Untitled

Chapter 40









I could hear the Joker sucking his teeth thoughtfully. The sound haunted my ears as I confirmed my worst nightmare: I was not in love with Bruce.



What the Joker didn’t know was that I didn’t love Bruce . . . because I was already in love with someone else.



The weight of my emotions washed over me like a bucket of ice water down my spine with the force of a hurricane. All the moments shared between us, the fear, the allure, the seduction, the almost . . . tenderness he presented me with; If I was honest with myself, I should’ve seen this coming much earlier, and I should’ve stopped it way before.



Now, Bruce was dead, and I was trapped on the roof of Gotham City Hall with nothing but a dark green couch between me and about 200 stories of air.



“Interesting . . .” The Joker hissed quietly. I couldn’t understand why he was grinning at me like a cat who’d just caught his mouse. I lifted my eyes to glance at him, and he just looked so undeniably pleased.



“What is?” I wondered aloud. It seemed as though both of us were voicing our thoughts. I had no idea where that nerve came from, either.



Was this all his doing? Has everything I’ve said and done up to this point been carefully calibrated and anticipated? Was I really just playing his game? Did he always intend for me to fall in love with him?



‘Does he know that I already had?’



A small gasp escaped my lips as I abruptly felt the Joker’s eyes boring deep holes into the back of my head. Against my better judgment, I tried to meet them squarely.



Bad idea.



The Joker gave me a look with so much heat and intensity behind it that I had no choice but to look away. I only hoped that I’d turned away in time for him the miss the predictable blush that blossomed across my face.



“ . . . Are you cold, Kitty?” I blinked. I slowly turned my head back to face the Joker and I don’t think I hid my astonishment very well.



Was I cold? I hadn’t noticed the frigid night air amidst the chaotic events taking place, but now that the Joker brought it to my attention, I couldn’t shake the chill. Goosebumps broke out all across the exposed skin around my dress. I was now regretting letting Roxanne choose my outfit for the night. I knew she’d put me in something highly revealing. However, I suppose I wasn’t quite complaining about the results . . .



The Joker cleared his throat, snapping me out of my own thoughts.



“Oh! I—no, I’m fine.”



The Joker raised an eyebrow at this. “Reeeeeeeally? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re uh, shivering there, Kitty.” I inwardly cursed. The Joker’s indifference slowly steeled into something harder.



“You wouldn’t by any chance be . . . lying to me . . . would you?” The Joker’s voice was almost sickly-sweet and oozing with hostility.



“No! I—no, really, I wasn’t lying, I just . . .” I took a second to put my mind together. His ability to throw me off so easily is something that constantly unnerved me. “I’m cold but I can handle it, so I’m fine.”



The raised his other eyebrow. “I see . . .” He frowned as if he were in deep thought.

“Well, you see, the problem with that, Kitty, is uh . . . that wasn’t my ques-tion.” The Joker licked his lips. “I didn’t ask you ‘how you were doing’ or something such as ‘how you were feeling. . .’ I asked if you if you were cold.”



“It’s not that bad, honestly—“ The words died on my lips as I took in his expression. Slowly, I nodded ‘yes.’



I said nothing as he removed the coat he was wearing and tossed it to me without sparing me a glance. I tore my eyes away from the strange expression on his face to look down at the fabric in my hands. It was warm from the Joker’s body and the material felt nice against my fingers. Hesitantly, I slid one arm in after the other and quietly basked in the lingering warmth that shielded me from the cold night air.



“Did you ever wonder why I took you?”



It felt like gravity pulled my eyes to his face as my heart stopped.



The Joker turned to look at me with a hard expression that I’d never seen on his face, before. I can never really tell what the man is thinking, but I was struck speechless by the sheer . . . humanity in that one look. The Joker licked his lips softly as they turned up at the corners in a wry, almost sarcastic smirk.



“To tell you the truth . . . I suppose you could say I was, uh, using you,” He said. His voice was deep and velvety and held no hints of humor or deception.



“You were never just a pretty face; more like a tool that I felt I could wield to my own ad-van-tage.”



He might as well have just punched me in the stomach for all the pain I felt gathering in my gut. I immediately berated myself for my own stupidity.



