#fan fiction advent calendar day 14

[thejokersenigma]

Christmas Fan Fiction Advent Calendar 2017 - Day 14 - Ivy x Harley - Christmas Memories Part 2

Sorry guys, this isn't my best chapter, but today has been chaos as I'm travelling home for the holidays tomorrow and I needed to get everything ready. Definitely not my best writing, and quite short! Hope you enjoy anyway!

MASTERLIST

“- on, we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire! To face unafraid, the plans that we’ve made, walking in a winter wonderland!” Ivy and Harley sang into the same microphone on the little stage of the club, both of them singing their hearts out with big grins on their faces.

“Walking in a winter wonderland! Walking in a winter wonderland!” They finished on a high note, holding it as long as they could, one hand wrapped around each other, the other in the air as they finished.

The crowd watching the karaoke burst into applause and the girls bowed theatrically to their audience. “Thank you! Thank you!” Cried Harley as she soaked up the drunken appreciation.

“See, Harls.” Ivy gestured to the crowd in front of them. It was working as a good distraction.

Harley nodded eagerly, “Your right, Red. Come on, let’s do another one!” She said pulling at Ivy’s “PPPPllleeassee!!” She begged, jumping up and down slightly.

“Fine.” Sighed Ivy, trying to supress a smile – Harley’s happiness was infectious.

They got back into place behind the microphone and nodded to the DJ for the next song. He nodded in return and chose the next track. The minute the beat started, Ivy panicked.

“The snows coming down, I’m watching it fall, lots of people around. Baby. please come home. The church bells in town are ringing in song, full of happy sounds. Baby, please come home.” Ivy could almost see the cogs turning in Harley’s mind out of the corner of her eye.

“They’re singin’ Deck the Halls, but it’s not like Christmas at all, ‘Cause I remember when you were here, and all the fun we had last year!”

By the second chorus, Ivy could see the tears running down Harley’s face and she was beginning to choke on the words. Eventually she couldn’t manage any more and collapsed into herself, throwing her hands to her face as she sobbed.

Ivy immediately stopped singing and pulled Harley backwards into the recesses of the stage. “Harls? Harls?!” She demanded sharply, shaking the girl slightly, “Come on, snap out of it.” Harley just sobbed louder. “Aww come on Harls!” Snapped Ivy, frustration getting the better of her, “Don’t let that clown ruin a perfectly good night!” But Harley seemed beyond consolation and Ivy gave up.

“Ok, let’s just wrap this up and get out of this place.” Ivy muttered, turning away and leaving Harley at the back of the stage whilst she walked back up to the microphone. The song was just finishing now, the crowd a bit confused by the sudden event on stage, but content to just dance to the music.

All eyes turned to Ivy when she gestured at the DJ to cut the music. “Better.” She said when there was a sudden silence in the club. “Now, boys…” She drawled seductively, scanning her eyes over the mostly masculine room. “Why don’t you give us girls a little Christmas present?” She teased, and suddenly there was a gun in her hand.

The room was full of gasps at the weapon and then a sudden storm of activity as everyone ran for the exits, but their paths were abruptly blocked by large thorny plants that burst from behind the furniture - where they had slowly been germinating since Ivy dropped the seeds there when entering the club.

The plants corralled everyone into the centre of the room and Ivy made her way round to each person - Harley following on behind sullenly, no longer crying, but depressed and mopey, not reacting at all to the amount of cash they were raking in.

“Oh boys, you shouldn’t have!” Ivy gushed as she filled her purse with expensive watches and wads of cash. Once she was finished her collecting, Ivy paused by the doorway, stroking a stray tendril of the thorny plant. “Now, don’t you boys be naughty and tell on us, or else you’ll get more than coal in your stockings.” She said, looking suggestively at the vine that now affectionately wrapped around her wrist. “Come on, Harley.” She called, turning and sashaying out the door, Harley following obediently on behind like a scolded puppy.

Harley didn’t say anything the whole way back to the house, occasionally a stray tear rolled down her cheek, but Ivy chose not to confront her again - though she couldn’t help rolling her eyes at the emotions.

Ivy pulled the convertible into the garage, parked the car and turned to the teary girl. “Ok, Harley. Enough moping.” She said firmly. Harley looked up at her with big doe eyes, shiny with tears. “There is a reason you are here and not there.” She told her, knowing Harley knew what she meant. “Us girls don’t need anyone but ourselves. Guys do not complete us. If you are nothing without that clown then, sorry Harls, you are no one.” Harley lip wobbled, and fresh tears dripped down her cheeks, though, somehow, she remained silent.

“But, Harls,” Ivy said, grabbing Harleys shoulders, “I know you are someone. You’re my annoying housemate. You’re my unbelievably eccentric friend. And you are a strong and brilliant woman.”

Harley a small, weak smile, her eyes red.

“Right, come with me.” Ivy suddenly instructed, getting out of the car.

“Why?” Asked Harley, the first word she had said since she had stopped singing.

Ivy didn’t answer, already swaggering towards the house. Harley only hesitated a second before following after her.

“Red?” Harley called following Ivy through the front door. Ivy finally stopped by the lounge where the door was uncharacteristically closed. Harley frowned between Ivy and the door in question. “I needed to buy some time.” Ivy said in a way of explanation.

“What?”

Ivy pushed the door open.

Harley’s jaw dropped open at the sight.

In the corner of the room, a Christmas tree was growing directly out of the floor, the top brushing the ceiling and the roots weaving in and out of the floor boards.. A box of decorations sat at the foot of it and, nestled in the bare branches, sat a single small rectangular present.

Harley couldn’t say anything, just giggling ecstatically and jumping up and down, looking between Ivy and the tree in amazement.

“Figured this was the only way I was going to let you have a tree.” Ivy shrugged.

“Now it can be Christmas all year!” Shrieked Harley, running over to the box of decorations. Ivy looked anything but pleased at this idea, but she couldn’t help smirking as Harley dashed around the room, throwing tinsel like confetti.

“What’s this?” Harley asked, stopping abruptly - her eyes having found the present in the tree.

“An early Christmas present.”

Harley eagerly snatched at it, ripping at the paper. It was a photo. A photo of Ivy with an uncharacteristically wide grin and thumbs up as she took a selfie. Behind her was the snow-covered street they had walked down earlier that evening with Harley stood with her back to her as she gazed around at the Christmas lights that hung above between the buildings.

“Thought it’d replace all those others.” Ivy explained, mentally cringing with the fear that mentioning the other photos again would send Harley off again. But instead, Harley simply remained frozen, staring down at the photo in her hand. God this was worse, thought Ivy.

