A tea set rattled slightly as Alfred Pennyworth carried a tray up toward Bruce Wayne's bedroom. After the Wayne manor had been rebuilt – finally – the pair was quick to move back in and out of their penthouse suite in downtown Gotham. His employer was most eager to get the Bat Cave functional again, and had been down there for almost two weeks straight. Alfred offered advice when he could, but Master Wayne knew exactly what he wanted, and a little cajoling from his butler wasn't about to change his mind.

Even if it was a better idea…

However, Alfred was very insistent that Bruce got enough sleep these days. After the ordeal of locking up the Joker, again, Gotham's true superhero was a wreck physically. He could inject himself with God knows what to build up his strength, but Alfred knew the only real way to let the body heal was to let it mend itself during the sleep cycle. So, even if his employer protested or threatened, Alfred always shooed him off to bed at around two in the morning, giving him at least six hours when he awoke at eight. However, when Alfred read the front pages of the newspapers this morning, he realized that Bruce probably needed to get up a little earlier to face the day. When he arrived at the master bedroom on the second level, he realized Bruce had the exact same thought. Poking his head in, a quick look around indicated that the room had been empty for some time. Sighing, he turned on his heel and went back downstairs, his old bones protesting only slightly to all the stairwork this early in the morning, and stepping into the secret elevator that brought him down to the Bat Cave.

When he arrived, his employer was seated in front of several large monitors off to the side of the darkened underground layer, his hands sitting limply on his lap. From what he could tell, he was watching the early hour news feed.

"Have you seen this?" Bruce asked before Alfred said a word. The older man pushed some papers aside on the table in front of him, careful not to knock any computer keys or controllers, and began setting out a cup of tea for him.

"I read it in the paper," Alfred explained. "Most unfortunate that the Joker escaped… again."

Arkham had experienced yet another security breach the night before. In his opinion, Bruce ought to buy the damned facility and run it himself as Batman. After all, that would keep the crazies in line, and he was bound to have a better control over the place with a Wayne Security system. However, he kept that thought to himself. Both Batman and Bruce had more than enough in their lives to worry about… They certainly didn't need a lunatic asylum thrown in there on an everyday basis.

"They've released some of the security footage," Bruce continued, pointing at the large screens. Alfred watched as some shaky video feed appeared of men in hooded cloaks blasting their way through the main entrance of the asylum, knocking guards out as if they were swatting flies. He frowned; neither of them had seen anything like this before.

"They don't look like the Joker's men," Alfred observed, folding his arms together. "Aren't they usually in clown paint?"

"Usually… Sometimes they look like normal thugs, but nothing like this."

"Could they be working for Miss Isley?" Alfred asking, "I recall the paper saying she broke out too."

"Poison Ivy doesn't work with people, let alone men in masks," Bruce replied, shaking his head. "I've never seen characters like this before…"

He leaned closer, freezing the screen and zooming in on the face of the intruders. They looked like twisted, deformed skulls in his opinion. He had to agree with Bruce. Out of all the insanity that roamed Gotham, Alfred had never encountered anything or anyone that dressed quite like this. Mind you, they sort of reminded him of those cloaked figures in films with cults. As far as he was aware, Bruce had a good handle on any and all cult activities in the area as Batman. If a new one sprung up, he was sure to know about it. There were enough weasely little informants in this city that someone was bound to know something.

"I regret that I haven't seen them either in all my years of service," Alfred admitted. "They appear to be using… lasers of some sort."

"That's what it looks like," Bruce agreed, "but the lasers would kill the guards, wouldn't they? Most were stunned when the police arrived, but not seriously injured. Most injuries came from falling ceiling, not direct attacks."

"How peculiar."

"I'll send the footage off to Lucius," Bruce decided, making a little note on a sheet of paper regarding his private weaponry and armour dealer from Wayne Enterprises, Lucius Fox. "If it's in a database somewhere, he'll already know about it."

"Very good, Master Wayne," Alfred agreed, knowing his old friend was bound to come up with something to help. "Will you be collaborating with Commissioner Gordon and the police department this time?"