It shouldn’t have surprised me; I knew from the very beginning who and what I was dealing with, and yet for some stupid reason, I believed I could simply waltz into this type of situation and come out unscathed? It really makes you wonder what type of idiot I must be to fall for such crap.



The Joker had taken to watching the different emotions flitter across my face as I desperately tried to hide them.



I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “I already figured—“



“I never expected, however, that I would want to keep you . . .”



That made me pause. ‘Keep me . . ?” I thought. “Like . . .’



“See, you, my dear Kitty, are different.” The Joker rose to his feet only to stalk towards the couch I was sitting on and plop himself down ungracefully, effectively eliminating any existing space between us, and making it virtually impossible to focus on anything else but him.



“You were, and, well, still are . . . the only person that can look at my fa-ce,” The Joker took his hand and angled my face up to his. “Without ever staring at these rather b-e-a-utiful scars of mine.”



He had me hypnotized and he knew it. My gaze flickered to rest on the jagged flesh at the corners of his mouth before going back to the seemingly bottomless pools of liquid onyx that were his eyes.



I cleared my throat and mustered up my courage.



Fuck it. “Your scars were never the scariest thing about you, Joker.”



His brows furrowed deeply. “You’re either the greatest actress that’s ever lived, or the most fucked-up human being on the planet,” The Joker looked as if he was truly searching. “You aren’t disgusted by me at all.”



He seemed genuinely surprised, and I still couldn’t get over just how out-of-character he was acting. I mean, it was honestly like he was a completely different person; not at all the Joker, but . . . maybe . . . Jack?



“You should have died the moment I took you into the warehouse.”



Suddenly, his eyes were as hard as stone, and he violently wrenched his gaze from mine with an ugly frown now marring his face.



I stopped breathing.



“Ohhhh, Kitty . . .” The Joker grinned nastily. “YOU have been no-thing but trouble for me ever since day one—You were a huge . . . liability.



“Reeeeeeally . . . nothing but a pair of legs to lure the more, susceptible goons to me . . . and yet . . . each day I let you live, I question why. WHY I didn’t simply slice your throat o-pen?”



‘So he HAD planned to kill me.’ I thought.



“You held me in. A. CLO-SET for days. And Kitty?” The Joker’s hard eyes flew up to mine so suddenly that I flinched. “I have uh, killed . . . hundreds of people for much less. Believe me.”



It was like my mouth was glued shut; I couldn’t say anything.



From the corner of my eye I could see the Joker’s fists clenching and unclenching as if he were trying to restrain himself from doing something violent. I didn’t dare pull my eyes away from his which then became exceedingly difficult once he’d moved even closer to me. Every instinct screamed at me to look away, to get away, to—anything but just sit there entirely at his mercy . . .



“And here I thought it was only lust . . .”



The way he uttered the word ‘Lust’ . . . dark with unbridled frustration. Of course he’d noticed. My reaction was immediate. My breath quickened, and my pulse grew erratic. Where could he possible be going with thi—



“At first . . . I figured, hmm . . . maybe a few, uh, tum-bles in the sac would purge me of what-ever the fuck this is . . . and uh,” The Joker smirked as he reached out and took a piece of my hair to begin twirling it around his fingers.



“It’s not like I would’ve been met with much—“ The Joker’s smirk grew. “ . . . Resistance . . . anyways.”



The blush on my cheeks threatened to set my face on fire. I didn’t know whether or not to be offended by this declaration, but my mouth was definitely leaning more towards ‘offended.’ My would-be-instant retort died on my lips, however, as the look in the Joker’s eyes once again changed.



“But then.” He said, looking down at the floor like he was seeing something particularly interesting. “You showed me some . . . potential.” His clear eyes met my confused ones. “A glimpse, some might say, of what we could be if we worked . . . together.”



The Joker didn’t blink, and I couldn’t speak. ‘He can’t be serious . . .’



His voice didn’t waver. “Join me.”





Sirens could be heard for over three miles up and down the streets of Gotham. It seemed as if every cop in the city was hightailing it to City Hall; the place that the Joker was last seen.



A few cops had arrived ten minutes prior to the chaos, and frantically ushered the stricken and seemingly traumatized party guests from the building. The guests stood outside, all hysterical with the knowledge that their beloved Bruce Wayne was still up there, battling, and in their minds, undoubtedly loosing to the Joker.