“Merry Christmas, Harls.” Ivy muttered, about to turn and leave the room in defeat. Suddenly arms wrapped around her from behind pulling her into a crushingly tight hug.

“Merry Christmas, Red.” Came the muffled spoken into her back.

[smartworkingpackage]

How Chris Hardwick Keeps Life Nerdy (and Funny) with Evernote

Chris Hardwick is everywhere.

You may know Chris as the founder of The Nerdist, which has grown from a podcast and blog into a media empire. Or maybe you know him from @midnight, the off-color Comedy Central game show that poked fun at social media for 600 episodes. Or from his festival-headlining stand-up act. Or from Talking Dead, the AMC TV show where Chris and friends chat about a fictional zombie apocalypse.

What you may not know is that Chris is a longtime fan of Evernote—even offering product feedback on Twitter—and he’s also someone who purposefully re-organized his life, changing his habits to become the person he wanted to be.

For the season finale of our podcast, “Taking Note,” we sat down with Chris to get his thoughts on creative productivity, motivation, and organization. We also discussed the evolving state of social media, nerd culture, and what the world of comedy can teach us about building up small ideas into something worth sharing.

Want to know more? Listen below or read on for a partial transcript of our conversation.

Taking Note: Episode 12 — Chris Hardwick

Length: 45 minutes iTunes | SoundCloud | Overcast | MP3 | RSS

  On designing a career

You are involved in so many different projects all at once. Is this your natural mode?

Yeah, it is. I’m sure there’s a little bit of a quality where I can’t sit still. I’ve just reached 14 years of sobriety, and when I got sober I decided to point some of those obsessive qualities toward self-improvement and organization. I was not an organized person in my 20s. My life was a mess. Bills were late. I wasn’t keeping track of anything. I would just have stacks of paper everywhere for notes and my life was an organizational disaster.

So I really started focusing on how to get a handle on everything and sort things and keep track. What I realized was that we’re in an age where—more than any other age—we can design the careers that we want. The Internet allows us to reach our audiences directly. Whatever our goods and services are, we can reach consumers without having some big corporate go-between.

The career that I have was really designed. I mean, it’s all intention. I sought to create this kind of a career because number one, I didn’t want to end up doing the same thing all day every day, because that would drive me crazy. The other thing was that it occurred to me that I wanted to diversify my career kind of like a stock portfolio because in entertainment, things change, you never know what’s going to happen. You never really feel like you have guaranteed employment.

And so, I wanted to have like five or six things going on so that if something fell through or got canceled or went away then I wouldn’t feel like my entire life has just been destroyed and I’ve got to start over. Part of it was to satisfy the way that my brain works and the other part of it was for survival.

How do you choose a project?

Ten years ago, I was unemployed. Nothing was really working out for me. No one was coming to see me do stand-up. I looked at everything that I had experience doing. I’d been hosting shows for 13 years. I knew I was capable of doing that. I knew I had a strong comedy voice. I knew that I loved this certain swath of things that would be stereotypically categorized as nerd culture. Before the 2000s, you couldn’t really do anything too much in “nerd culture” because our culture hadn’t niche-ified yet. To try to pitch nerd-centric things in the 1990s, networks were just laughing and like, “Well, the audience is too small.”

Then with the advent of the Internet and the cinematic revolution of X-Men, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, all these things really kind of blew up Comic-Con culture into pop culture. I guess I just looked at all those things and I said, look, I have an interest in these cultural things. I love science, I love technology. And so, because I have the experience I have, I really only want to be involved in things that revolve around that. Whether it’s comedy that involves these topics, hosting shows, hosting a science show, hosting a tech show, anything like that, these are all the areas that I have expertise and interest and so I’m just going to focus on that.

From the outside, it sort of looked like I was narrowing down zero options to even less than zero options but actually what it did was give me an incredible amount of focus and a path. Almost immediately… it was so surreal the way that it happened. Within a couple weeks after making this decision, I saw that they were trying to cast for a science show that Wired magazine was doing with PBS. And so, I just said, well, this is exactly what I was talking about. This is pop culture but it’s science and it’s hosting. There’s no one else better for this than me. I can check every box there.

And so, I went in, very determined, and I got the job. We did ten episodes of it but I ended up contributing to Wired for like six years. That led to doing tech reviews for G4 and Attack of the Show. Within that time I created Nerdist.

I’m half physical notebook and half digital notebook. But I was never able to find a digital program that worked for me before Evernote.

Making that one decision of asking what do I really want to do and what do I think I’m good at is really where it all changed for me, but I could not have done it without having some sense of organizational skills. It just wasn’t possible. I’m half physical notebook and half digital notebook. But I was never able to find a digital program that worked for me before Evernote.

You mentioned rearranging your life to go after this big goal that was built on your strengths, but how did you go about doing it?

Asking a lot of questions and then breaking that down. If you read a ton of self-help stuff and self-improvement stuff, and lifestyle blogs and organizational blogs, you find that there’s really a handful of basic principles. The core of it is really pretty simple: What do I want, what’s the next actionable item, what steps do I think will get me there? Can I take one step today toward the attainment of that goal? And then every so often checking in: Am I on track, do I still want this goal? When you get into the process, sometimes you learn things that change your mind about what you want to do.

But really, it’s just about breaking things down. When you’re writing goals, just make sure that your action items are actually actionable. Like, you wouldn’t just write “a million dollars!” because that’s not an actionable phrase. It needs an action verb in there somewhere so that you know how to approach it. It’s really about finding the quanta or the most basic thing that you can do next in order to move closer to the thing that you think you want.

“A million dollars” doesn’t work as a goal. “Make a million dollars,” okay, now you’ve got a verb in there, but that’s not the right verb.

Even if you say “make a million dollars,” it’s really important to write out why. And the reason that it’s important to write out why is because you might find, you actually don’t want that thing. If you find out you do want that thing, the why of it all helps you understand the emotional reason. Emotion is what drives motivation. Until you’re emotionally motivated, you’re probably not going to commit to doing something because everything takes work.

You’re not going to do that work when things get hard if there isn’t an emotional fire stoking the action. That’s why really important to understand why you want those things that you say you want.

Organizing calendars and notes

You must have some pretty hardcore time management skills.

I have a pretty good time management skills at this point, for sure. I also have an amazing assistant who is more organized than I am. But even before that, I color-coded my calendar. Green is anything that has to do with work. Blue is anything that has to do with something personal. Purple is our live shows. There’s sort of a pinkish color that is the podcast. Yellow is anything that involves press. Light blue is fitness.

