently some form of vigilante 'time-out' for the Arch criminal. Instead of talking Joker starts humming Lady Gaga's "Poker Face".

Batman has posed:
    "They'll never cure you," the Bat continues, something in him coming loose enough for him to speak rather than simply continue on in silence. Here, alone with the Joker, there's no pretense to keep up. They know each other perhaps better than any two people will ever know each other - and neither even knows the other's name. The Batmobile slows now, practically crawling up the road as Arkham grows closer, "This is the very definition of a futile errand. You're sick. Irreparably sick. Have you ever considered that maybe I'm failing you by letting you persist? Like a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth. Refusing to end your suffering. Just letting you drift further and further away into wherever it is you are in there."

Joker has posed:
"Who says I am suffering? But if I am aren't you as well? Perhaps I should end your suffering? Unless there is something particularly bright going on in your life that I don't know about you are at least as theoretically miserable as I am. The difference betwen us is I issue fewer death threats. I just carry the ones I do out." The Joker cackles. "You can't cure what isn't insane Bats. That's the problem. If you want me to meet your definition of sanity you'd have to make me insane."

Batman has posed:
    "You won't," Batman almost dares, almost mocking the Clown, "You can't. Just like I'm going to deliver you to Arkham Asylum no worse for wear when it would be so easy to stop right now, lean over and break your neck. It wouldn't take more than a second. Maybe you wouldn't even feel it. Wouldn't even know."
    He pauses, the car slowing now to a complete stop as he turns in the seat to lock eyes with the Joker.

Joker has posed:
"Is this like a couples fight. I'm supposed to be the creepy one Bats - you're stealing my sunshine. Or are you starting to see things my way? The only sensible way to live is without rules or standards. The universe makes no sense - why try to impose an order on it? Why not spare yourself the aggravation? Why not break my neck? It is convenient and direct. There would be waves - but you'd probably get a nice holiday or at least a reduction in your work. I wouldn't feel it and I'd die happy knowing I'd helped my best friend in all the world evolve - even if just a little in the right direction. So why not?" Joker eyeballs Batman not flinching. There is method to the chaos apparently as far as the Clown was concerned.

Batman has posed:
    "Hnh."
    Batman's mouth twitches, ever so slightly, into a half-smile at the Clown's words. Then the Car accelerates once again, continuing on the way towards Arkham Asylum. Maybe it would be simpler, but perhaps the idea that it would be doing the one thing that the Clown wants of him is enough to stay his hand. There is a pregnant silence as he continues to drive, the trace of a smile still lingering on his face.

Joker has posed:
"Is that? Oh it couldn't be? A smile? You are truly my soulmate! In an only mildly creepy hero villain bromance way of course. Since I have helped you - perhaps you wouldn't mind doing me a favor?" The Joker always loved to push his apparently inexhaustible luck.

Batman has posed:
    Batman doesn't respond when asked about the favour, but nor does the little smile disappear from his face. He continues to drive, but the fact that he's not shouting the Joker down or closing the divider between them suggests he's certainly listening to whatever favour it is about to be asked.

Joker has posed:
"Can you get me a new deck of cards? The Arkham ones are terrible. Just the new part polymer kind - a full deck with the jokers in it. Although I must admit I only really play with a Patience or a Texas Holdem Poker Deck. Can you believe the Joker doesn't like to play card games that have the Joker in them? Maybe that's why I became the Joker. Although I can't quite remember how that happened. But Maybe I had alot of spare Joker cards from a full deck." The Joker furrows his brow. "Hey tell me Bats you must have run every psychological test in your database on me and as I can attest I cannot fully remember how I came to be what I am. If that is the case how can I be such a lucid talker or planner?"

Batman has posed:
    "Maybe you're lying to yourself," Batman answers flatly, rounding the corner into the weed-choked front yard of the mansion that has become Arkham Asylum, "Maybe you're not as insane as you think you are, and it's all an excuse so you don't have to look at the world through the same prism everyone else does?"

Joker has posed:
"I never said I was insane. And as I see it it is everyone else who is afraid to even glance at the world as I see it." The joker stretches his neck so he can turn to fully face his foe. "And I expected you to ge tall technical on me. I can DSMIV myself you know - I've tried. My dilemma is existential not psychological. That's why you will always win the fight. I even want you to - do you know how many dives I have taken for you? But I win the argument Bats. Did you see what I did in New York?"

Batman has posed:
    Once again, the smile returns as the Bat pulls into the parking area. By the time the Batmobile is parked and the driver's door is opening, the Bat is laughing. Nobody has come out to meet them yet, and perhaps he gets away with it. There's no telling the amount of damage anyone other than the Joker seeing the Bat laughing might do to his reputation. He's still laughing - not an uproarious kind, just a faint chuckle - when he arrives at the passenger compartment door and opens it to look down at the Joker.

Joker has posed:
"Home again - home again - Jiggity Jig! Oh wait that's Harley's line. No doubt she'll be along with the usual recriminations. Well get me my cards Bats and I'll owe you a favor? What do you say about a new recripocal arrangement?" A little too sane a propostion for the Joker bu the does look up to Batman with hope even though he knows a periodic beatdown is inevitable.

Batman has posed:
    "I'll call it in later," Batman answers, still glaring down at the Joker with a strange chuckle in his voice. Maybe he will. Or maybe it'll just be one of a thousand other unresolved things hanging in the air between them. All the same, he lifts the Clown from the car with one hand by the front of the bindings he wears and holdings him at eye level, "Do you remember what I said about talking and your teeth?"

Joker has posed:
"What you'll break mine and I'll get them fixed much later after an escape? How many have you had broken as a result of me and my shennanigans? This is pointless cruelty. And cruelty has a point sometimes you know? Especially when it is illustrating cruelty has no point. Do what you must." The Joker shows no fear but they have played this out a thousand times. "You are the Punisher with a Taser rather than aDesert Eagle," Joker offers.

Batman has posed:
    "I suppose so," the Bat answers, and then his hand snaps forward to do little more than pat the Joker lightly on the cheek. That done, he moves towards the main doors of the Asylum which open before him. Two of the security guards move forward with a guerney, ready to strap the Clown to it before conveying him to his cell. Batman's smile is gone now, and before the guards and staff he is nothing but implacable. They are quick to take the Clown from him to strap him down, taking no measure of risk even with the Bat right there.

Joker has posed:
"Well here is where the dance ends. You must attend cards night - I have very special plans for that," Joker says. Yawning, "You must of course get back to doing what it is you do when we aren't doing what we do. I admit I do have a full time advantage on you even though I am not drawing a wage."

Batman has posed:
    The Bat doesn't say anything, simply watching as the Joker is taken away to the cell. Satisfied, he turns and returns to the Batmobile. Shortly after, the engine roars to life once again and the Car has departed. The next time the Clown lays down to sleep, whenever that may be, he awakes to a set of old cardstock playing cards left upon the singular shelf the cell provides.
    Promise kept.