There was a long pause, most likely due to his employer's reluctance to interact with the police as of late. They had turned Gotham's protector into a criminal, and in collaboration with the press, succeeded in making him a renowned public enemy. However, Batman remained on good terms with police commissioner Jim Gordon, who secretly worked hard to keep any sort of leads on Bruce's secret identity well hidden. He may have remained friends with Gordon, but the rest of the police department would like nothing better than to serve Batman's head on a platter for the evening news.

"I'll send what I can to Gordon's home computer in an hour," Bruce said finally. "This doesn't seem like something they can handle alone, and he needs to know Batman is already working on it."

"Agreed."

"They seem dangerous, Alfred," the young man sighed. "We'll need to be especially careful."

Alfred frowned; every criminal in Gotham had some degree of dangerousness, but these new fellows certainly upped the ante. They were also going to have to up their game if they wanted to compete, and the old butler looked forward to discovering any ways that he might be able to help.

"Tea while you work, sir?"

"Yes… Just put in on the desk…" Bruce trailed off as Alfred mixed his tea, his face close to the monitors as he examined the culprits again in slow motion. There was a facial recognition software program running on one screen, elapsed time two hours, and still no hits. This was going to be a long day.

Bellatrix Lestrange hated babysitting, and it wasn't a hate that applied solely to minding children. She felt as if she had been babysitting her sister and her useless husband since the Dark Lord returned almost three years ago. Now, years into their war against the dolts of the wizarding world and the filth that lived in the non-magical world, Bellatrix found herself incredibly flustered at the fact she now had to watch a clown. In her home. A Muggle clown at that. Now that she would ever question the Dark Lord, a man who she had worshipped since her early twenties, but even in her post-Azkaban demented state, she couldn't piece together an explanation that would explain why he entrusted her to mind this Joker fellow. Naturally, she was the best out of all his other servants, but that was obvious to anyone. Since she was top dog, Bellatrix ought to have more serious tasks to do for the war effort. This was just… ridiculous. Of course, she would never voice that. She thanked the Dark Lord endlessly when he told her Joker would stay with her, and the redheaded woman was to live with Severus, who seemed to suddenly have a foul scent under his nose. The plant bitch seemed equally displeased, but neither said anything. The clown wouldn't stop leering at her as soon as they found out he was to live with her. It was disgusting, but she would have no problem cracking his miserable face in two should he misstep.

Rodolphus had no opinion on the clown staying at their manor. She neither asked nor cared if it upset him. Azkaban spoiled him. Before prison, husband and wife were unstoppable together. He shared her cruelty, malice, and lust for all this dark. They were a perfect match. Her love and adoration went to the Dark Lord, but her companionship and kinship went to her husband. In a way, he was exactly what she needed. They tortured the world together, wands and souls linked until the Dementors took her darling Rodolphus and ruined him. He came out of prison almost lifeless, spoke in brief, slow sentences, and rarely made conversation around the house. Naturally, he was still a killer. The Dark Lord found uses for her poor husband, but he was barely the man he was twenty years ago when she met him formally. Bellatrix came out of prison deranged, more set in her twisted ways now than ever before. Rodolphus may as well have died in there. He lost his role in the inner circle, and barely moped farther than his study or bedroom on a good day. She wasn't about to sit there and hold his hand. Nearly fourteen years of distance and a complete change in her husband's personality later, Bellatrix almost felt nothing for the man. He may as well have been another piece of furniture around the house.

She played an active role in the war, just as she knew she always would. First came the downfall of the Ministry, and then the instatement of the Dark Lord's regime. There were some glitches along the way, namely a certain Harry Potter who was bent on making her master miserable, but no hostile takeover could ever go according to plan. Unfortunately, Harry Potter remained elusive. He knew her master's weakness, had broken into her vault at Gringotts and stolen something belonging to the Dark Lord, and was on the run with two of his miserable little teenage friends. How three children had managed to evade not only the Dark Lord, but every single other witch and wizard who served him was completely beyond her comprehension. She wanted to wring his filthy little halfblood neck and hang him as a flag outside her house. Bellatrix wanted to set the Weasley boy in fire and run him through downtown Diagon and carefully cut off every finger of the Granger bitch and take out her tongue. Let them try to practice magic after she was through with them! Mudbloods and blood traitors alike certainly didn't deserve the utter a single magical word, and if she could have it her way, she would see that they all received the same punishment.