From what the cops gathered by the somewhat harried statements, the witnesses claimed that the madman had disguised himself amongst them before he’d been revealed. They described a dramatic stand-off between the resident playboy Bruce Wayne and the Joker for, and they had a lot of trouble believing this, a girl? It was clear, however, that grand majority of the lot, were most unsettled by the fact that the Joker had blended in so well amongst them. Apparently he hadn’t had his face paint or his usual attire at all, and it was only when the Joker’s make-up smeared that his true identity had been revealed.



The cops glanced at one another and said nothing. There wasn’t even anything that they could say in order to provide a comforting reassurance. Their minds were effectively blank.



It’s so easy to look at the Joker and deem him a monster, a non-human, a freak, even. But the fact is that for at least a few moments, he’d blended so well into the crowd, that the Joker had been one of them.



The people of Gotham had never been so terrified.



Some quiet cursing and shuffling noises had disturbed the somewhat eerie silence.



‘It’s nice to know that some things never change,’ Thought Bruce wryly.



He tested his arms and legs for the creaks and aches of a body that had just been shot point-blank by a madman wielding hidden guns. He knew by experience that the longer he allowed his battered body to recover from the shock, the more efficient he’ll be when he continues to fight the clown.



Bruce resisted the urge to sigh if only for the fact that if he did, it would undoubtedly send waves of agony through his chest where the bullet had almost pierced.



Almost, because the armor of his suit was equipped with the best bullet-proof material that money can buy.



With a deep breath and a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, Bruce hoisted himself up to his elbows. Years of abuse taught his mind to ignore the pain signals radiating through his nerve cells, which is exactly what he did in order to get up on his knees.



The emptied ballroom was still destroyed for the most part. Shards of glass littered the floor, and the air was still slightly hazy from the remnants of gas that had practically blinded the injured man.



The events that had taken place before everything went to shit once again came to mind, as they had been doing for almost an hour, now. Bruce grinded his teeth against the image of his—of Katherine kissing that man . . .The man who turned out to be the Joker. He tried instead to focus on the fury of the Joker’s gaze when he called the clown weak.



Finally, Bruce managed to shift his weight enough to get a foot situated on the floor.



As he struggled to get up, Bruce considered the position he was now it. It seemed as though he finally had the means to exploit The Joker as the maniac has done so to him for years. Bruce was astonished to put it lightly. ‘I didn’t think that creep even had a heart to begin with. Let alone the ability to . . . love?’



The whole thing could’ve very well been one of the clown’s more elaborate schemes to deter Batman, and Bruce knew it. Suddenly, the thought of Katherine came to mind.



‘That girl . . . does she play a part in this?’ Bruce frowned. ‘Or better yet, how did she even get under that monster’s skin?’ Bruce didn’t want to really consider the other thought: Has everything she’s been doing been a lie? He shook his head aggressively in attempt to shake the thought. It wasn’t working.



With a heavy heart, the man relented, and considered it as a possibility. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time that Bruce had been betrayed. The amount of people that the man could trust had been dwindling for years as it is. The pain of it was nothing new to him at all. Her betrayal should be no different, right?



As soon as Bruce managed to get himself onto both feet, he made short work of his clothes to reveal the smooth black leather underneath. Then he was running. He ignored the screaming in his muscles and made his way to the shattered window that led to the streets hundreds of feet below.



If he knew one thing for certain, it was that he had to see it for himself. He was a man looking for the truth, and by God he was going to find it. Bruce hoped he could rely on Alfred to do some damage control as the masked caper dealt with the villain. Bruce reached into his black utility belt to pull out just what he needed. A second later, from the streets below, the people, to their astonishment, could see a dark figure launch itself out of the window of City Hall only to disappear into the bottomless night sky.



Whatever was going on with the girl, Bruce knew he had to put a stop to it; He only hoped he still had time.





There comes a time where everything just stops. It’s the moment that a person becomes very aware of every second that passes, because at any moment, their lives will change drastically. Any move made, any reaction, ANYTHING at all could determine life or death.



Everything on my body felt heavy. It felt like someone had put weights in my lungs, and my eyelids seemed to be stuck open. I had just received the shock of a lifetime, and I was not processing it well AT ALL.



