Bad Jokes

Introductory Note: Bad Jokes is a Harley Quinn origin story set within Christopher Nolan's Batman films, the goal of which is to follow Nolan's lead in taking the skeleton of canon Batman characters and fleshing them out to make recognizable yet re-interpreted characters that fit into his trilogy. It was first written in 2009 and lightly rewritten in 2012, and is still subject to technical tweaks here and there. Recommended for older teens and up, the rating covers language, violence, some sensuality, and disturbing/abusive situations. In addition being inspired by the world of The Dark Knight, the story was thematically influenced by Thomas Harris's Hannibal series and Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. Find sequels and unrelated Joker-centric fanfiction on my profile, or come say hi on tumblr, where I go by jokerfic.

I love and am eternally grateful for Batman, but I definitely don't claim to own it or have any rights to the characters, settings, 'verse, et. al in any way, shape, or form. The only thing that belongs to me is my writing, and you know the drill—don't take, use, or repost it without permission. Thanks, and happy reading!

Chapter One

I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide
No alarms and no surprises
-Radiohead, No Surprises

When I was first told what I was expected to do, I thought that it was a joke—which would have been more than a little inappropriate (or perversely appropriate, depending on how you looked at it), given the situation at hand. So, I asked.

"Are you joking?"

I was sitting in the office that belonged to Dr. Michael Stratford, current director of Arkham Asylum, and seconds ago, he had informed me that I was being sent in to analyze the anonymous madman known only as the Joker, if I was willing. If this was a joke, it would be a really bad one.

My name is Harleen Quinzel—Harley to my friends and family. Doctor Harleen Quinzel—I keep forgetting. After a full nine years spent racing through school, school, more school, and a host of internships, you would think it'd be easier to remember my new title. Not so. The fact that I was freshly working through a residency here at Arkham Asylum didn't help—not only was I just a rookie, but I was a rookie who didn't have a lot of practical experience on which to look back. I figured this would keep my superiors from assigning me anything too heavy too soon.

Apparently not.

Stratford leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. "I wouldn't joke about something like this. We want you to try."

I fell into silence once more, unable to fully comprehend this assignment. Finally, I managed a single question: "Why?"

Stratford sighed. "He's been in custody for months now, but we've made absolutely no progress with him," he said, the barest hint of frustration coming through in his voice. "We've developed theories, worked with him constantly, but nothing is getting through to him. One of the doctors said that he might respond if someone a little closer to his own age was brought in—or closer to what we think his age is, at any rate. I thought of you." He looked at me over steel-rimmed glasses. "Was I wrong?"

I hesitated. From the start, I'd thought it best to just admit to myself that I was attracted to Stratford—trying to repress and ignore feelings of that nature had historically resulted in messy implosions, and I didn't want my work here to follow suit. He was a full decade my senior, possibly more, but in addition to being fit and attractive, with rumpled dark hair and salt-and-pepper stubble which put him definitively into the category of "my type," he projected an aura of calm control that I found very appealing. As with most crushes, the thought of disappointing him or letting him down in any way was anathema. However, the prospect of analyzing the Joker was, quite frankly, terrifying.

I hadn't lived in Gotham City my whole life, but I'd lived in a neighboring county for most of it, and nothing that had happened in the city could compare to the madman's sudden emergence and the months of horror that followed. For the longest time, no one had the slightest hope that the city would emerge from his reign of terror intact. Batman didn't seem capable of doing anything, the police were definitely not equipped to deal with the man… hell, everyone in the city (criminal and civilian alike) was on the verge of packing up and getting out until, finally, against the odds, he had been captured.

The Joker was now being held at the fortress-like Arkham, his trial postponed until his doctors were able to conduct a credible psychiatric evaluation. It was taking longer than usual, but that was to be expected with a case like his. Anyway, I don't think the police felt safe with him locked up in a jail, considering what he'd done to the Major Crimes Unit in the space of one night and all.

This was a man that Gotham City police officers—men and women who'd seen everything under the sun—were terrified of. On the flipside, I was twenty-six, still felt eighteen years old more often than not, five-foot-five, and blonde-haired and blue-eyed to boot—which was great when I was trying to sweet-talk my way into clubs and concerts, but didn't exactly have the effect of making me come across as formidable in the least. Who said I was equipped to study this man who had been giving the other headshrinks trouble from day one?

Still, I thought, looking slowly up at my boss. Face your fear, right? You wanted opportunities—well, this is an unprecedented one at your age, and if you turn it down, you can bet you'll never get another like it.

