Batman and Joker
J - Alright, enough with the fists already! Ya got me, ya miserable bastard. No appreciation for art, have you?
B - Murder isn’t art. You’re just psychotic.
J - But creative with it. Not many can say that. Look at Croc – munch, much, chomp, chomp, and that’s it. Harvey restricts himself to a two-tone palette. Ossie, well the whole bird thing is more of a fetish than anything remotely creative, let’s be honest. Ahem, bats, ahem.
B - Just get up. Arkham’s got your cell waiting.
J - Home, sweet, home. Any chance of a view this time?
B - Just a dark, locked room. Which most would argue is more than you deserve.
J - But not you, eh, Bats. Lock me away and throw away the key if you could, I know. But you will run about having principles, so Home, James, it is. How long shall I give it this time? A month? Two? Longer? Do you need a break? Neither of us is getting any younger and this has to stop sometime.
B - You can make this stop whenever you want. Just stay in Arkham. You achieve nothing creating this chaos.
J - Achieve nothi…! Maybe not everyone else gets it, but they are idiots. All this is for you, you know that. Just show me that you appreciate all my hard work and I’ll stop. Go on.
B - You are a stain on this city.
J - One of these days, Bats, you’ll get it and then you’ll be mine. All this fighting, the struggle, the ‘never-ending battle’ as your super-boyfriend calls it. What is the point? They don’t appreciate you or your work. I do. I’m the only one who really understands the why of you.
B - You understand nothing, Joker. You are a broken soul, who wants to break others because he can’t bear to see anyone else whole.
J - That is deep, man. You should put it fortune cookies and give them out at the funerals. Maybe it would help everyone come to terms with whatever I do next time. Just make sure I get a cut of the merchandising or, as Moore’s Law predicts, there will be trouble.
B - Just get in the Batmobile.
J - That’s it, strap me in. I won’t struggle. Just so you know, Bullet-to-the-spine is my safewordslashphrase. Batmobile. Batmobile? Do the kids ever get jealous that everything you have is Bat-themed? Though I suppose Robin doesn’t lend itself to alliterative branding. The Rob-arang? Robin-arang. You should change his name to Crow? Geddit? Then you could have oh-i-don’t-know-just-to-pick-something-at-random the Crow-bar!
B - Sit there quietly or this ride going to get bumpy for you.
J - Sorry, sorry. I forgot that it’s still a sore point for you. Probably still is for him too, I would guess. Or is he dead again. It can be hard to keep up. Is he even the same person? Can’t be easy for him in Gotham after all those broken bones, what with the cold and the rain. Maybe Metropolis would be better and we can keep things just between us in future.
B - There Is no us. There is you, the madman, and that’s all.
J - Now that hurts. Hurts like a crowbar to the head. And arm. And ribs. And face. And face again. And !Thump!
B – This is Batman, I’ll be at the front gates in six minutes. Have a gurney ready.