‘Join him . . ? My thoughts raced. ‘Join him in what? A life of crime and adversity? Join him as his partner?’ It felt like my brain was short-circuiting and I was listening to it happen. I couldn’t be more unprepared for this situation. I didn’t even know what he was asking and yet was I expected to respond?



“Are you fucking insane?!”



To my surprise, a huge smirk grew on his face.



“Join me.” He repeated, his eyes never leaving mine. “Not uh, now. Obviously.”



My breath exploded from my lungs with the intensity of my relief. It didn’t mean much, but at least I had some time to formulate a decent response. Or so I thought.



“I could kill you right now.”



I almost did a double take. “What?”



“Oh, I’m sure you uh, heard me right, kitty, and I don-t like re-peat-ting myself.” He sing-songed.



“How are you threatening me after offering me a—“ Could I call it a job? “Position . . . in your affairs?” As soon as I said it, I was certain it was the absolute worst thing I could say.



The Joker, however, burst into fits of giggles.



“Oh WOW. ‘A Position in your affairs?’” He adopted a strange falsetto as he mocked me before another wave of laughter took him. “Kitty, that was ab-SO-lute-ly precious. Man, you are quite the riot, I have to say.”



All the while, I sat there feeling mortified that I’d come off as such a child. As he kept laughing, my mortification quickly made room for the growing fire in my head. I began to get angry and there was no stopping it. ‘It wasn’t like he’d given me much information to go on, anyways!’ I thought heatedly. ‘This was never a scenario that I’d ever prepared myself for, so I shouldn’t feel like such an idiot right now.’



I saw red.



SMACK!



I felt my palm stinging from the force of the slap as I stared at it like it’d just been chopped off.



Which might just happen.



The Joker wasn’t looking at me. Instead, his face was frozen, sharply angled to the left, and expressionless. He didn’t say anything, and I didn’t dare move or breathe.



I, Katherine Harleen Quinzel, had just slapped the Joker across the face.



I weighed my options in my head. I could either wait for the floor to open up and swallow me whole mercilessly as I prayed to every God and Goddess I could think of, or I could try to run.



My eyes darted to the door leading back to the stairs from the roof, and the distance appeared to stretch on for miles. I checked the Joker’s form from my peripheral vision and he still hadn’t moved.



My decision was made. Run. Even if he catches me and kills me, then at least I attempted to save myself. My heart was beating way too fast.



‘Alright, don’t panic, just focus.’ I thought, my muscles coiling as I felt the adrenaline flow through my veins. ‘Run like hell on three. One . . . Two . . . THREE!’



A hand shot out and snagged my left wrist before my fingers could even twitch. I gasped audibly and the shock of the action almost made me pass out. I was breathing heavily now and I could no longer disguise my absolute terror.



“This . . .” The Joker growled. His voice like ice down my spine. “ . . . is ex-act-ly why I asked you to join me, Kitty.” Before I could even process his words, he yanked my body to his by my wrist, making me collapse on his chest.



My first instinct was to struggle against his grip, but then he tightened it to the point of being extremely painful and I cried out.



The Joker suddenly grabbed my face in his other hand and forced me to look into his wild, crazed eyes.



“LISTEN TO ME!” He shook me hard, and I finally got the message. I stopped struggling.



The Joker licked his lips, and I followed the movement with my eyes. The Joker shook my face hard and forced me to look back up at his eyes. I could feel his breath on my face, and his gloved fingers felt like they were leaving bruises on my wrist and on my cheeks.



“I. Like. Your. Spi-rit.” I felt the Joker spit on me a little bit when he said ‘spirit,’ and I tried not to flinch away. The Joker flexed his fingers. “You know, normally, I would’ve taken a knife to your throat, and watched all the pret-ty lit-tle drops of blood stain that uh, wonderful dress of yours, for what you just did . . . BUT! I wouldn’t really call myself . . . normal. Would you?”



I didn’t respond.



The Joker squeezed hard and drew his face closer. “WOULD YOU!” He growled.



“NO!” I yelled, clenching my eyes and teeth from the pain.



The Joker loosened his grip only by a fraction. He glared at me. “Thought so. Tell me, Kath-er-rine.” The name was like a curse coming from his mouth. “Why is it that I’m. So. Different. Hmm?” the Joker suddenly pushed my face away from his violently, and I flopped down hard onto the green couch cushions.