"Okay," I said softly. "I'll give it a shot."

"Glad to hear it," Stratford said, and his dark eyes gleamed, making butterflies jump in my stomach, and inspiring a little surge of confident. This was the right decision—I knew it.

"But doesn't this sort of seem sort of… transparent? You know, as a last-ditch effort," I asked, struggling my way past that decidedly unprofessional feeling and back onto the subject at hand. "I mean… next, you'll be asking Dr. Crane to analyze him to get one inmate's diagnosis on another." I said this with a touch of pain. I had known Dr. Jonathan Crane when he was still a teacher, years ago. He'd been a cold, mean-spirited bastard even then, but brilliant, and I respected him. Over my time there, we had formed a relatively functional teacher/student relationship that I valued.

Interestingly enough, he was the reason I'd been set on working at Arkham to begin with. It had been between Sinner's Ridge in Maine and Arkham Asylum in Gotham, and I had chosen the latter because I had wanted to know someone where I ended up (and also a little bit because there was nothing to do in Maine). I hoped that it would ease my residency. I had been very upset when I had arrived to the discovery that the man who had once been the director of the asylum was now locked away in its bowels, just as mad as the inmates he had once treated.

Stratford gave me a small, wry smile. "I wouldn't rule that out if this approach doesn't work. The board is starting to grasp at straws." He paused long enough that I could tell that whatever he was about to say was important, and at length, he went on, a bit hesitant: "Quinzel, I want to make sure you understand what you've agreed to undertake. I personally had a session with this man. It was… unsettling."

My heart skipped a beat, then started thumping double-time. From what I knew of Stratford, he was experienced, unflappable. If the Joker had gotten under his skin… well, what chance did I have, really?

Before I could commit to those second thoughts, Stratford pulled open one of the drawers in his desk. He pulled out a set of VHS tapes. "Footage of most of the sessions so far," he said, putting them on the desk in front of me. "You have a VCR?"

"I can find one," I said quickly. I thought I might have one stashed in the handful of still unpacked-boxes hiding in a spare closet somewhere, and I certainly wasn't going to tell Stratford I wasn't sure—if all else failed, I was sure I could locate one in a pawn shop or thrift store somewhere. Arkham just didn't have the budget yet to go digital (we were working on it), but I wasn't going to let that stop me from preparing as much as possible for my new assignment.

"Good. Review these. Along with this," he said, fishing a thick portfolio out of the same drawer. "His case file. It's… a bit of a mess."

I nodded, reaching out to collect it all. Stratford stopped me with a hand on my arm, and I tried to ignore the unsettled jolt in my stomach as I looked up at him. "Be careful, Quinzel," he said simply, and then leaned back. "Take the rest of the day off and study that," he added, nodding at the stack on his desk. "You start with him tomorrow."

My head snapped up; I could feel my eyes growing wide. "Tomorrow?" So soon? The unspoken addition to my question hung in the air—why couldn't I have more time to study?

Stratford's lips took on a grimly amused set. "I'm not willing to send you in there fully unprepared, but we figure that you'll have better luck if you don't have a… practiced air about you. The less time you've had to plan your movements—even subconsciously—the better."

I nodded slowly and stood, gathering the case file and the tapes to my chest. It made sense. He nodded curtly at me. "Tomorrow, then, Dr. Quinzel," he said, formal once more.

I nodded again and turned on my heel, leaving the office.

The second I reached the cramped little apartment near Monolith Square that served as my home, I slipped off my shoes, tossed my bag on the couch, and focused my energies on finding a VCR. I was rewarded ten minutes later when I dug it out from the bottom of a pile of boxes, and feverishly set about plugging it into the TV. I wasn't even tempted to put off my work—any other day, I might take advantage of the unexpected time off to head to the gym and practice a few routines, spend an hour or so on the phone with Pam, deep-clean my apartment, or do any of the other things I never had time for, but tonight was the only night I had to fill my mind with as much information about the Joker as I could, and I had no intention of wasting it.

Nevertheless, as I slipped the first tape on the stack into the VCR in preparation, I had a fleeting thought of doubt: maybe I shouldn't do this. Maybe Stratford was right. Realistically, he probably was. The less my approach smacked of agenda, the better— from what Stratford had said on the subject, I got the feeling that this man could practically smell a scheme.

