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Bruce leant a shoulder against the doorway and let his eyes travel through what he could only loosely describe as a kitchen. The window had been boarded up, with what looked like remnants of the destroyed kitchen table and chairs in the corner. The light from the neon sign outside came through in red streaks that cast an eerie illumination of the room. The kitchen light fitting was missing and, in its place, hung the decapitated head of a Batman doll. It swayed whenever a heavy goods vehicle passed and shook the condemned building. The floor was scattered with scraps of paper, all screwed up or torn in some way. Some had odd cartoon-like drawings of himself on them, and other depictions Bruce couldn’t quite make out. The rest were calculations. Formula calculations. Wrong calculations were scratched and thrown away in anger to be forgotten only moments later. The chemistry set made Bruce wince with the disordered way it was scattered around the kitchen counter. Chemicals were left out. Some without lids or even in an appropriate container. None were labelled, and it was mind-blowing how they could even be identified. Opening the fridge, Bruce averted his gaze and promptly shut it, coughing slightly at the repulsive stench of rot.
“Come, come, Bats. We both know you don’t do social calls,” Joker drawled, grinning over his shoulder, and he winked. “Wouldn’t want folk to talk now after all.” Bruce didn’t reply. There was no need. They both knew why he was here, and he was too tired to play games. Joker finished making what Bruce assumed was a sandwich. If the combination of ham, ketchup and Fruit Loops wasn’t enough to churn his stomach, the filthy counter he made it on did. The man hadn’t even chosen a counter that hadn’t been utilised for whatever he had last used his chemistry set for.
“You’re going to tell me what you did to him,” Bruce said. There was nothing else to say. Taking an obnoxiously huge bite of his sandwich, Joker leaned against the counter as he chewed. His lips twitched into a slight smirk when Bruce averted his eyes when he did so.
“I’ve done a lot of things, Batsy, old pal. What did I do to whom?”
Bruce narrowed his eyes and stepped into the kitchen. Something crunched beneath his boot, and he was standing in something sticky. He had passed the point of caring and refused to break his stare as Joker kept eating, unbothered and distracted by something in the far corner. There was nothing there.
“Joker!”
“What!” Joker snapped, blinking, he chuckled and licked ketchup off his thumb. “Oh. Yes, yes, I’ve been bad. Why have I been bad? I swear I’ve been a good boy, Mr Batman, Sir. Well, after the docks, but that was a necessity.” Pausing, Joker took another bite of the sandwich before clicking his fingers. “Wobin! Yesh. Ee wen boom!” Joker spoke around his mouthful. Swallowing when Bruce folded his arms, he snickered. “Jason! I forgot, heh. You taught the kid to swim. I’m sure he's fiiiiiine. Just a bit wet, hang him out to dry.”
Joker placed down the half-eaten sandwich and moved to open a cupboard, frantically searching for something as he muttered a long to himself. Bruce rolled his eyes and waited. A bottle of Jack Daniels was slammed onto the counter with a vase and a glass beaker.
“The glasses aren’t usable right now,” Joker explained, smiling in a way that sent a shudder down Bruce’s spine, and he made a pointed decision not to ask why the glasses weren’t usable. “Not often we get some alone time, Bats. One finger or two? Not actual fingers, of course, although imagine that! Ordering two fingers at the bar, and the bartender slides over a glass with two fingers in it.” Joker giggled at the image he concocted in his head and poured the whiskey before offering Bruce the beaker with a grin.
Bruce stared, keeping his expression carefully neutral. He let the silence hang in the air with the decapitated Batman doll. Swallowing, the Joker looked down at the beaker and sneered.
“I was just trying to be a hospitable host, " he lamented, waving Bruce away. He let the beaker drop out of his hand and turned to take a large gulp from the bottle instead. Joker was unsettled. Well, Joker was always unsettled, but the way he stood still, fingers resting on the bottle, was concerning. Bruce’s lips thinned as he looked back at the chemistry set.
“Hood. What did you do to him?” He asked, turning back when Joker chuckled darkly and threw him a vicious smirk.
“Oh ho! That’s why you’re here?” Joker chuckled, a bitter twisted thing that lay crumpled with his formula calculations, “Oh yes. Yes, yes, yes! This is good! Oh, this is rich! It must be my birthday!”