I think color-coding your calendar is really important because if your calendar is just full one color, it’s going to look like an overwhelming mess. Color helps you realize that your events are modular. The color is going to tell you what emotional importance it has, so you can make better decisions about how and where to put things and balancing out your days. Like, “oh I have all green this one day but maybe I need to throw in some blue so that I’m doing some things for me personally.”

Do you do the same sort of structure with your notes?

I have a handful of notebooks. I have a stand-up notebook, I have a goals notebook. I have a house stuff notebook. I have a philosophy notebook—I use the Evernote clipper in Chrome, so I’ll clip things that I feel like are positive outlooks on life, interesting thoughts on sobriety or taking action. Just anything that’s for personal development. And within that I’ll tag things. So it’s like, well, this is about sobriety, this is about motivation, this is about organization. I keep that up.

I keep a log of things I’m thankful for. You can get so caught up in running, running, running that you don’t always stop to appreciate what you’re doing.

I also have a notebook that’s just gratitude. I keep a log of things I’m thankful for. You can get so caught up in running, running, running that you don’t always stop to take a breath and appreciate what you’re doing.

The changing face of social media

You also recently wrapped up @midnight, the Comedy Central show where you and a bunch of other comedians, four nights a week over the course of four years, would make fun of whatever was going on social media on that day. Have you seen it change in that time?

Oh my god, yes. My friend Mike Phirman has this great description of when they first started making films, moving pictures. And the technology alone was enough to justify using it. “Horse Walking Up Stairs” would be a whole movie.

Social media used to be, “hey, I’m awake, look at what I had for breakfast.” Then it very quickly became something where people realized they could get news really fast. So then it became a real, substantive information outlet. And then they started to realize, oh, this can create actual social change.

But now I think social media has really morphed into, unfortunately, a lot of yelling. The loudest voices do tend to rise to the top. I do think there are still very powerful uses for social change on social media, but it’s such a crazy time right now that I don’t see as many superfluous tweets anymore.

As many outrageous things as there are going on in the world, I do think we’re a bit addicted to outrage and social media is sort of the outlet for that. It’s not all negative. I don’t want to paint that picture. But social media used to be just be silly and fun and now it’s heavy. I feel like social media is really heavy right now.

This also ties into that whole notion of nerd culture becoming mainstream. The “flame war” has been a part of the Internet since before anyone called it the Internet.

Yes, absolutely. Anyone who’s been on a forum since there were forums knows that within two or three lines of any thread—and I’m sure there’s some sort of a formula for this—it just becomes a [cursing] match. Then it just becomes like a shouting schoolyard.

When you’re just reading text, a lot of what you’re reading is the through filter of your own baggage. There’s so much nuance and subtlety that’s lost.

Communication is meant to be in person. It really is meant to be in person. That’s how our brains have developed. We read people’s faces, their expressions, we take social cues, visual cues. We can hear intonation, their audio cues.

When you’re just reading text, a lot of what you’re reading is through the filter of your own baggage. You can infer what you think the writer was intending, but there’s so much nuance and subtlety that’s lost. And then on top of that, people are interfacing with machines, which is very impersonal.

And so, when you’re reading text, if you’re misinterpreting it and then saying f— you back, your brain is thinking that you’re doing that to a machine. Because you’re interfacing with a machine and not a human being.

Productivity lessons from the comedy world

[Stand-up comedy] requires a lot of skills from the person who’s on stage. Yes, you have to be funny, but you also have to be able to think fast. You have to see where things are going. You have to have psychological understanding. And then that notion of timing. What do you think those of us who are non-comedians can learn from studying the way comedy works?

I think being a comedian helped prepare me for being whatever type of entrepreneur I am. When you’re a comedian, it’s just you. You’re responsible for all of it. You have to write and craft these ideas and concepts. You go up alone in front of people. You learn on the fly whether or not things work. In a way, comedy is like marketing because you’re selling these ideas to an audience and seeing in real time whether or not they’re going to fly. And if they don’t, you have to figure out how to make them work real quick.

I think you learn improvisation, you learn how to connect with people, you learn how to read people. You learn how to work on the fly. I always recommend to people, whether they want to be a comedian or not, go take an improv class somewhere. Because no matter what you do, learning how to improvise is an incredibly valuable resource to draw on. It gives you an incredible amount of confidence and you feel like no matter what happens, you can figure it out.

Most comedians have to write things down. You really do learn how to get your ideas out and sort through them and craft them and organize them. Even if your organizational system isn’t recognizable to anyone else, everyone has a proprietary organizational system.

Most comedians have to write things down. You learn how to get your ideas out, sort through them, craft them, and organize them.

Joan Rivers had a million note cards which she organized in little drawers. Other people use notebooks, other people use cocktail napkins. I will mostly write big ideas and work my stuff out in Evernote, but then when I’m ready to go perform, I actually write down the set list in a notebook because the act of writing with my hand kind of helps get it into my molecules a little better.

But I have gone on stage when I’m trying new stuff and I just have Evernote open in presentation mode and I have the phone down on the stool. I think because I had a leg in the analog world before the digital world, I use both.

So you’re writing down all this material as you come up with it. Do you have a review cycle every once in a while?

I do. The review cycle is not really a period of time. For instance, I just started touring again. I had five shows in Minneapolis recently and about a week before that, I opened up Evernote and started really plowing through all the ideas I had just been randomly collecting. In my notebook, I start writing down the ones that stick out and I start trying to connect them, saying, “what’s the through-line here?”

You realize, like, oh there’s a through-line here that I didn’t consciously intend, but my subconscious brain was trying to express. All these ideas are actually weirdly connected, as disparate as they might seem.

On starting small and building up

So what else is in your toolkit? We know you’ve got Evernote. We know you’ve got the calendars and the color coding, and you mentioned that use a physical notebook sometimes too. What else is essential?

That’s kind of it. I mean, the other thing that’s essential is sort of knowing what your creative threshold is. I’m pretty good at writing for like a half hour straight and then after that, I start to get distracted. If you know like, well, I’m going to schedule 10, 15, 30 minutes, you can find ten minutes in your schedule to do something creative. And if you schedule it every day, that’s achievable.

So you focus ten minutes a day without really caring how far you get, or about being done, or whatever. You just do ten minutes a day and the next day you do ten minutes and the next day you do ten minutes. And then you find after a month—which goes by very quickly—you have a ton of material because you were just consistent and you just did it little bits at a time, as opposed to thinking, “oh, I have to write for four hours a day and I don’t have time for that.”

You just adopt this idea of a little bit at a time, a little step at a time, a little bit, little bit, little bit. And then it becomes like compounded interest in a bank account or a stock portfolio. Over time, the exponential growth becomes staggering from just little bits, little bits, little bits, little bits.