Curiosity won out after a short internal struggle. I had seen and heard him via news footage several times, but that was nothing in comparison to what these tapes offered me. I wanted to see him, and I wanted to see him as soon as possible. These recorded sessions would do until I could indulge my morbid curiosity with the man himself tomorrow.

The screen fuzzed and spluttered, and then flared to life. I paused the tape the instant a picture appeared—the camera was situated somewhere around the therapist's elbow, and as a result I couldn't see who it was. I had a clear view of the Joker, though.

He sat there, frozen by the VCR, leaning back in his chair. His hair fell over his face and his arms were crossed as far as they could go with the handcuffs restraining him. He looked like a sulking child. I got the feeling, however, that he was simply biding his time.

I got up from my lonely armchair in front of the TV and retrieved the case file. Returning to my seat, I flipped it open and scanned it, checking for the basics.

Name: Unknown
Age: Approximately 27-30
Height: 6'1
Weight: 165

Further down were paragraphs and paragraphs of small type, theorizing what could be wrong with him. After looking over the list once, I gave up. Every psychological disorder known to man was listed, and there were a few that looked made-up. He couldn't possess all of them. There was a good possibility that he was simply jerking his doctors along for the fun of it.

I wouldn't know till I watched the tapes. I set the file aside and found the remote control, taking a deep breath and releasing it before pressing play.

"Ten o'clock, Wednesday the thirteenth of July," I heard the therapist say in a low, smooth tone, and I recognized the voice—it was Dr. David Wilson, a mild-tempered psychiatrist who had worked at Arkham for several years now. He was much liked in the asylum, even by most of the patients.

"Good choice," I muttered to myself.

Wilson moved his elbow, clearing the camera further. "Will you tell me your name?" he asked gently.

I half expected his patient's behavior to match his sullen pose, but it seemed that he couldn't pass up an opportunity to speak. He looked up, and I breathed in, a quick little gasp of shock.

His eyes burned. That was the only way I could think of it. The shaky footage I'd seen on the news couldn't even begin to compare to this focused session recording. They burned.

"Well, now," he drawled, his voice curiously high and lively. "You see… I've introduced myself time and time again. I'm starting to think there's a little damage to your heads, needing everything repeated so often, ya know, Doc?"

"You were born the Joker?" Wilson asked without any trace of sarcasm. He was just asking the question, meant nothing by it. He was good at that.

The Joker's voice, however, was laden with sarcasm. "Of course. I just popped out and my mother said… 'Ohhh… he's such a happy little guy!' And a fella has to live up to his name, am I right?"

"I see," Wilson said pleasantly. "You got along with her, then, your mother?"

"Ah, now, why'd you have to ask that?" his patient replied, looking disappointed and leaning forward, putting his cuffed wrists on the edge of the table. "Delving into childhood… everyone has a traumatic childhood, but things've gotta be different with me, don't they, Doc?"

"I—" Wilson began, but the Joker talked over him..

"I find amusement in explosives… bullets and blood. And because I get my thrills from things that you—" and here he extended a long index finger to point at Wilson with barely-restrained violence—"uh, that you find… scary and upsetting… something has to be broken in my head, right? Something's broken. So ya gotta fix it. But whaddya do when nothin's broken? When you just think there's a problem?"

"Do you think there's a problem?" Dr. Wilson asked, keeping things moving after a short silence that his patient didn't seem inclined to fill.

And here, the Joker let loose a loud, unrestrained cackle. The sound was almost frightening— I was sure that it had to be much more so when one was actually in the room with him. He gasped once, twice for air, and then giggled some more.

"I'm not crazy, Doc," he managed to say, still chuckling. "I'm not. I just see… things… clearly. Ya understand?"

I paused the video, finding that my mouth had suddenly gone dry. I got up, went to the kitchen, and drank a glass of water before returning. I took another deep breath and then resumed the tape.

"I think I do," Wilson said after a moment. He didn't sound unsettled in the least—and I suppose he shouldn't be, professional that he was, but still. Our inmates tended to be one of two types: so violent that they were almost always drugged to the gills and unable to control even most basic body functions, or withdrawn and non-communicative. We had our chatty megalomaniacs, but none of them had essentially taken an entire city hostage. The Joker was… different. "Given the events of the previous months, it seems to me that you have a very specific, very thought-out worldview," Wilson continued. "Let me ask you, would you say that when people don't adhere to that worldview, you consider them… unimportant, or even worthless?"