Bruce purposely released his jaw, already beginning to ache from how hard he clenched it. A scratching caught his attention. Frowning, he kicked away the remnants of the kitchen table to discover a bent, half-crumpled cage. Inside, a black rat dressed in a poor attempt at a Robin costume scurried to the far corner. It seemed surprisingly well cared for, with clean bedding, water, and food present. The earlier action of releasing tension in his jaw proved pointless when Bruce noticed the white streak painted onto its head.
“Oh! That’s where Jaybird Fifty-Two went.” Joker giggled, skipping over to pick up the cage, he moved to set it down before blinking in apparent confusion. “Riiiight. The table. Back down you go.” Joker set the cage back down amongst the splintered wood and shook his head. “Ain’t he a cutie, Bats?”
“What have you done?” Bruce ground out, narrowing his eyes when Joker continued cooing at the rat. “Joker! I am not playing games.”
The tension in the room sharpened, and the air hummed with it. The cooing stopped, and Joker straightened up in silence. He stood there staring blankly at the wall.
“Oh, but you are. You are. You are.” Joker muttered, violently shaking his head, “Unlike you, I test on unimportant things first. Yes, yes, things that aren’t part of the end performance. You see, you must perfect the performance. You can’t go ahead and adlib. That won’t do. Oh no, no, no. That’s how lines get forgotten, the joke falls flat, and there’s nothing but silence. Alone in the spotlight with silence, silence, silence.” Pausing, Joker looked at Bruce over his shoulder, eyes falling to his split lip, “but you would know all about that. I heard the first birdie cut you off from everything. Oh deary, deary me. That’s what happens when you don’t follow a carefully constructed script. That’s the art, you see, improvisation is only when you are confident in your material. You improvised, and that won’t do. No, not at all. That’s not what you do. Don’t you see?”
Jaybird Fifty-Two broke the ongoing tension by drinking loudly from the water bottle. Both men paused to watch the rat. Joker chuckled and waggled his eyebrows at Bruce.
“Aw, come on, Grumpy! You can’t tell me you don’t see the likeness. He’s perfect.” Joker returned to bending to coo at the rat, “Quiet down, Jaybird Fifty-Two, Uncle Joker and Daddy Bats are talking. He’s a fighter, this one. Perfect. I knew you were the real one. Yes, yes, the survivor!”
“Survivor?” Bruce muttered under his breath, frowning at the rat before his eyes widened in realisation. Fifty-two. This was the fifty-second rat—the last of Joker’s experiments. The cage was bent not from Joker’s anger towards the current rat but the fifty-one others that perished or didn’t react as he wanted them to. Licking his lips, Bruce peered around the kitchen and spotted a suspiciously full trash bag with flies buzzing around the top, and his stomach churned. He supposed he should be grateful Joker hadn’t decided to use people. That it wasn’t fifty-one innocent victims stuffed in a trash bag in the kitchen. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d discovered an atrocity like that.
“We’re the same, you and I,” Joker hummed thoughtfully, his mood lightened as swiftly as it soured. “For Robin and one Robin only. It wouldn’t do to soil such a gift on some filthy thing unworthy of knowing the role they played in brilliance. No, no, no. Just for Little Jason. Oh yes. Not a drop wasted. No. Rats know they are rats. I think Jaybird Fifty-Two understood, though. Didn’t you? Yes. Yes, you did. Did you use bats? I did consider bats. Bats do the flapping thing, though. Noisy, noisy, and annoying.”
“No,” Bruce replied stonily, raising an eyebrow when Joker’s lips turned down. He had said something wrong. Jaybird Fifty-Two even stopped cleaning his whiskers and stilled as the Joker’s eyes narrowed.
“Ah, you test on Robins,” Joker mumbled, his voice almost lost in the scattered remains of the kitchen. Humming, he opened the cage door and stroked Jaybird Fifty-Two’s head with a thoughtful hum. A small snicker escaped his lips when the rat hissed and tried to bite him. “I always wondered why you kept so many birds around. Heh. I admit, Batsy, I thought I knew you, but I am willing to concede that I may have misjudged you this time. Oh, yes, yes, yes. Little Robins. Who’d have thought? Cheep, cheep, cheep, splat.”
Hissing, Bruce fought against an inexplicable urge to avert his eyes and stubbornly continued to stare at Joker, crouched on the floor with a rat.