There’s no trick to getting better at stuff; you just have to do that stuff. In order to do that, you have to organize your time. I’ll often tell people, for a week, track everything you do with a stopwatch. Just so you start getting a sense of how long it takes you to do everything. And then once you get that raw data, you can look at: “how much time did I waste?”

There’s no trick to getting better at stuff, you just have to do that stuff. In order to do that, you have to organize your time.

When you’re on the Internet, if you’re answering emails or whatever, you might think, “well, I worked for three hours,” but if you actually timed everything you were doing in that three hours you might see, oh, I actually only did about 35 minutes of real work and the rest of it was going down YouTube rabbit holes or looking at Reddit. And you realize, oh, I can carve that out, just do the 35 minutes of work I meant to do and devote another two hours and 25 minutes, I can parse that out into really useful, efficient things.

You think you were being productive and realize you weren’t. You were just doing something that satisfied some part of your brain.

Yeah, that’s exactly right. And that’s why the best thing you can do is just write down everything. With comedy, it always happens and I think almost every comedian will tell you, you think of a joke and you go, “I don’t need to write it down, I’ll never forget that.” And then ten minutes later, you’re like, “what the f— was I just…”

It’s important to write everything down. Whether it’s a notebook or Evernote or whatever, keep track of all that stuff because it allows you to manipulate it, like in your color-coded calendar, to make that information into modular bits of useful data that you can move around and use in more effective ways.

In the same way that you would organize a closet, and have everything stacked and put exactly where you know where everything is, it allows you to do that emotionally with your life in all the intangible things that you can’t see, but you experience. And it allows you to create so much better of an emotional flow for work and your personal life. But you can’t do that unless you really start tracking all that stuff.

To hear the rest of this interview, click the player above or download the episode from iTunes, SoundCloud, Overcast, or your podcast platform of choice.

Taking Note will return early next year with Season Two. If you have feedback for us, let us know with a comment or review on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks for listening!

from Evernote Blog http://ift.tt/2zGpkon via IFTTT

[thejokersenigma]

Christmas Fan Fiction Advent Calendar 2017 - Day 20 - Joker x Reader x Bruce Wayne - Plan B(ruce) Part 2

Ok, so this is the second part to a new series I’ve just started writing which was a request given to me here on tumblr! Tbh it’s not very Chrtistmassy - other than it’s happening at Christmas, but oh well - feel free to check out the first part if you like it (or want to read that first). It is quite a bit shorter just because I only had a few hours to write it!

Hope you enjoy it!

MASTERLIST

J had been right. This was the best room in the house. This was probably the best room in the whole city. It was situated at the very top of the Wayne Enterprise Tower and the room took up the whole floor, the walls on my left and right made completely of glass that showed the breath-taking view over the city on either side. Not only was the view gorgeous, but the room itself had been lavishly decorated with expensive festive decorations – a large, extravagant tree next to the small stage which had been decked in tinsel and lights where a live Jazz band played upbeat Christmas songs, wreaths on each window, golden embroidered table cloths, mistletoe on the pillars, candles in brackets that gave off a distinctly Christmassy smell.

It was beautiful and made me feel like I’d just won the lottery.

I’d made J buy my dress for me – knowing he could afford it - and I hadn’t held back on the price label.

That would teach him to use me like this.

But then, I couldn’t help thinking as I looked around, this night didn’t look like it was going to be complete torture. Everyone looked just as stunning, all making the most of the free open bar and the dainty canapes handed out by servers whilst they gossiped away, or swayed to the tunes performed on the stage.

But who was it I was supposed to be talking to again?

I helped myself to one of the glasses of champagne that were being handed out at the entrance, then stepped my way delicately to the side of the room, trying to look like I belonged there. I sipped at the alcohol as I wandered the perimeter of the room, surveying the room and the company that milled noisily in the centre, occasionally unable to help my glancing out the tall windows at the city that way laid out before me.

Most people in the room seemed to have paired up – whether because they arrived that way, or that was the way these socialites just gathered, I wasn’t sure – and I couldn’t help but wish that J was with me, so I didn’t appear so lost on my own.

Despite this, I made sure to enjoy myself amongst the riches none the less – after all how often was it that I would be able to pretend to be an aristocrat and all the perks that came with it? I made sure though, to keep an eye out for my target – the infamous Bruce Wayne. I had seen him in enough news reports and newspaper articles to know vaguely what he looked like, but I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to pick him out amongst all these other men business men in their identical suits.

Ok, enough of being on the outskirts of this part, it was time to dive into it now that I’d had a bit of liquid courage. I placed my empty glass on a cloth covered table in one of the corners of the room, then confidently sashayed my way into the middle of the room. I could feel the eyes on me, the stranger amongst them all, but I didn’t falter in my strides, walking like I outranked them all, like I had important matter to attend to - though I actually had no idea where I was going or what I was doing.

Despite my upturned nose and important air, I kept my eyes on the people I passed, scanning for a face that matched the picture in my head. When I finally neared the other side of the room my eyes fell on the large balcony lit with fairy lights. I headed for this.

A group of 4 people entered back into the room as I left it, none of them bothering to hold the door open for me and I scowled out into the darkness at this - clearly manners did cost something, and these people weren’t willing to pay it.

I was the only one out here now, and I understood why, the balcony had been built slightly into the building to lessen the strength of the wind at this height, but it was still freezing out here. I wrapped my arms around my chest against the cold and walked up to the railing, leaning my arms on it and looking out at the lights of the city. I could see the windows of office buildings where late night workers were still at their desks, the bright advertisement bill boards that stood tall and garish against the dark sky and the streets below were lined with tacky lit names of casinos and clubs.

“Quite a view isn’t it?” Came a voice from behind me, the tone of the voice deep and soft.

I played it cool, not bothering to turn, my eyes on the landscape before me. “Yes it is.” I agreed.

The man came up next to me then, but I still didn’t bother to turn. He copied my position, leaning over and resting his elbows on the balcony railing. “Bit cold though isn’t? Especially in a dress like that.” He said, and I saw him glance me up and down.

I turned to look at him now, crossing my arms and leaning my hip into the barrier, shooting him an unimpressed raised eyebrow at his last statement. The light behind the man threw his face into shadow, but the more I listened to his voice, the more familiar it was. “And just what is that supposed to mean, Mr Wayne?”

“Oh nothing.” Bruce Wayne defended quickly, realising his mistake and turning to face me as well, “Only that your dress doesn’t really protect your arms against this wind.” He said gesturing to the sky.

I laughed at how nervous I had made him – clearly, he wasn’t a man that was often poked fun at. “Don’t worry.” I brushed it off, “I’m only teasing.” I smirked, and he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “I’m [Y/N].” I said, holding out a hand in a sign of peace.