Unfortunately, the Dark Lord told her she wasn't stable enough to work in any Ministry position. For some time, she lobbied to be part of the Mudblood Inquisition, but she was bound to kill more than imprison, which for some reason her master labeled 'extreme'. Mind you, he said it so lovingly that it made her hair curl, but that was another matter. For now, he sent her to assassinate old Ministry traitors with one or two other Death Eaters, Bellatrix always in charge. He seemed hesitant to have her do anything but kill, as they were both aware that she sometimes lost control between extreme torture and a prolonged death. It couldn't be her fault that he trained her so well! However, as she started to panic over his unwillingness to give her anything truly worthwhile, along came the clown. Although the Dark Lord hadn't told any of his Death Eaters, not even Bellatrix or Severus, his plan for the two Muggles he had taken from America, Bellatrix decided the man must be too important to be trusted with anyone else. From the brief information she had heard from her brother-in-law, the man was severely deranged, much like herself. She was eager to see if how much Lucius Malfoy exaggerated the clown's capabilities.

She had only had the man in her home for a half an hour before she felt like she needed to throttle him. As soon as she apparated him away from the Dark Lord's basement dungeon, she felt at a loss for what to do with him. The Dark Lord wouldn't need his skills until the week was over, which meant there was another four days that he served no real purpose. First thing she did was demand he remove his make-up, as it was grotesque, but he told her that he wasn't wearing any. Upon further inspection, Bellatrix discovered his ridiculously pale skin and bright red lips were actually his features, as if his skin had somehow been tainted. He was appalling to anyone's sensibilities, but he seemed to have no notion that his physical appearance was disheartening. Before she could stop him, he bounced around her manor, examining rooms at will and getting into shouting matches with portraits of her relatives, most notoriously with her mother. Honestly, not even an hour in the house and he was already causing havoc. She eventually found him with her husband in his study. At first she hadn't thought to chase him, but a moment of clarity hit her when she realized he might escape through a window. She ought to get her husband to set up wards when he could bring himself to do it.

Rodolphus was playing a solo game of chess and merely stared blankly at the clown when he pulled up a seat in front of him. Bellatrix stood in her doorway of the study, her hands in fists, and glared at the bubbling fool her master had produced from Gotham. Finally, she entered the room but said nothing to her husband, who hadn't even looked up to acknowledge her. Joker hunched over the board, on the side of the white players, and then frowned. For a moment, serenity erupted; pure silence. He then tried to lift knight, to which the piece protested noisily, the horse whinnying at the touch. The clown was stunned.

"You can't just move them," Bellatrix sneered. "You have to command them. It's a terribly difficult concept for a Muggle to grasp, I know-"

"Knight to E-7," the clown said suddenly. The piece moved, and he grinned as the knight dismounted its horse and then hacked away at her husband's king, taking the piece and effectively winning the round. "Check mate."

Rodolphus slowly picked up his pieces and blinked vacantly as the board reset itself. The clown suddenly burst out laughing, "Cheer up, guy! There's more life in your king than I can see in you!"

"Enough," Bellatrix snapped, unwilling to stand in her husband's pathetic presence anymore. "Let me put you in your room."

"But, Ma," Joker protested as she grabbed his sleeve and hauled him out of the chair, "we only just started playing!"

"You can play with me, if you like," Bellatrix drawled dangerously, shoving him out of the room and slamming the door behind her, "but I think I'm a little rougher than the knight."

"Oh, baby, you know how to press my buttons," he purred, shivering dramatically. "I think I'm going to like it here!"

"Don't get too comfortable," she snapped as she decided she couldn't give him any more suggestive lines. "The Dark Lord will find you tiring eventually, and we'll have you thrown back into the Muggle dump where we got you from!"