“It was safe, a finished serum. I was sure of it.” Bruce defended himself, his gut twisting because the words fell flat here, now. It was easier to say to himself, to say to Jason. “Joker, what did you do?”
Joker hummed again and refused to look up from the rat.
“Untested is unfinished. You call me delusional. Ho, ho, this is rich. I needed the boy. So, I fixed him. The words you are looking for are ‘Thank you, Mr Joker, Sir.’ Not that I did it for you.”
“You- fixed him?” Bruce repeated slowly, bending down, he picked up a torn scrap of paper, ignoring the blood stains, to study the discarded calculations. It was a variation of Joker’s own toxin. They all were. Frowning, Bruce looked back at Joker again. At first, he’d thought it was smudged makeup, but deep shadows were beneath his eyes. His complexion almost made them look like bruises. He hadn’t changed his clothes since the incident at the docks, although now dry, he stunk of fish and seawater. His shirt was untucked and crumpled, and his braces were pushed off his shoulders. Swallowing, Bruce glanced at the half-eaten sandwich lying forgotten on the counter. “Weren’t you eating? Joker?”
“Was I?” Joker asked, standing. He looked around his kitchen before snapping his fingers when he spotted his half-eaten meal. Bruce still couldn’t help the grimace when he bounded over and began demolishing what he would only call food due to the lack of any other definition.
“He-mad-it-hou” Joker suddenly spoke around half-chewed ham and fruit loops, ketchup smearing his teeth when he grinned at Bruce’s apparent discomfort.
“He would have understood. In time. It was in his best interests. He just needed time.” Bruce replied, nodding along to his own words because he was so sure of them. Had been so sure of them. Lips thinning, he watched Joker finish his sandwich. “Drink something. Not whiskey.” Rolling his eyes, Joker giggled and leant over the sink to drink straight from the tap, apparently uncaring about Gotham’s water supply.
It had been for the best. Jason needed peace. He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing him teetering over the sink, a hollow shell who hadn’t sipped a drop of water in the last forty-eight hours. Jason was far more important to him than that. This decision had been the right one, woven with the threads of necessity and care. He knew, deep down, that Jason would eventually come to understand; it was just a matter of time. After all, sometimes love meant making the hardest choices for the sake of someone else’s well-being.
Watching Joker hack and splutter before straightening up, Bruce sighed and lifted his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation.
“Wasn’t talkin’ about your birdie.” Joker corrected, wiping his mouth on his hand, and chuckled, “Johnny boy was mighty mad that you bastardised his formula. It’s his work, not yours, to play with, without permission. It’s basic manners, Bats.” Pausing, Joker pursed his lips and grimaced, “Did you forget that Crane is a psychologist? Hmm? Did that little detail slip your mind? You’re losing your touch, yes, yes, losing it. Never seen Johnny so angry, so furious to hear about what his formula had been used for. I didn’t expect him to run off and try to finish the job. Heh. Guess we both missed details. Heh.” Leaning back on the counter, Joker shook his head with a fond smile “I can see it though. Crane always had a soft spot for the boy. It was a kindness to put him out of his misery. A trapped little bird with broken wings... just a pitiful thing. Cruel to force it to keep living like that. He always was a big ol’ softie. Did you know he made your boy tea in Arkham?”
It was unclear if Joker added that little piece of information about Arkham to get under Bruce’s skin or not. He just smiled back at him, something almost pleasant, as if they were old friends exchanging pleasantries, and Bruce glowered. No, Jason had never uttered a single word about Arkham apart from his resoluteness that he would never go back there. He had no desire to know, content to continue as if it had never happened. That he didn’t, on many levels, consider it to potentially be the safest place for his son to be. The serum had been the answer. Jason would have been safe and looked after in Metropolis. Joker ruined it, and apparently, Crane had played a part in it too, and for the life of him, Bruce couldn’t understand why. Joker always had a reason, and they both knew he didn’t need Jason for his little escapade at the docks. Anyone would have been able to do what Jason did. Joker didn’t need his son.
Joker's smile faltered, and he blinked rapidly before huffing a laugh and looking away.