Bruce took it gratefully, “I guess you already know who I am.”

His hand was strong, and surprisingly rough for a business man. “Of course, Mr Wayne.” I smiled at him warmly. He had a nice feel to him.

“Call me Bruce.” He insisted.

“Ok, Bruce.” I nodded, releasing his hand. “I do have to ask though, why are you out here, when the party is in there?” I asked, gesturing back towards the door.

“Honestly I’m not one for parties…” He admitted rather sheepishly, “But it kind of comes with the job.”

“Of being the owner of a multi-million-dollar company, or of being a billionaire bachelor?” I teased.

“Both.” He laughed, and I laughed with him.

“What about you?” He asked, “Parties your scene?”

I considered this for a moment. “Not really.” I said truthfully. “I’m more of an all work, no play kinda gal.”

“Might explain why I’ve never seen you around.” He said.

I knew my lines well and didn’t even hesitated before I said, “Well I’m new to Gotham, first event I’ve been invited to.” I explained. “So, I appear to be the stranger that everyone gawks at.”

“I’m sure that’s not the only reason they’re gawking.” Said Bruce and I couldn’t help but blush at his smooth flirtation.

We chatted a bit longer about this and that. I stuck as close to the truth as possible, so I didn’t get too lost in a web of lies – I told him I ran a highly successful line of restaurants and was hoping to start one up on Gotham. He seemed genuinely interested and it almost made me feel bad. He seemed a nice bloke, but also quite simple. Getting information from him shouldn’t be too hard.

It wasn’t long before he was offering his jacket for my shoulders – which I gratefully accepted – and then eventually he led me back to dance for a while – under the promise that it was to ‘warm up’.

Bruce was such good company, in fact, that I almost forgot the reason I was there in the first place – happily chatting away about anything and everything – the things I didn’t need to lie about like my dream holiday, favourite colour and other silly details that we somehow got onto.

Yes, I had almost forgot why I was at the party, that was until Bruce asked about my love-life. I was sure he was wondering if he could put the moves on me, but I was promptly reminded of J and the original plan for the evening. Shit. I muttered something about it being complicated – because it honestly was. I didn’t know what I was to J – a stress release? An easy fuck? Or something more? And I didn’t know what I was to J – did I love him? I felt like I could do, maybe, but did I right now? It was complicated.

Bruce didn’t push the question any further, but now I had been reminded I changed my head back to business and knew I needed to start asking the man a few more specific questions I had runover with J earlier that day.

“So, what –“

Bruce glanced down at his watch that flashed something – maybe an alarm? Then snapped his gaze back to mine. “I’m really sorry, [Y/N], I hate to suddenly run, but I’ve got an important meeting in the morning that I need to be slightly coherent for.” Bruce said with a small apologetic smile.

I smiled back in understanding at this, though inwardly I cursed at the shit timing and my lack of concentration on my job all evening. J wasn’t going to be impressed if I went back to him empty handed, especially when I made him fork out so much for this night. I had to pull this back somehow.

“Bruce, I –“ I started.

“Would it –“ Bruce said at the same time.

“Sorry.” We both apologised, like a cheesy chick flick couple.

I gestured at him, “Go for it.”

“I just wanted to know if I’ll see you again soon?” Bruce asked, with a raised eyebrow.

“Uh –“ That took me by surprise, “Yeah, sure. That would be nice.” That hadn’t even been a lie just to see him again to gain some information - it would actually be nice to see him again.

He smiled at me, then glanced at his watch again. “Ok, now I really have to leave.” He said, though he seemed reluctant.

“Go.” I said.

He wavered.

“Go!” I laughed, shoving at him playfully, and he exaggerated the movement, leaning further away from me than I could ever hope to have pushed him. I smirked at his good humour until he then swung back and planted a surprising kiss on my cheek.

My eyes widened momentarily, but then I quickly gathered myself back together again. “Smooth.” I mocked with a smug smile. “Now go!” I cried with a laugh, shoving him again, making sure this time that I pushed him solidly in the back toward the exit.

“Ok…” He sighed dramatically and headed off with a last wave in my direction.

I gave him a small wave back, unable to help myself smiling after him. It was nice to talk to a guy that I wasn’t always trying to second guess the meaning behind his words or actions like I was with J. J never did anything without a reason. But Bruce was more of an open book - I doubted there was anything hidden behind what he did.

[thejokersenigma]

Christmas Fan Fiction Advent Calendar 2017 - Day 21 - Rogues x Bruce Wayne - The Great Christmas Trap Part 2

Ok, so this isn’t great, but I didn’t really know what I was doing with it so I’ve kind of just spent the last couple of hours randomly writing haha Hope it makes a bit of sense, I would have liked a bit more time to play around with the ideas a bit more, but as it is I’ve over run past midnight anyway so.... opps.

Hope you Enjoy

MASTERLIST

Bruce Wayne arrived on the scene moments after the alert was sent through to him. The whole place was abandoned as he had expected. That evening it had been reported to the GCPD that the carnival folk had been driven out of their homes in the wake of a number of the escapees from Arkham overrunning their camp.

Bruce had jumped on the case straight away. It seemed like a good opportunity to gather most of them up and ship them back off to the Asylum – though Bruce knew he had to be careful – this many rogues was a dangerous combination and he would have to be cautious in the steps he made.

But it did strike him as odd that the criminals would suddenly to gang up and work together. Something must have united them together for some reason.

Brue had pulled the batmobile up outside the entrance to the carnival grounds and now jumped out, landing in a flurry of his cape. He looked around. No one appeared. Nothing happened. No trap was sprung.

He scanned the area he could see, but there was no movement. He cautiously strode into the entrance, passing amongst the deserted rides and shut up food caravans.

That was when he noticed it. A crude drawing of the bat symbol was scribbled over an admission board which had then been nailed to a vendor’s caravan. Beyond that he could see another sign stuck on a bumper car ride. It was the bat sign again, then ‘THIS WAY BATSY’ written crassly below it.

He didn’t want to just walk into a trap, but it was the only hint towards where he would find the criminals. He followed the signs, which led to more signs and more signs pointing him the way, eventually ending at a haunted house - at least that’s what the sign next to it read. However, the actual building looked the exact opposite of a haunted house. In fact, it strongly resembled a giant advent calendar.

He frowned in confusion at the building with a 24 ‘doors’ or though some of them clearly were real doors, and others not so much.

Suddenly, as he surveyed them, the red door with number 1 on it swung open and Harley Quinn swaggered her way out with a largen grin on her face and a small pistol in her hand. “Hey there, Batsy!” She called excitedly, giving him a wave and skipping towards him, though making sure to stop just outside the range of his reach.