He's angling towards an antisocial personality disorder, I realized. As diagnoses went, it was a good choice, the logical starting place, but the Joker's next words—preceded by a long, low, annoyed groan—froze me in my seat.

"APD?" he asked, regarding Wilson through skeptically squinted eyes, like a disappointed parent. "That's, uh… that's a little uninspired, don't you think, Doc?"

"It was—"

"I mean, if you're going that route, we may as well just work our way through the alphabet, what d'ya think? APD, BPD… CPD?" He paused, made a face, and shook his head rapidly, like he was trying to clear the bad joke from the ether, and I surprised myself by nearly giggling at the bit of theatricality.

I sobered quickly, though, at the sound of Wilson's voice: "You've clearly made some study of psychiatry. You're telling me you reject the notion that you espouse some antisocial tendencies?"

As quickly as the playful mood had come upon the Joker, it appeared to evaporate. He stared, licked his lips, and detonated. "Now, see… I'm tired of answering questions. Questions, questions, questions—it's all you people seem capable of doing; asking questions!" He lifted his cuffed wrists and slammed them down on the table. Wilson was silent for a moment.

I held my breath.

"Well. What would you like to do instead?" Wilson finally asked.

The Joker's head came up too suddenly, like some sort of animal with prey in its sights. "Well. Let's talk about you, Doc."

Wilson was silent. I could tell what was going through his mind, the internal dilemma—let the Joker inside of his head in hopes that his direction might provide some much-needed insight? At what price? He might find out something important about his patient, but was it worth it?

It didn't matter. The Joker wasn't waiting for an answer. "Dooooc-terr… Will-son," he drawled, sounding the name out, testing it, then licking his lips as if savoring the words. "Yer a real nice guy, Doc. I can tell just by talkin' to you. Real nice." My stomach clenched.

"Thank you." To Wilson's credit, his voice was firm, revealing no hint of the apprehension he must be feeling.

"But you know something that I find a little… weird? You're, uh, you're not wearing a wedding ring."

"That's correct, but is that so—"

The Joker squeezed his eyes closed, violently shaking his head, completely rejecting Wilson's pre-emptive defense. "No, no, no—stick with me here. You're powerful, you're nice, you're—" he waved his hand vaguely as if he was describing a concept totally foreign to him "a handsome fella, and the, ah, the care you take with the hair and clothes indicate… um, that you're looking. Come on. There must be someone."

"There was."

"Oh, no, David," I muttered. Wilson's voice was getting a little clipped. Professional or not, everyone had their cracks, and his were showing.

The Joker saw.

"Ah," he said, blinking and leaning back. "There was. What happened? She leave? Is that what happened; did she… leave you?"

"I don't think this is a wise topic to pursue," Wilson said.

"Oh, but I wanna pursue it. Were you just a little too nice? Helping some pretty young nurse get… adjusted? Some smart little doctor? Some… other woman?"

"There was no other woman," Wilson said. His voice was terse.

The Joker lifted his hands, palms out to show he meant no offense. "Sorry, sorry… some other man, then?"

"We should really refocus—"

"Okay, neither, then, sheesh, it was just a question," the Joker said, sounding a little miffed. "So then—why'd she leave you?" He sat there, watching, and when Wilson didn't answer, he said, "Were you not… good enough… for her?"

"Look, this sort of behavior is unacceptable," said Wilson, a new sting to his voice. "I often elect to allow my patients a certain level of freedom in steering the conversation, but if you plan to abuse it, you will lose that privilege quite quickly."

"Oh, I'm with you," the Joker assured him. "Women. Can't live with 'em… can't dismember 'em and leave them in a dozen different dumpsters. Well. Not legally, anyway," he said, with an exaggerated wink.

I could see some movement on Wilson's part. Nothing big, barely perceptible. I would guess that he just tensed up. The Joker saw it.

"Uh-oh. Some girl of yours subject to violence?"

"You are aware that I can terminate this session at any time if you refuse to cooperate?" Wilson asked sharply, struggling to regain control of the conversation.

"Not the wife, though… no, you'd still be wearing the ring if she was dead. Uh, a sweetheart?"

"If you keep attempting to provoke me—"

"Oh, I'd say its more than just an attempt. Ya know, dark alleys in Gotham are so dangerous. Always some fuh-reak waiting to jump out at you, right? To cut and stab and rip and tear. So much you can do to defenseless little women."