“Riiiiiight. You didn’t know? Or did you think Jason was hallucinating? I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time. Hee hee. We were there. In the burning building? I needed Crane to help me with his formula so I could make what you did before doctoring my toxin to counteract it. Phew, that really did get the ol’ grey matter working, let me tell you. Yes, yes. Marvellous work, marvellous. I’d have been impressed if it weren’t you. Oh no, it shouldn’t have been you. No, no improvisation isn’t allowed. It’s not.”
Every word sizzled as it slipped beneath his skin, bubbling and spitting as they sank deep inside, scalding his chest. Bruce could only stare for a moment. Thrown by the realisation that Joker truly had come up with an antidote of sorts for his serum. Even if he were to try again, nothing was stopping Joker from ruining his plans once more. He was stuck in an infuriating stalemate.
“You had no business getting involved, Joker! This was between me and Hood, not you. You didn’t need him; you did this just because you could. To prolong his suffering because that is what you enjoy.” Bruce sneered, fists clenching by his sides, when Joker’s smile wavered.
“Ah, you thought you found the cure? Was it easier than curing a toothache?” He spat, the counter creaked as he increased his grip, “I bet you’d have been all honourable too? Released your formula for the benefit of all of humanity. Nobel Prize winner!” Joker’s voice rose as his agitation grew, hands beginning to move as he spoke, his smile stretched and menacing. Bruce tilted his head slightly as he observed him, trying to determine what was fuelling his anger. Joker was an intelligent man, deranged but intelligent. He had been around psychiatry long enough not to make such an elementary statement.
“I did not lobotomise the Red Hood, Joker.” It felt like stating the obvious, because it was pretty clear to anyone with any knowledge of the subject to know that was not what Bruce had done.
Laughter rocketed through the kitchen with such velocity that it almost shook the walls like the passing heavy goods vehicles. Bruce stood stoically still and waited as Joker leant on his knees to try to control himself.
“Oh, stop! Stop! Batman, I beg you! Ha!” Joker gasped, wiping at tears in his eyes, “Who gave you the right to be such a talented comedian?” His laughter stopped as sharply as it came on, and Joker raised an eyebrow at him, eyes glinting with amused malice. “You know what you did. It was a modern version of drilling holes in the boy’s temples and washing him out with ethanol. Was always a traditionalist. Boring.”
Bruce didn’t have an answer to that. It was ludicrous and sickening. He would never inflict that level of harm on his own son. Joker, as usual, was unfazed by Batman’s silence, content to continue his line of thought with little need for a response from anyone except his own thoughts. Holding up a finger, Joker frowned and hummed dramatically, beginning to pace the small kitchen as he muttered and mumbled under his breath.
“Yes. Yes, why use the chemical route? That’s what has me all bamboozled. The transorbital method is far more your style. Clean, quick, and efficient.” Pausing, Joker barked a laugh and offered Bruce a wink. “I mean, that’s why they were all the rage! Heh. It's a quick, efficient way to bring your hysterical, unruly kid back into line. Stop them being so bothersome and annoying.”
“I didn’t lobotomise, Hood,” Bruce ground out through clenched teeth.
“So you keep saying—Urgh, always so literal, so boring, boring, boring. But you did. You did, did, did! Quick and efficient, bothersome, and annoying. A little bird, brought back to the nest. Heh.” Joker rambled, spit glistening on his lips as his movement grew more sporadic and jerky as he spoke. Glancing fleetingly at Bruce, who stood in his silence, Joker huffed a laugh. “Oh, this will be good—an absolute howler. Tell me I’m wrong. Go on! I dare you. Triple dare you!”
“I was saving him from hurting himself, from hurting his future victims. Another chance at a better life. It was a gift.” Bruce spat defensively, but even he could hear the waver in his tone. His words were a little less sure than when he had said them to Dick. His stomach twisted when Joker fell about laughing again.
“A gift! A gift! You would be a very disappointing Santa; oh, I really must remember that. What a hoot that would be in a mall! Here’s a Batman endorsed gift from good ol’ Santa Claus, just for you, little man, BAM!” Hitting himself in the forehead, Joker giggled, “Don’t worry, Ma’am, little Bobby will be a good boy now!”
“You will do no such thing!” Bruce barked, storming over to grab Joker by the shirt and slamming him back against the counter with a scowl. “This isn’t funny!”
Joker grinned, his eyes sparking with a dark delight that would curdle milk, and his thin lips stretched wide in amusement.