He watched her every move, making sure to keep an eye on her gun. She noticed where his eyes continued to travel. “Oh, don’t worry about this!” She dismissed, lifting it up and swinging it in her hand, “It’s just to make sure you behave and don’t ruin the fun!” She exclaimed with a large grin.

Bruce didn’t say anything, keeping his face unchanging from his dark expression.

“Alright, party pooper!” Harley sulked when he wasn’t as excited as her.

“Let’s get it started!” She suddenly declared with an evil, knowing look on her face. With that she strode back through door number 1, which promptly slammed shut behind her. Bruce heard the locking mechanism.

So, he could follow her that way, but he would have to spend time picking the lock, or disabling the system if it was electronic - which it likely was. Or he could play their little game for now and go through the second door.

He went for door number 2. But it wasn’t a real door. Neither was the third. Only when he tried the fourth door did it open. He warily stepped through, the door swinging shut behind him and the darkness covering him like a cloth. A tap on his sleeve activated the night vision lenses in his mask just as a punch went for his face. He managed to duck in time, but was then suddenly hit from behind which knocked him forward, making him stumble. Another punch landed directly in his stomach, winding him. He instinctively rolled away from the assault, buying him a few moments to gather himself and get a look around. His goggles could pick up outlines in the dark – 5 of them. People with odd shaped heads that tapered into points. Hats. Santa Hats.

A laugh echoed out around him, and he spun round, the noise sounding right behind him, but then the laugh sounded again, seeming to encircle him and he recognised that is must be on the buildings intercom system. Happy that no one extra was in the room with him, he turned back to watch the advancing people, dodging their punches and taking one out with a well-aimed kick to the back of their legs, knocking them to the floor with a crack.

“Good evening, Batman.” Greeted the gleeful voice over the speaker. Jervis Tetch. That explained the hats. “I see you met some of the lovely carny folk that work at this fine establishment!” He exclaimed excitedly, “I’m afraid they don’t take kindly to trespassers though – something we all found out – which is why they’re sporting these wonderfully festive hats! I’m afraid they’re not much to look at though – hence the lighting – but they do give a mean wallop!” Just at that, a fist rammed into Bruce’s jaw, snapping his head round. Tetch was trying to distract him, he had to try to tune him out and focus.

So, as Jervis chattered on overhead, Bruce focused on the four remaining men. Jervis was right, they could hit with quite a bit of force and it wasn’t that much of a surprise when Bruce took into account the size of the signals coming up on his night camera – these men were huge blocks of muscle – they must be the bouncers of the carnival.

Bruce managed to grab a hold of one of the hats, pulling it off the guy’s head leaving him stunned and confused, Bruce didn’t hesitate, sending a fist straight into the guy’s face to make sure he wasn’t going to think about coming after him again. He threw the hat aside and faced the last three

It didn’t take long to take down the others – they were no match for Bruce’s skill and finesse and all ended up lying unconscious on the floor. Bruce removed all of the Santa hats in case any of them awoke and still had the urge to beat him to a pulp, gathering them into a heap on the floor.

Suddenly the light’s overhead flickered on, making the room painfully bright and forcing Bruce to cover his eyes with his hand, quickly terminating the night vision.

He blinked his vision back to normal as the speaker overhead crackled into life again. “Congrats, bats!” Cried Jervis, not sounding at all phased that his men had been beaten, “Move onto your next door.”

Bruce hesitated a moment before he picked up the pile of Santa hats and left through the door opposite the one he had come into – this one reading number 7.

The door pushed open easily and he stepped through into a large circular, empty room. The door behind him closed on his back once more, but this time the lights didn’t go out. He threw the Santa hats to the floor and took a better look around. The room wasn’t circular – in fact the only way he could describe it was a Tetradecagon – a 14-sided room – with every other wall panel being a door and the others floor to ceiling length mirrors.

Suddenly, as though he had triggered something, the wall began to spin at a ridiculous pace before abruptly stopping again.

Clearly, he had to pick a door. But what if he picked wrong? And what if he picked right?

He headed for the door opposite him. He pulled at it and it opened with a twist of the handle, but it led directly into a brick wall.

He went for the door to his right, but as the first door closed, the walls suddenly began to spin again blinding fast again, before coming to an abrupt halt. He thought better of trying the next door and went back to the previous one.

It was no longer a brick wall, instead a thick vine snapped out of its hiding place and he dodged behind the door, slamming it back into place and forcing the plant back into its hole.

Poison Ivy.

Now he knew slightly what he was up against.

Suddenly the walls span again. It seemed to be that every time he closed a door the room span and gave him a new door.

He pulled the exact same door open a third time, but the exact same vine lashed back out at him. He repeated his previous movement, lunging behind the door and forcing it back into place – but the plant had learnt from last time, and tried to fight against the door being push at it and Bruce had to wrestle the vine back into its hole.

So, the doors didn’t always change – this might be harder than he had initially anticipated. The room spun again, then stopped once more.

Bruce chose a different door this time. The one two doors down on his left this time. He pulled it open. The wall again. This was going to slowly drive him insane. Maybe that was the plan.

It felt like hours he was stuck in that room, pulling open random doors in frustration, the walls spinning and making him dizzy. It was only as he stood in the centre of the room, breathing heavily that he noticed something. The mirrors and the doors weren’t on the same spinning mechanism. The doors were slightly set back from the mirrors. The mirrors could spin separately from the doors, so the walls might spin, but the doors didn’t always.

He threw a batarang at one of the identical doors and it landed heavily in the wood, firmly fixed. He then pulled open one of the doors behind him and a thorny vine whipped out at him alongside a large man-eating flower that also snapped at the air where he had been a moment ago. He shoved at the door, forcing it back inside and slamming it with such force that it broke some of the vines that didn’t get back inside in time.

He heard a strangled cry from somewhere.

The walls span again and he heard a snapping noise. The batrang had broken as the walls had spun. When the room stopped, he examined each door. There. That one had a small indent in it where the batrang had stuck - so this time the doors had spun as it wasn’t in the same place as last time.

He began to pull them all open systematically, each time the walls spun, and sometimes the marked door moved, sometimes it didn’t. It allowed Bruce to work out where the next door to try was.

On his 5th attempt he opened a door that led into a black box. All he could see was mistletoe growing around the doorframe and he was about to step into it when a pair of lips lunged at him and he dodged nimbly out of the way and back into the odd shaped room.

“Aw, come on hun!” Sneered Ivy, “It’s Christmas…” She purred, “And we’re under the mistletoe… Don’t cha wanna give me a kiss…?” She pouted, her lips a deep red.