There was a loud scrape as Wilson pushed his chair back. I heard no further movement, and the Joker just raised his eyes, presumably to look at Wilson's face. He radiated self-satisfaction—he looked almost mischievous, like a kid who'd kicked the dog and knew his teacher couldn't hit him for it.

I heard the sound of footsteps heading away from the camera. Then, the first session was over.

Around eight o'clock in the evening, my father called. I was lost in the session footage, and probably wouldn't have answered if I hadn't glanced at my cell phone screen out of habit. At the realization that it was my dad, I quickly paused the tape, jerked my mind out of Arkham's affairs, and answered the phone.

"Hello?"

"Harley," he said irritably by way of greeting, "why didn't you answer your phone last night?"

I winced, remembering that I had awoken to several missed calls from him that I hadn't yet found the time to return. "I'm sorry," I said quickly. "You called late; I had gone to bed."

"You went to bed at nine o'clock? What are they feeding you there? I couldn't get you to go to sleep before midnight, even when you were a kid."

I smiled. "Well, some days wear me out more than others."

He hmphed. "Well, I was just checking up on you," he said. "How's the big, bad asylum been since the last time I called?"

My instinct told me to tell him about the Joker, to boast a little about the new case, but I refrained from spilling the news, perhaps fearing that he wouldn't share my excitement. It wouldn't be the first time he'd cast doubts on my abilities. "It's… good."

Dad's tone turned incredulous. "Good? That's all you can say? Last time I couldn't get you to shut up about it."

No, last time you cut me off and told me you had work to get done and that you couldn't listen to me gush all day. "Things haven't changed all that much, Daddy," I told him. "People are still troubled; I'm still trying to help them."

"I never could understand why you wanted to spend so much time with people who've chopped up their wives and kids and stuffed them in the wall," Dad said bluntly.

"I've told you before, Dr. Crane—"

"Dr. Crane is one of them now, Harley. He almost destroyed Gotham last year! Or don't you remember?"

I sighed as softly as I could manage—if my father heard the quick exhale, he'd accuse me of being disrespectful, and that would be just another argument to beat to death. "I know, Daddy. But when he was sane, he had a lot of true things to say. He convinced me that I had potential in this field and that I should go further with it."

"You should have stuck with your gymnastics," my father told me. "You were so good at that, Harley—you could have been at the Olympics before you knew it."

Yeah, Dad, keep telling yourself that. I wasn't nearly as deluded as my father about my skills as a gymnast—I loved doing it, I was good at it, but I didn't have the dedication to go all the way to the Olympics. My life and desire to find a stable career that wouldn't burn out by the time I reached the age of twenty got in the way.

"Well, we kind of already spent the money on my schooling, Dad," I reminded him softly, and then winced. Oh, no. I'd given him something else to latch on to. Sure enough—

"That's another thing!" he said, almost triumphantly. "For the money we spent, you could have gone to medical school and become a psychiatrist! Tell me again, why did you decide to go for a Ph.D instead?"

"We've talked about this," I said, trying to restrain my temper. "I've never been interested in medicine. I'm not nearly as fascinated by the study of different chemicals' effects on the human brain as I am by the idea of actual therapy and trying to help my patients heal. Second, psychiatry would have taken more than ten years after I was done with high school, and I did not want to spend that much time—"

"You finished high school a year early and raced through your bachelor's degree," Dad interrupted. "You could have had your doctorate in psychiatry by now."

"Yes, Dad," I said, finally losing my patience, "but then I'd be required to spend another three years as a resident somewhere as opposed to just one or two here! Right now, I'm through with my internship and I'm almost twenty-seven. It's time for me to start actually living and working without being seen as a child!"

"From what I hear, you're still being treated like a student at Arkham," he reminded me. I sighed and pushed a fist against my forehead.

Tell him now. Tell him you're moving up.

"That happens to everyone in residency, especially one in a heavy field, like this one," I said, forcing myself to calm down. "The second someone with less experience than I have starts working there, I'll start getting treated with more respect."

"Well, it's your life," he said resignedly.

Then why the hell do you keep trying to run it?

"Anyway, I've got to go," he continued. "I just wanted to make sure everything was okay."

"Yeah," I sighed. "Thanks for calling, Daddy." There was a pause, and then I blurted, "I love you."

The words appeared to catch him by surprise, as usual. After a few seconds, he replied, sounding almost embarrassed: "I love you, too. G'night."

"Goodb—" I started, but he'd already hung up.