“No. No, no, no, it’s not funny. You’ve adlibbed, and you don’t do that. You made a joke, and you don’t do that. I won’t stand for you, you, daring to try and steal my role! I worked hard for it!” Joker yelped when he was slammed against the counter again, hard. “Once, you gave the quacks a good ol’ Bats dressin’ down because they went over the recommended doses of sedatives. Do you remember? I do. Most would have stood watching my breathing slow and slow, slow, slow until poof. But not you. Oh no. Not you.” Joker drawled, grabbing Bruce’s shoulder to pull himself up to whisper into the cowl. “You’d do to your son what you won’t do to me. Why?”
Jaybird Fifty-Two scratching and shuffling about was the only noise aside from the ragged breaths. Bruce frowned, faltering momentarily before letting go of Joker’s shirt to push his face away with a growl.
“Because I love him. A concept you would never understand.” Bruce forced the words out, a headache building as he tried to ignore the feeling that somehow, it was him scrambling for the moral high ground. In his way, Joker was right; this was not how their conversations usually went, and it was jarring. Disconcerting in a way that had nausea swirl in his gut. Joker nodded as if he understood and let out a low chuckle. Noticing Bruce’s distraction, his hand slipped into the drawer to his right.
“Love is a vicious thing, nasty and vile, vile, vile. Oh yes, it is. We hurt the ones we love, Bats. The ones who stray, the ones we will stop at nothing to protect.” Pausing, Joker’s smile twisted into a sneer, “To control. To control is to protect. Love is violent and deliciously cruel. Oh, I understand just fine and dandy.” Tilting his head, Joker watched Bruce sneak a look back at Jaybird Fifty-Two. “When did it all turn to white noise? Was it when the butler’s neck snapped? Hmm?” There was barely a reaction, but Joker smirked at the slight tension in Bruce’s shoulders, “Honour, justice, remember those words? You like those words, too. Not so long ago, they felt sincere. Do you know what turned them into white noise? That’s riiiiiiiiight, love. Grief. Love is a despicable, revolting thing that destroys.”
Bruce swallowed, shaking his head because Joker wasn’t right. He was never right. That was the entire point. A certainty he wasn’t willing to compromise on. Yet he found himself deliberating whether he had wanted to control Jason. Which wasn’t true, he loved his son and tried to keep him safe, give him the life he always deserved. Stop him harming himself and others. These were reasonable things to wish for Jason. The empty hollow ache in his chest grew, and Bruce swallowed a grimace and glared back at Joker’s mocking grin.
“This pretty, pretty little life in your head isn’t real, Bats.” Joker spoke slowly, each word rolling off his tongue in a sing-song tone, “Oh Batsy, Batsy, Bats, we both know you lied. You lied to the boy and lie to yourself so hard it’s depressingly joyful to see.” Joker’s lips twitched slightly in suppressed amusement. “A fear response to adrenaline spikes? You and I are men of science, are we not? Heh. You sold your broken Robin a dream of family, love, and autonomy, but the reality? Come on, Bats, I know you’d have the cocktail all worked out. Betablockers would be necessary, benzos to keep him calm, maybe throw in an antipsychotic and mood stabiliser for good measure.” Letting out a low whistle, Joker shook his head and averted his gaze with a deep chuckle. “Jesus, I mean, all I did was kill the boy, but you?”
The switch didn’t come as a surprise. It was frustratingly infuriating that Bruce had allowed himself to be drawn into Joker’s nonsensical ramblings, not to notice the hand in the drawer. Not seeing the muscles' tension before he lunged forward to pin him against the opposite wall. Swallowing thickly, Bruce felt a sharp instrument poking at the edge of his cowl—mere inches from his left eye. Joker grinned when Bruce recognised the orbitoclast held tightly in a clenched fist.
“Want to tell me again that you didn’t lobotomise, Hood? Hmm?” Joker mocked, pressing the instrument harder against the edge of the cowl, “Controlled and malleable. A good little birdie that no longer sings but sits all pretty in his cage.” Giggling Joker licked his lips and sighed, “Jason would be happy? Bats, come on, he wouldn’t feel a thing at all.”
“He’d be safe. From you!” Bruce ground out, grabbing Joker’s wrist and pulling the orbitoclast away from his face.