Batman lunged at her to tackle her to the ground, but she suddenly disappeared upwards, a vine, he hadn’t noticed around her waist, pulling her up through a trap door in the little box of a room. The trap door slammed closed in his face as he watched her vanish. He punched it and shoved at it, but it was solid and locked down tightly. He growled in annoyance, but tehn turned his attention in front of him where he could vaguely make out a door thanks to the light coming in from the room of mirrors and doors. It read 13.

He pushed this one open.

When he stepped into the next room his feet nearly slipped out from beneath him. The floor was completely covered in ice.

It was the largest room so far and the next door was clear on the other side of the room. But it was too easy to just have to skate across this layer of ice, surely?

He took a step forward none the less. Nothing happened. He took another few steps, making his way to about a third of the way across the room before something happened. A pipe seemed to suddenly appear from a hatch in the wall in front of him on the right. Out from the pipe shot a short, rather square-looking, Penguin which dropped onto the ice. Another followed, and then another. A second hatched appeared on the wall opposite and more penguins fell onto the ice until there was at least 15 of them lined up in a row before him. A tiny army to stop his crossing, all – he now noticed – holding small Christmas presents.

It had to be Oswald Cobblepot, but this couldn’t be it - there had to be something more to this than just the line of little metal penguins.

“What you are thinking is correct, my mammalian friend.” Came the familiar of the voice over yet another intercom. “My acquaintances here are not alone, each has the joyful present of a small explosive – and, when I say small explosive -  I mean enough to take off a limb or two.” Said the Penguin gleefully. “Enjoy getting to your next door.”

The intercom buzzed off and then Bruce was left alone on the ice. He didn’t move, watching the Penguins carefully, trying to calculate what to do. Suddenly – most likely because Oswald had hit a button wherever he was – the penguins began to advance towards him. Bruce had to do something soon. He threw a batarang at one of them and it immediately exploded with a loud bang, shrapnel flying everywhere, and revealing a hole in the ice that led into a pool of water below.

Bruce ran for the hole, his feet sliding away underneath him and hindering his progress, the penguins waddling furiously after his heat signal and he dived into the freezing water below. The penguins followed after him, plummeting into the water, their heavy metal exterior dragging them down, the contact with the water signalling for them to explode. They had sunk far enough that they didn’t do anything but slightly crack the ice above, but Bruce felt the sudden force of water pushed into him and had the weird feeling of intense heat and freezing water washing over him.

He waited until the water had calmed again, the bubbles rising to the small air hole, and he then headed that way as well. He managed a gasp of air before something grabbed his ankle in a fierce grip and pulled him back under. Bubbles escaped from his mouth at the shock and he glanced down at his leg to see a scaly hand gripping him, the claws digging painfully into his leg. Below that he could see glowing golden eyes in the gloom of the water.

Killer Croc.

Bruce kicked at the leg, but the grip held tight. Instead of pulling away, Bruce turned and dove straight at the beast-man. He took Croc by surprise and managed to land a punch to the croc’s jaw - though it wasn’t nearly as strong as if he’d done it on land – the water pulling against his arm and slowing him down considerably.

Crocs head still span to the side, but quickly twisted back with a snarl, his teeth snapping at Bruce’s hand which Bruce pulled back quickly. In his anger, Croc forgot to hold Bruce down and loosened his grip, both hands now clawing up to grab Bruce’s chest instead. Bruce made the most of his freedom and pushed himself back as far as he could, his lungs beginning to ache and strain. He swam desperately for the air pocket, catching site of a shadow above him on the ice. He propelled himself as quickly as possible through the water, launching himself onto the ice and scrambling out, his muscles stinging from the cold and his lungs aching painfully as he gasped in oxygen.

Croc wasn’t far behind him even though Brue had rolled himself away from the ice hole, however, Croc was struggling with the frozen conditions, scrapping desperately at the ice as he attempted to climb out of the water after the batman, his slippery scales hindering him where his claws helped.

Bruce half ran, half slid across the ice to the shadow he had seen, which had been Oswald Cobblepot who had come down from his hiding place to paw over the broken pieces of his inventions and to watch the rest of the show from the safety of the ice. Bruce now took him by surprise, knocking him off his stubby legs and shoving him towards the hole in the ice, directly at Croc who - in his surprise at the large man now skidding toward him – instinctively released the ice and grabbed at the man, sinking his claws into the fat little body and both of them falling through the ice.

Bruce made the most of this window and darted for the door, throwing himself through it and slamming it behind him.

His body shook with cold, and his lungs still stung painfully as he panted for air, but he didn’t have long to recover. Having run through the door numbered 19 he was in yet another dark room. There was a faint light coming from somewhere that bathed the room in shadows – though Bruce couldn’t make out where it came from.

Something was dangling from the ceiling - they were vine like things with something larger hanging from them at the end, and he wondered if Ivy was back with more killer plants.

But then a spotlight illuminated a single of these odd things hanging things. It was a puppet. An old fashion puppet on a string.

Not just any puppet, but Scarface - Arnold Wesker’s beloved criminal puppet. Except he wasn’t in his usual smart suit and hat - he was dressed like Scrooge from A Christmas Carol in an old fashion Victorian nightgown and hat with a candle in his hand.

“Bah Humbug!” He cried, suddenly lunging at Bruce and waving his candle in his face. He fell back to his position and burst into a cackling laughter. Bruce readied himself, not underestimating him, despite his apparent absence of his usual machine gun.

“You’re just like me, Batman!” The dummy cried, “You’re an old Scrooge! Look at all of these guys trying to make your Christmas, and you couldn’t care less!” He laughed. “All a bunch of hum bug!” He cackled, doubling over in his laughter.

What Bruce hadn’t realised -  all his attention on the dummy in front of him - was that the other strings had crept closer to him, surrounding him and the puppets at the end of these ropes now lifted themselves upright, all armed with the weapons that Scarface wasn’t.

Suddenly some movement caught Bruce’s eye and he realised what was happening a minute before they all lunged, immediately dropping to the floor as they threw knives at him, stabbed towards his body or let off shots from pistols.

Dropping to the floor would only work that once though – Bruce now needed to think of a way out of here before they attacked again. He threw a batarang across one side of the room, cutting numerous strings sending some of the puppets hurtling to the ground, others now only hanging by one or two stings, making their aim more difficult, but only making them that more dangerous for Bruce.

He glanced around for inspiration, then saw it. Arnold Wesker was controlling Scarface somehow – it must have been directly above the puppet.