“That shouldn’t be a very diff-i-cult question to answer, right?” I attempted to sit up from the couch, and was forced right back down by the Joker’s arms. I only had enough time to look up at him in confusion before he had me completely pinned by the weight of his entire body as he straddled me. My mind was reeling and I was trying desperately to figure out his intentions.



“Wha--?!”



“Here’s the thing, Kit-Kat,” The Joker interrupted. “I can’t be different. You know why?” The Joker’s fingers flexed against my wrists as he peered down at me, his eyes dark and dangerous. “It’s because I. Am. A. Monster. And monsters exist allllllll around us. Everywhere, you look. We are ALL monsters.”



At this point, the Joker looked as if he could snap my neck in any moment, but he had me absolutely hypnotized. I couldn’t even believe it.



“Don’t believe me, do you? Weeeeeeeeeell . . . How about your little Jeffrey Parkins, hmm?”



My eyebrows crinkled in confusion.



“Aww, now, don’t tell me you forgot about your less-than-intelligent gallery owner Mr. Parkins!” The Joker’s gaze was almost feral.



I gasped; the exhibit, the Joker paintings, and that creep of a guy. “Ah, see? There’s that recognition. But uh, how well did you even know that . . .” The Joker looked as though he were trying to select the best word to describe the guy. “Coward?” The Joker smiled.



I wracked my brain for information. ‘What did this have to do with anything?’



“I worked for him for maybe a year or two?” The Joker didn’t react. “He was kind of my boss.” I added lamely.



He pretended to look thoughtful before gazing down at my body that was pinned beneath him. “Imagine my surprise to find that your little uh, boss was smuggling Kiddie Porn under his pillow.”



He said it so casually that I thought I’d misheard him. Jeffrey? “He was hiding—“



“—Kiddie porn. Yes. A man who you worked in close proximity to, took little kids to his home, and made them uh . . . pose suggestively for his gallery . . .” The Joker grinned nastily as he took in my horrified expression. I blinked repeatedly. I always knew that the guy was a dick, but I never thought he’d do something so . . . so disgusting.



“You looked surprised, Kitty.”



“I—Well I—I am surprised. I had no idea that he was such . . .” I trailed off listlessly as the Joker’s point began to dawn on me. The Joker leaned in really close, and arched an eyebrow.



“Such a what, hmm? Such a monster, you mean?” The Joker clicked his tongue. “The guy didn’t even have the decency to say ‘hi’ to me when I paid him a little vis-it. How rude of him.” The Joker suddenly smiled.



I shook my head at him. I knew that there were certainly some fucked up people in this world, but I wasn’t about to let the man convince me that ‘good’ didn’t exist.



“And what about your little playboy?” My eyes snapped up to his. My heart clenched at the thought of Bruce lying completely still on the marble floors of the ballroom. I shut my eyes and willed the memory away. I couldn’t let the Joker see how affected I was.



“Bruce.” It wasn’t a question.



The Joker rolled his eyes. “Yes. Him. Uh . . . Brucey.” The Joker licked his lips. “What do you think the rich boy gets up to in his . . . spare time?”



I glared at the Joker. “I know for a fact that Bruce is a good man.” No matter what feelings I may hold for the Joker, Bruce had protected me and was so good to me; there was no way I’d let the clown bad-mouth him.



The Joker’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Oh, poor, innocent little Kitty. You don’t know any-thing.”



My anger was slowly building. “I know—“



“ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” His face was contorted dangerously setting off any and every fight or flight response in my body.



I grit my teeth, and with a strength I didn’t know I possessed, I flung the clown off of me as I forced my body off of the couch. I stumbled a little on the Joker’s long jacket, which I was still wearing, but immediately I was on my feet and running as quickly as I possibly could. My eyes never left my only escape route.



I could feel my heart beating in my ears, and the only thing I heard was my own jagged breath. My feet moved quickly as I sprinted away. I didn’t think past my overwhelming need to simply escape whatever was happening between the Joker and I.



I was only a few feet away from the door before I felt something collide with my back, bringing me down to the floor hard. The Joker got on top of me, and flipped me over so that I was looking right at him before he straddled me. He then grabbed both of my wrists in one of his, pinned them on the floor above my bed, and held a small knife to my throat before I could blink.