“That’s enough?” Joker snapped. Snarling, he landed a right hook on his chin and scrambled back, clutching the orbitoclast tightly as he giggled. “You’re adlibbing again, oh no, no, no. That won’t do. That won’t do. This isn’t you. It’s not.” Throwing Bruce a sharp smile, he stepped closer once more and tilted his head. Bruce lunged forward when Joker turned the instrument on himself and slowly began to twist it into his eye socket. Blood started to drip down as he laughed.
“No!” Bruce bellowed, violently slamming into Joker, sending them both careening to the ground. Joker’s hysterical laughter rang in his ears as he fought for the orbitoclast, fought for control.
“Violation of autonomy and informed consent,” Joker gasped as an elbow collided with his stomach, and he moved to try to slam the instrument back into his eye. “At least I know what's happening. Point to me! Ha ha! I’ll give you the non-maleficence thing fails, but ha, so does your precious gift,”
“Joker, give it to me!” Bruce ordered, ducking when a foot kicked out. “Give me the orbitoclast! Damn it all!”
“Lack of scientific basis … well, you didn’t even test, so I think that’s a point for the ice pick! Hoo hoo, you aren’t scoring very high!” Joker laughed, blood running from his damaged eye socket to smear along his lips like lipstick. “Abuse and exploitation … well, we both know little Robin is a sucker for that, how’s the trauma bond Bats? I bet he forgave you as he went under, didn’t he? Ha! Beautiful! A masterpiece! Ice pick wins again!”
Finally gaining enough grip to slam Joker’s hand against the floor, Bruce huffed a breath when the instrument skittered across stained linoleum. Closing his hand around the orbitoclast, he threw it into the trash bag of decaying rats where it belonged. Silently, he watched Joker drag himself up to lean against the fridge, chest heaving with ragged breaths as he wiped absentmindedly at his own blood as if it were just a mere inconvenience. It seemed impossible. Something that Joker was fundamentally incapable of doing. There had been no malicious intent, no abhorrent plan of strategic mastery, just a want to right a perceived wrong. Well, wrong, closing his eyes, Bruce turned away and wiped a hand over the stubble on his jaw. There was no perception to it. It had been a wrong, deep down, Bruce knew that. It seemed an easy out to claim it was Zur’s influence, but he knew it wasn’t. He had done it of his own free will. A free will he had been fighting hard to maintain whilst simultaneously robbing Jason of his own. There was a truth that you hurt the ones you love, that out of protection, you seek to control, and if left unchecked, the very person you seek to preserve the happiness of is eroded. Bruce couldn’t lose Jason. He couldn’t lose anyone else. He was tired of losing.
Joker sucked in a rasping breath, a hand resting on what Bruce suspected were broken ribs as his head lolled to the side to look at him with a crooked smile. Joker looked tired, too.
“I didn’t need the boy. I coulda sorted out my copycat problem, heh,” Sighing, he dabbed at his eye with a hiss, “Had to keep the image, didn’t I? Neither of us can just go breaking character. Oh no, no. Imagine that! Hee hee, you the bad guy and me the valiant saviour? Ha! What a riot that would be!” Swallowing Joker shook his head in amusement and looked back at him, “I know the language that boy speaks. It was an exchange as simple as that. I helped fix your little improvisation attempt, and he helped me out in return. That way? I solved my little issue whilst fixing your little issue, and everyone remains in character. Everyone wins. How clever of me, heh?”
Pushing himself up to sit, Bruce shook his head and let his eyes drift to Jaybird Fifty-Two.
“Joker-”
“No, no, no, no!” Joker interrupted, waggling a finger at him as he hauled himself back to his feet with a wince. “Let me tell you what happens now. The story continues, oh yes, yes it will. This denouement is over, Bats. Your little menagerie of birds and bats will come to heel as if nothing happened, as they always do. It must be done for the next story to begin, don’t you see? Little Jason has already forgiven your transgressions, so the others will soon follow like the good little lemmings they are. Oh yes, yes, yes, because that’s what love does too. Forgive and forget.” With a soft chuckle escaping his lips, Joker hobbled over to retrieve his jacket from a hook nestled behind the kitchen door. “As for me?” He paused, a mischievous glint flickering in his eyes as he slid the jacket onto his shoulders, smoothing the creases from his sleeves with a theatrical flourish. Turning toward Bruce, he offered a playful wink, the corners of his mouth curling into a sly grin. “I didn’t do anything. And now? Well … spoilers!”