Wayleska

Wayleska is the slash ship between Bruce Wayne and Jeremiah Valeska from the Gotham fandom.

Season 4
Bruce Wayne is a young billionaire who witnessed the murder of his parents. Later on, he encounters the murderous anarchist Jerome Valeska, who is trying to kill Bruce and his twin brother, Jeremiah. This causes Bruce to become interested in Jeremiah and his works. Meanwhile, Jeremiah becomes intrigued and infatuated with Bruce as he never had a friend in his entire life since he is hiding in a bunker from his brother.

Bruce offers Jeremiah funds from Wayne Enterprises in order for the latter to build his next-generation power generators for Gotham City. However, during the process of creating the generators, Jerome and the Scarecrow's laughing gas is sprayed onto Jeremiah, which causes his skin to be pale white with red lips. Jeremiah revealed that the gas failed and that he remains sane, other than some mild cosmetic effects. However, Jerome stated that the gas is only for the darkness inside Jeremiah to get out of his grasp. It is also revealed that the generators "work even better as bombs', which Jeremiah is planning to use in destroying Gotham City and making it a maze. Flooded with betrayal, Bruce tries to stop Jeremiah, only for the latter to torture and shoot Alfred Pennyworth, and Selina Kyle. Jeremiah states that he wanted Bruce to be his best friend and embrace his darkness by giving him "one bad day" in order for them to work together and "build a new Gotham in their image." Failing with his plan to gaslight Bruce, but succeeding with isolating Gotham City from the mainland by bombing the bridges, Jeremiah goes on to hide as he prepares for a new plan to turn Bruce into a madman.

Season 5
Bruce and Selina continues to search for Jeremiah, with Selina wishing to get revenge on Jeremiah for almost paralyzing her. She stabs Jeremiah several times in the stomach, before Bruce arrives to stop her in stabbing him in the face. It is later revealed that Jeremiah did not die and only made it seem like he did in order to "get everyone off his back" until he could finalize a certain project.

The project is revealed to be a re-enactment of the murder of Bruce's parents, with two strangers being surgically enhanced in order to look like Thomas and Martha Wayne. Using a tunnel to dig up to Wayne Manor's secret cave and entrance, Jeremiah, Alfred and Bruce gets out of Gotham City. However, the only way to escape Gotham City has been blocked after Jeremiah blows up Wayne Manor. He then returns to Crime Alley, where the Wayne murder occured, although he is killing a hypnotized James Gordon and Leslie Thompkins this time, both of which are Bruce's close friends. Jeremiah says that if he can't have Bruce to him "bonded by love, and they would just have to be bonded by hatred." Jeremiah's plan fails after Selina Kyle arrives at the scene, before having a run-and-chase with Bruce until the two of them reach Ace Chemicals. With hand-to-hand combats above vats of acid, Bruce tells Jeremiah that he means nothing to him, while the latter tells Bruce, "without me, you're just a joke without a punchline." Jeremiah tries to punch Bruce which he immediately, causing the former to fall into the vat of chemicals.

Jeremiah is believed to remain comatose for 10 years, until Bruce's return to Gotham City after a decade of secretly training to be the city's protector. Jeremiah's facade is now completely grotesque, burned with only a few strands of hair left. He has also become a lot more unhinged that he does not even consider himself to be Jeremiah anymore. In order to get Bruce's attention, Jeremiah tries to bomb the new Wayne Tower, only for it to fail. He then kidnaps James Gordon's daughter, Barbara Lee, and hangs her into the same vat of chemicals where he fell off 10 years ago. When James asks why he is doing this, Jeremiah asks, "do you know how it feels to have the one thing you love, and only thing you care about, ripped away from you?" clearly referring to Bruce. Before Barbara Lee gets to fall of into the acid, a sharp ballistic weapon hits Jeremiah's hand by a mysterious shadow, which he immediately notices as Bruce. He is then knocked out by Bruce, with James and Barbara safe from danger.

Behind the Scenes
"It's interesting because it's the one real glimpse of humanity and vulnerability we get within Jeremiah is his relationship with Bruce where, I think that before he was turned and went to this dark side, he had this moment with Bruce where it was sort of like one of the first times he really connected emotionally, intellectually, anything as another person and he felt like he had a friend. And then it's sort of tragic that he just does have this weird admiration and appreciation and desire for friendship with him. It's strangely loving."

- Cameron Monaghan

Fanon
Wayleska is among the most popular ships from the series Gotham, alongside Nygmobblepot and BatCat. Wayleska is sometimes called as "Baby BatJokes" by fans, referring to the Batman-Joker ship. The word "baby" was added as Bruce Wayne and Jeremiah Valeska in the series are younger versions of Batman and the Joker.

There are several fan-fictions featuring a romantic relationship between Bruce Wayne and Jeremiah Valeska, while there are also other stories that encompasses and extends their platonic relationship from the canon series Gotham.

On AO3, Wayleska is the most written ship for Jeremiah. It is also the fourth most written ship in the Gotham (TV) tag.

Fandom
FAN FICTION

TUMBLR

Trivia

 * Jeremiah Valeska is one of the few iterations of the Joker who know Batman's true identity.