“Impressive.” The Joker grunted harshly. I stopped struggling once I felt the pressure of the blade against my neck. The Joker leaned in very close to me. “Now are you will-ling to lis-ten?”



I looked up at him. He glared and forced the knife just a bit deeper.



“Yes.” I bit out.



“Good. Now. Where was I? oh yeeeessss . . .” The Joker hissed. “Bruce. Wayne. The pathetic man with so much money, he doesn’t know what to uh . . . do with it all.”



“What are you trying to get at?” I asked. I was past the point of patience.  



“I’m get-ting at the fact that your beloved Bru-ce is a heartless, evil bastard,” The Joker licked his lips. “And I’ll tell you why.”



The Joker pulled away from me a bit. “Ever heard of a little place called ‘The Narrows?’”



I didn’t answer. Anyone who lived in Gotham knew of the Narrows. It was a dark, depressing place where hopeless people lived in terrible conditions. It was dirty, and impoverished, and swarming with criminals.



“Well, something you may not know . . . is that there used to be a little uh, Orphanage, where the children of abusive parents would come to live.” The Joker’s face darkened.



“One day . . . the money for the house maaaaa-gically went away. All of the funds that the sad little home had received were uh, dried up.” The Joker’s lip curled cruelly. “It appeared as though a Mr. Wayne Sr. decided that the Orphanage wasn’t worthy enough of a charity to keep fi-nan-cing . . .” The Joker bared his teeth.



“And what happened to the poor little boys and girls, hmm? They were sent back. Back to their cruel, and miserable little lives at ‘home,’” The Joker spat the word out. “Where their mommies and daddies beat and neglected them. They were all left to fend for their fucking selves.”



His words were sharp and filled with so much anger and hate. I couldn’t help the small tendril of pity I felt for the Joker. No child deserved to grow up in a world of such hostility and pain.



But why was Bruce the one at fault?



The Joker was still breathing heavily over my pinned body, but now his voice was calm and cool and hard like steel.



“Two years ago,” The Joker stated. He didn’t say anything else.



My curiosity got the better of me. “What happened two years ago?”



It was like the Joker was no longer looking at me, but through me instead. “A uh, cha-ri-ty dedicated to supporting the orphans was submitted to a Mr. Bruce Wayne two years ago . . . and it was rejected.”



My mouth dropped open. ‘No.’



The Joker glared at my reaction. “What? Is it SO un-believably difficult to think of that man being so cruel? Hmm?”



The Joker got close again. This time, his face and voice was completely devoid of emotion when he spoke.



“Everyone,” He said. “Listen. Ev-er-ry-one is a monster.”



The knife was taken away from my neck, yet he was still straddling me with his body, making it virtually impossible to escape.



“You’re one too, you know.” He said it as if it were the most casual thing in the world. I gaped at him.



“ME?”



“You.” He confirmed.



I paused and my mind emptied of all thought.



“I—How am i—What have I ever done to be appropriately deemed a monster?”



The Joker didn’t hesitate. “You . . . LET people die.”



“I let people die!?” I was completely baffled, now.



“Wow, is there an echo in here? YES. You. Kath-er-rine. Har-leen. Quin-zel. Let people die. You stand there and do nothing while I kill on your behalf.” The Joker grinned humorlessly. “That sounds pretty monstrous to me . . .”



I was astonished. I don’t let people die! The Joker has destroyed so many people’s lives, but I didn’t LET him . . .



A memory occurred to me. ‘Jeffrey . . . The Joker basically told me that he was going to kill him. And I did nothing about it.’ It was like I’d somehow disregarded the Joker’s intentions with my old boss. Or maybe I just didn’t care about what happened to the guy . . .



“It’s really SO fun-ny to think about, isn’t it?” The Joker said mockingly. “The whole world wants to blame me for all their problems. I mean, with good reason . . .” The Joker amended. “But the thing is . . . I’m just. As. Fucked up. As everyone else. I’m simply not afraid to show it.”



“In fact, all I really do, is expose the people of this city for the selfish, ass-kissing, cock-sucking slaves that they really are. There’s al-ways a price. Money . . . Sex . . . Drugs . . . people’ll do anything for it,” The Joker grinned devilishly. “And I mean anything.”



My brows furrowed slightly. “I still don’t understand why you feel like you need to expose people who try so hard to hide their flaws.”