Bruce leapt to his feet and, pushing off from some of the puppet’s heads, he launched himself up into the rafters, finding an panel missing in the ceiling and grabbing at the edge, pulling himself up and into the ceiling as guns went off, narrowly avoiding them by kicking his legs out of the way just in time. The knives were also thrown, but they didn’t clear the ceiling, clattering to the floor below.

He now found himself face to face with Arnold Wesker who was kneeling in the small space that was clearly being used as a tunnel network between the rooms. He used the edge of a batarang to cut the ropes leading to Scarface still below and Arnold gasped reaching out to stop him before collapsing back on his heels when the dummy fell to the floor below in a heap.

“Here, cuff yourself.” Bruce said bluntly, throwing a pair of handcuffs at the pathetic man. They landed by the man’s knees, but Arnold didn’t argue, picking them up and slapping them on his own wrists.

Without another word, Bruce remained crept down the hallway to the next ‘room’.

He came across a man crouched in the shadows in front of him, peering down into the room below - clearly waiting for Bruce to come through the door and participate in the next challenge. Bruce snuck silently behind him and shot his hand out, grabbing the guy by the back of his neck and pinning him face down on the floor.

The man burst into a harsh, high pitch cackle that Bruce knew all too well.

“Batsy! I must say I’m impressed – I thought you’d take the door!” He giggled, “But I guess you’ve never been one to play by the rules!”

Bruce pushed the Joker’s face further into the metal floor, but the Joker made not indication of the pain he felt. “I must say though, I’m also kind of sad – you missed my joke!” He cried, pointing down at the room below as well as he could in his position.

Bruce didn’t want to take his eyes off the clown, but he glanced down to see four giant nutcracker dolls lined up, ready for him to walk through the door.

The glance away was enough time for the Joker, who reached into his pocket in that split second and pulled out a can of something, twisting his wrist and pressing the trigger before Bruce could stop him.

Silly string blinded Bruce for a second and the Joker managed to wiggle his way out of his grip. “Damn it, Harley!” He growled to himself.  “It really is a shame though, batsy,” The Joker said, coming back to himself, somewhere in front of Bruce’s unseeing eyes, “They would have given you a good bruise and everything!” The Joker sulked, “Maybe even a souvenir scar to add to your collection!” He called as he ran off down the tunnel.

Bruce finally cleared the horribly sticky string from his face, and then from his hands, but the Joker was long gone. So much for taking the tunnel the rest of the way -  the Joker would warn anyone else ahead and they would form an ambush for him. He’d have to return to the rooms.

He glanced down at the huge nutcrackers below him. Without the Joker controlling them, would they still work? Only one way to tell. He fell through the trap hole and landed heavily on two of them, toppling them to the floor.

The others didn’t move. Their eyes were unnerving and seemed to follow him, but they made no move towards him, even as he backed away to the door numbered 24.

The last door?

He pulled it open and stepped into the next room, the door slamming shut behind him once again. The intercom over head buzzed. “Oo hoohoohoo!” Giggled the Joker’s voice, “This oughta be fun!” Bruce could practically hear the infamous grin.

“Get out Clown, this is my room.” Came the voice of Edward Nygma.

“Aww, come on, it’s the last room Eddie! Everyone’s gonna wanna watch – you better make it good!” The Joker cackled.

“Oh, sure, because everyone else’s has worked so well.” Snapped the Riddler.

“No need for the tone.” Snipped Oswald Cobblepot.

“It’s not my fault Harley swapped my Joker Gas for Silly String!” Cried the Joker.

“Can you all just shut up and get on with!” Barked Ivy.

Silence fell amongst the men. “Fine.” Came a mutter, but Bruce couldn’t tell who it was.

Bruce could almost feel the eyes on him. He took a few steps towards the unlabelled door on the other side of the room and walls suddenly erupted from either side, sliding along the floor and connecting with the other in the middle of the room, forming a very solid barrier to the door.

“Merry Christmas, Batman.” Came Edward Nygma’s formal voice over the speaker. “I’m not going to over complicate this, like my colleagues.” He sneered, and it sounded like he had shot the other criminals with him a dirty look. “I’m keep it simple. You answer my riddle, you get to leave. You fail... and well… I have a man called Victor Zsasz here who I’m sure you are already well acquainted with… I’m sure he’d love to give you a very Merry Christmas.”

“Now we know the rules…” He continued, “Let’s play!”

“When does Christmas come before Thanksgiving?” He asked.

Bruce thought about this for a moment. “When does Christmas come before Thanksgiving?” The Riddler asked again. “Come on now, Bats, this is easy.” He goaded.

“In the dictionary.” Stated Bruce up at the ceiling.

“Nice one, Batsy.” The Riddler commented, but laughed when Bruce looked at the moveable wall. “You didn’t honestly think it would be that simple a riddle, did you?! That was just a little warm up to see if you’re on your game.” He said, “Now it’s time for the real one.”

“You are trapped in a room with no windows and - now - no doors.” Laughed the Riddler. “You have a knife and an orange.” These two items suddenly fell from the ceiling. “How do you escape?”

Bruce was silent, but he walked up to the items, picking them both up, examining them and thinking.

“What the hell is he on about?” Oswald muttered over the intercom.

“Look at him!” Cried the Joker, “Batsy’s stuck!” He laughed.

“Well no wonder!” Cried Ivy, “Eddie’s lost it – that’s impossible!”

“Nothing is impossible, my dear” Said Jervis, though he didn’t sound completely confident.

Suddenly Bruce took the knife and pierced the orange, cutting down the middle and splitting the fruit into two halves, placing them on the floor. “Half and half equals a whole.” Stated Bruce clearly, to the wall in front of him. “I can escape through a hole.”

There was flickering of light and a live projection of the Riddler was shot onto the moveable wall. He gave Bruce a slow thumbs up and half a smile. “Congrats, bats.” He said, and the walls parted, revealing the door.

Bruce strode towards the door, voices shouting behind him.

“That was it?! He answers two bloody questions and you just let him go?!” Demanded Ivy hysterically.

“Come on Pamela, there wasn’t any real point to this anyway.” Comforted Jervis.

“I don’t care! You don’t give up a chance to get the bat!”

“See this is why we don’t do these sorts of things.” Mutter Oswald.

Bruce left them bickering and emerged out the exit of the building, back to exactly where he had started, staring up at the revamped Haunted House.

Harley stepped out after him as though she’d been behind him the whole time. “Don’t worry, Batsy,” She smiled, “We’ll put everything back to normal for tomorrow!”

He stared at her for a moment before he turned to walk back to the batmobile. He believed her that this was just a one off and it sounded like they would punish themselves now – fighting over the best way to take out the Batman.

“Merry Christmas, Batsy!” Harley waved happily at his retreating figure. He glanced back slightly as he walked and lifted a hand in return.