I sighed and took my phone away from my ear, staring moodily at it. My father and I had a complicated relationship, to say the least—one of the other reasons I'd moved all the way into Gotham to work at Arkham.

He hadn't always been the way he was now: controlling, expectant, critical. No, he'd turned that way after my mother died of lung cancer when I was sixteen. It was likely that she'd asked him to make sure I would succeed in life or something along those lines, because not a month after she died, he was constantly on my case about my future, about my work, about my plans.

I loved my father. I'd had a good childhood and good parents, and I didn't go through that usual teenage rebellion to any real extent. I wanted to make him happy. So, instead of waltzing through the last two years of high school like I'd planned on doing, I doubled up on my coursework and finished at age seventeen before catapulting into college with an eye on my PhD.

It wasn't enough. I sometimes got the feeling that it would never be enough—that he would always expect more out of me than I was able to give. That would have been fine if I was just able to shrug it off, but no, despite knowing that it was a losing battle, I constantly had to try to rise to his expectations, to try and earn his praise and respect.

That was why I'd been so tempted to tell him about the Joker case. It was certainly an assignment to be proud of, even though I was fairly certain Stratford hadn't given me the case because I'd earned it. Still, something held me back.

Maybe it was the enormous potential for failure—why tell my father about a case that I was almost certain to screw up somehow? Maybe it was the fact that my dad might choose this day to get protective, to demand that I give up the case, to insist that the Joker was dangerous and that I didn't need to go anywhere near him. Maybe it was the fear that Dad would react as though he had no idea why the assignment was such an achievement.

I studied my television moodily. The Joker had been in the midst of one of his cheerfully sinister laughs when I froze the screen, face creased with mirth, lips pulled back to bare dingy teeth in a smile that doubled as a threat.

I couldn't screw this up. I turned my phone off, and then lifted my remote and pressed play.

I barely slept that night. I was equally enthralled and horrified by the footage.

Wilson's failure was understandable—he'd come back to work too early after his fiancé had been killed in a mugging gone wrong, and Stratford had seen no choice but to let him, understaffed as we always were. However, he was by no means the last therapist to suffer from the Joker's sharp eyes and quick tongue.

He tore absolutely everyone apart. Men, women, young, old—he found some weakness and widened the crack in the façade until it was a gaping hole. He reduced his therapists, all professionally trained to stay calm in the face of violent, antisocial madmen, to raw bundles of nerves. He was so certain of himself—I could see how easy it would be to start doubting oneself when confronted with that level of intelligence combined with his intensity, experienced (which I certainly wasn't) or not. No one had more than two sessions with him—he was too unnerving, too vile, too damn focused on his goal of entirely repelling his shrinks for them to stay longer.

I was nervous.

That was an understatement. I had almost thrown up once or twice, and now, at 4 AM, I was pacing slowly back and forth with a blanket thrown around my shoulders, trying to figure out what my greatest weakness was and whether or not I would break down, should he figure me out and decide to take me down.

Part of me had no hope. If all these other more experienced therapists had been taken down with no effort by this man, how on earth was I supposed to survive in there?

The other part of me was equally sure that I was the only person for this job. I hadn't been around for his reign of terror and therefore didn't automatically loathe him the way the rest of Gotham did. I knew no one that he'd killed. He could figure out my issues with my dad, sure, he could call me on my overachiever status as a result of my father's criticism, but would that really be enough to reduce me to tears? I doubted it.

What else, then? My home had been loving and there had been a distinct lack of personal trauma in my life.

Maybe that was what he'd see? I was just a rube, after all. I didn't know how dark life could get. I was just a girl, playing at being a grown-up. That was what he would say, anyway—if I gave him anything to work with.

I wasn't foolish enough to believe that I could keep myself a mystery for long. He'd see my cracks and he'd pry at them until my guts lay out on the table in front of us for him to pick through. Still, I could try to play my hand close to the chest, at least until I knew what I was dealing with.

I looked at the clock again. 4:49 AM. How had the time passed so quickly?

I rubbed my burning eyes. I needed to go to bed—I needed some rest before undertaking tomorrow's task. I went to my bed and curled up beneath the covers, suddenly too tired to bother with getting undressed.

Tomorrow, I would face the Joker. It was a terrifying thought, but I had exhausted myself with worry, and so it did little to keep me from sleep for longer than a few minutes.

A/N - Welcome to the Bad Jokes 'verse! I love hearing readers' thoughts, either as they read through the story or summed up at the end, so if you have anything to say, send it my way via the box down below. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.