To my surprise, the Joker looked highly amused by this. “Aww, that’s my Kitty, always looking for the meaning. You know, there just might not always be a method to my uh . . . madness. I do what I do, because it’s all very funny to see people deny who they truly are.”



There was a moment where I mulled that over in my mind. I was taught from a very young age not to talk to strangers, to not travel alone at night, to lock my doors in my home. ‘Joker is right.’ I thought, surprising myself. ‘He’s not the only monster in this world, he just might be the most . . . unconventional one.’



I couldn’t help but think that somewhere in his twisted logic lied the truth. People were capable of great evil. But did that mean that they all deserved to suffer? Was there no small glimmer of hope for humanity?



“Kitty. Wake. Up.” The Joker demanded. “There’s no such thing as ‘good people.’ All the uh . . . ‘good’ that exists is. A. Lie.” The Joker’s expression turned serious. “And I may be a lot of things . . . but a li-ar . . . is not one of them.”



I had nothing to say to that.



The Joker gazed down at me, still expressionless. “I don’t know why . . . but you fa-sci-nate me.” The Joker licked his lips. “You seem to be better. Not good; no one’s good. But . . .”



And just like that I was released. The Joker hadn’t stood up from where he was straddling my body, but he released his grip on my wrists. I hissed as the blood began pumping back into my hands and tested my wrists for injuries. I couldn’t see anything very well, but from the feel of it, I definitely sensed a few nasty bruises developing.



“Join me.” The Joker said. My eyes snapped up to meet his again. My pulse quickened. There it was again. I frowned.



“I still don’t know what you mean.”



The Joker threw back his head and laughed deeply, shocking the hell out of me. He looked back down to my body, still on the cold floor of the roof, still wrapped up in his large purple jacket. The Joker’s eyes absolutely lit up with glee.



“Join me on the side of the LIV-ING, Kat.” He urged. He laughed a little more when I grew to look even more confused.



“What if I told you . . . that you could escape a life as a slave to the monotonous shit-pile that most people like to call Earth? Hmm? What if!” I had no idea if he actually expected me to answer that or not.



The Joker continued to grin at me. “What. If. You got to uh, ride high ev-ery-day, all. The. Time?” The Joker’s grin turned manic. His speech intensified. “YOU could expose this world for the truth! WE! We could all em-brace our basic instincts unlike all the other . . . de-gen-erates and life-LESS corpses you call friends.”



I shook my head. None of what he was saying was making any actual sense to me and I couldn’t let this go on.



“Joker,” I said. “Stop. I can’t go with you.”



“OH! But THAT’s where you’re wrong, Kitty!” The Joker exclaimed. “You can do what-ev-er it is that your pretty little heart desires.”



He wasn’t getting it. “I have a family, Joker. A Life: Friends.” I needed him to understand what I was trying to say. He just was not getting it. “I’m not just going to drop everything to embark on some wild reckless life of anarchy.”



The Joker’s manic grin evaporated, but the man was still not discouraged. “I’ve seen it, you know.”



“Seen what?” I asked exasperatedly.



“I’ve seen YOU. I’ve seen IT.” The Joker emphasized. He seized my shoulders and folded at the waist in order to look right into my eyes. “I’ve. Seen. Your. Freedom.”



“Joker, Stop.”



I can’t do this.



“Ah, ah!” The Joker taunted. “You forget that I’ve been watch-ing you . . . I’ve seen certain uh, looks in your eyes. The fascination. The Curiosity. The . . . excitement. Any of those ring any bells, hmm?”



“None of that is related.” I denied even as the lie burned a path down my throat. I worked hard to convince myself that those moments meant nothing. So I looked away from him. My eyes were frantically searching for something else than those black, bottomless, passionate eyes.



“Isn’t it?”



I let out a small gasp as I felt something cold and soft brush against the nape of my neck. The Joker’s breath tickled me slightly, and sent delightful shivers down my spine. It seemed as though the man was choosing a different tactic to  . . . convince me. My mind flashed back that searing kiss we’d shared and my face began to get really warm.



“COME with me, Kitty,” The Joker purred. His voice was like hot liquid down my spine and my mouth parted slightly. “Look at you . . . we both know how much you uh, want. It.” The tip of the Joker’s tongue flickered out and caused me to yelp.