"The old use and abuse, eh?" the clown chuckled, "I'm like a drug… Once you start on the Venom, you're hooked for life!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Bellatrix snapped, rolling her eyes. "I'm putting you in your room… Step out of it, and I'll cut off one of your toes."

He stared at her, and then erupted in a fit of giggles again, "I get it! Don't put a toe out of line! You hoot, you!"

Bellatrix wrinkled her nose at him as he cocked his head to the side, a lopsided grin on his ruby reds, and then turned on her heel, "Down the hall, last door. Go."

"Ah, ah, ah, ah," he insisted, strolling away from her with his hands behind his back, his filthy prison uniform ghastly against the walls of her pristine manor, courtesy of their shell of a house elf, "I need food, oh captor my captor. Either summon me a sandwich, or I'm off to rummage in your fridge."

Ugh, she forgot he would need the basic necessities to live. Unfortunately, she had no food anywhere in the house. The woman had been mooching off of Narcissa for the past week, leaving Rodolphus to somehow fend for himself, and hadn't instructed the house elf to pick anything up yet. There was no point if she was seldom home to stock the house full of food. If her husband wanted it so terribly, he could order it himself.

"Haven't got any food," she told him, making him stop. He gave her a once over, and then smirked.

"I was wondering how you kept so trim-"

"Don't you dare look at me!" she shouted, covering the distance between them in a few short strides and pushing him against the wall, wand at his throat, "I'll take out both eyes if you don't keep them to yourself!"

The clown pushed his head forward a smidgen and inhaled deeply. He then licked his lips, "I know that smell."

"What?"

"It's the scent of insanity," he informed her, his eyes dancing gleefully, "and baby, you're wearing my perfume."

"You're scum-"

"Talk dirty to me-"

Before she could stop herself, Bellatrix slapped him firmly across the face. The Dark Lord had forbidden both Severus and Bellatrix from using magic on their captives, unless they tried to escape or kill someone. However, she was painfully close to making him a dead clown if he didn't keep his ridiculous comments to himself. The slap seemed to have no real effect on him. Instead, he leaned back against the wall, a sly smile on his lips and simply stared down his nose at her. The only thing that managed to distract her was the painfully noisy rumbling in her stomach, indicating she shared his hunger. Damn it. Looks like her sister was going to be feeding her again this week…

"We're going to my sister's," she sneered, grabbing hold of him by the scruff of his neck. "Behave, or I'll have them feed you the dog's gruel."

"Sounds delightful."

With that, she apparated away, not particularly caring if he splinched himself on the way to Malfoy Manor. They arrived in the main foyer, and she instantly heard the sound of clattering cutlery from the dining hall to their left. A hand still tight on Joker's shirt, she lugged him down the hallway and stormed into the main eating room in the grand manor, only to spot Severus and the redhead seated at the lengthy table with her family.

"Oh, for goodness sake," Narcissa snapped, rising from her seat next to her husband. "Can neither of you handle your charges on your own for more than an hour?"

"I lasted longer than he did," Bellatrix droned as she nearly threw the Joker into a seat next to Draco, and then opted for one on the other side of the table next to her sister's vacant spot. The blonde witch summoned two new plates and some silverware. Bellatrix then helped herself to a steak, fully ignoring her brother-in-law's moody silence to her presence. Lucius may have tolerated her, but she was fully aware that he hated when she came round for dinners so often. A quick look at her nephew told her Draco was remarkably uncomfortable with the clown seated next to him, and had actually inched his chair away a little to avoid contact. Joker seemed oblivious to everything but food, and proceeded to load his plate up with potatoes and meat. The redhead, seated next to Severus, across from Narcissa, and at Lucius' left, shot her companion a bit of an unreadable look, and then resumed poking at her salad miserably.

What a happy Sunday dinner.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I don't think I've ever written a Bellatrix this dark in thoughts before. I haven't done a post-Azkaban Bella in… well, ever, actually, so this is new for me. I'm very used to writing her before that shizz went down, but never after. I'm trying to find my footing, I think. Same with the comic Joker. It's all about finding my footing, I think.

And poor Rodolphus. But really, I feel like that's sort of the lot he gets given in the books too. No one cares for Roddy.