I shut my eyes tightly against the sensations as my hands reached up to grab the fabric of the joker’s shirt.



This was not at all what I was expecting.



“What’re you . . . ah—“



The Joker’s hands slowly slid down the curves of my body setting fire to wherever he touched me. I resisted the fogginess that threatened to overwhelm my senses. Things like logic and self-preservation was dwindling fast and I grappled with myself to retrieve it.



“I’m not—Joker, this is not the time for—“



“Sssh,” The Joker whispered in my ear. The feeling almost made me release a very embarrassing noise.



“Let’s not pretend for a little while, shall we? There’s no one on this roof to see any display of wanton lust . . . so why not surrender to it, hmm?” The Joker was practically purring in my ear and all the while his deep, husky voice combined with the firm pressure of his hands running up and down my hips and thighs were shattering my resolve.



‘I can’t let this happen.’ I thought desperately. ‘This is not the time at all.’



I let out a small gasp as the Joker face found its way into the crook of my neck and began licking and sucking and nipping any skin exposed to him.



My hips bucked up against him without my permission and he groaned loudly. He returned the favor by grinding his hips into mine. I couldn’t help the moan that escaped my lips at the feeling of his hard, thick length pressing against my thigh.



My hands came to grip the fabric of his vest as I struggled to hold on to something in the raging storm caused by all these feelings. It was getting so hard to resist his hands and mouth and body all moving to seduce and arouse.



The pressure building in my body was driving me insane and I wondered how long I could keep up my resolve. A little part of me knew that he was only doing this to incapacitate my brain so that I would go with him. But as he lifted his face to capture one of my earlobes between his lips only to suck and nibble on it mercilessly, I knew I would soon be fighting a losing battle.



“Joker, please.” I begged. Though now I wasn’t quite sure what it was I was begging for anymore.



The Joker only chuckled deeply and the sounds caused vibrations up and down my spine. My breath was now coming in short little pants and I was quickly finding it more and more difficult to remember why this wasn’t a good idea.



“Kitty . . . so resistant to play with me. I’m almost hurt!” The Joker crooned.



“Stop it, Joker.” My voice came out stronger than I expected it to.



The Joker didn’t pause his minstrations at all. In fact, his hands got rougher, his lips more urgent. It was driving me insane. This had to stop.



I tried bucking and wiggling my hips against his weight in an attempt to get free but he only pinned me down harder with his body and ground his erection against me pointedly.



I bit my lip to fight back a moan but I knew he felt my body tense anyways.



When he bit down on my neck hard, I could help the little yelp that escaped my mouth. Tears were welling up in my eyes and I cursed myself for being so weak, so easily manipulated and seduced. I pictured this moment for weeks on end and now that its here it feels so wrong. The Joker felt wrong. This wasn’t him.



My eyes shot open.



This Joker isn’t acting normally. As ridiculous as that statement may seem, the Joker felt . . . vulnerable. Desperate even. What was making him so desperate? Why does he seem to want me around him so badly?



“She said no.”



Instantly the Joker’s body was removed and the sudden rush of cold air caused goosebumps to form all over my exposed skin.



There was a loud THUD as the Joker’s body landed a few feet away from mine and he was clutching his stomach tightly and laughing to himself. His laughter rose in pitch and suddenly he was looking up with a maniacal glint in his eye.



“I was wondering when ol’ Batty was gonna show his face.” The Joker sneered. His words caused my head to turn just in time to catch the flicker of a cape.



My mouth dropped.



Standing before me in all his glory was the dark entity that saved my life.



Batman.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


A/N:  . . . better late than never?
Okay look guys, I'm not gonna make any excuses, but writer's block SUCKS. HOWEVER, even though it's been a million and a half years or so since my last update, i'm still not outta the game. The next chapter will be the final chapter, so for those of you that have stuck with me throughout this entire time, you are MAGICAL BEINGS. Really. Like actual magic. And thank you. I will do my best for the next one, and if it takes a while again, I'll just be sure to jam pack it with so much action that your heads will explode and reconstruct, only to explode again. . . or something on that level. STILL NOT ABANDONING THIS STORY! IT WILL BE FINISHED. Honestly. I love you all so much. Leave me a comment to yell at me! I'll be ready.
-Much love,
Rookielyfe777