Pairings: Batman/Joker mainly, various others mentioned.
Comicverse Joker and B:TAS Mad Hatter with mention of the child molestation rumours surrounding Jervis in some comics.
Events mentioned took place in the B:TAS episode "Make 'Em Laugh". If you haven't watched that, some parts of this will make little to no sense.
Parts of Jervis' speech in bold are quotes from the various works of Lewis Carroll.
This was requested after my previous story, Cupid Wears a Top Hat, in which Jervis plays cupid for Scarecrow and The Riddler. You don't need to have read that but references are made to it in here.
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman, the comics or Animated Series. If I did, Jervis Tetch would get more love.
"Come on! Throw a ukulele in here or something! I'll learn to play it with my feet!" That was The Joker's 94th loud attempt to get his solitary confinement-induced boredom alleviated and the 93rd which had fallen on deaf ears – He had been told that he certainly wasn't being let out of his straitjacket if he intended to scratch his skin until it bled and paint "BORING" on the padded walls with his blood.
Grumbling, the pale clown fell back onto his arse in the middle of the room, head lolling and eyelids slightly failing him. The sedatives that had been used to get him in here what must have been a few days ago now had worn out of his system but he wouldn't doubt there were more in the food he was given.
Before his last bout of shouting, The Joker had been bouncing himself off the walls rather than just his voice. It had tired him but playing Ricochet was one of the only games he could in here when straitjacketed. More fun than simply kicking the walls.
Since this was the solitary room padded all over, except one tiny top corner that housed a camera, it was a challenge to see if you could throw yourself at one of the walls hard enough to sail across the small room and hit the other without touching the floor. You could do it, provided you didn't mind somewhat cheating by doing it diagonally in a corner. By now, with all the finely skilled practice he'd put in over the years, The Joker was nearing being able to do it across the whole cell
The whole point of the straitjacket and wadding was to stop poor, insane you hurting yourself.
Therefore the Clown Prince had to play a game like Ricochet to hurt himself.
"It's probably why they give me the seds..." He muttered in a low, embittered tone that betrayed all of the sheer brilliance, sanity and sense covered by the maniacal killing, diabolical jokes and very snappy purple suits.
Closing his caustic green eyes, The Joker let out a sigh and fell sideways, giving up for the moment to conserve strength for the next bout.
"It's all about timing...!" He muttered, giving a short and jaunty giggle. "Everyone knows comedy's all about timing..." With his face relaxed by exhaustion, his grin only looked manic, not evil. "Even Bats knows that..." Why else would Batman always show up at the most wonderful moment, just in time for the punchline?
Never too early, never too late.
Always when the scheme's underway but never allowing its conclusion.
"Well..." The Joker drawled, tonguing at his blood red lips. Those dead and disabled bat-brats never had been the real punchline, just a little prelude. "Warm-up material... You know..."
Sighing again, The Joker began to daydream, various forms of smiles and grins flitting across his bleached face.
The hatch clanged, breaking his reverie, and in came food however long later. You never knew in here but the psychotic clown felt accomplished for his mental planning and reminiscing.
Dragging himself up to sitting, his thin, emerald eyebrows creased at the bowl shoved in for him like a dog. "Hey! What's Fido going to eat out of now?! I hope I've not stolen his bowl; I'd feel ever so guilty if I had!" His intonation raised into quivering sarcasm before The Joker fell backwards over himself with a whooping cackle, ending up back on a pad of the floor again.
Actually... food was just what he needed to start up his next rousing round of, "999 dead Robins on the wall" for any poor dolts stuck watching him.
Scrabbling over the best he could with only his feet loose and hoarse laughter still emanating from his throat, the clown momentarily stuck out a very bright, cerise tongue at the rice-vegetable slop they served him in here before shuffling into a position where he'd be able to eat face-first, just like a dog again. Any other rogue who ended up in here got help eating if straitjacketed; no one cared about The Joker.
Neither did he, happy simply to bend over forward and tuck in.
The metal bowl began to slink to his right, just a tiny bit, very slowly.
Pausing, red mouth open and white face cocked, The Joker studied the languidly escaping bowl with his piercing greens before shutting and gritting his teeth with a click. "Hey! Food!" He hissed. "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with your eater?" The slop had slightly changed direction now, taking a scenic detour in the direction of his knee.
Well the Clown Prince, joint ruler of this fair city called Gotham with his dear Batman, wasn't standing for recalcitrant food.
"Aaa... Umph!"
The joker ended up with a face and mouthful of floor padding, having missed his mark narrowly.
To those watching on the grainy, old camera, it was just that old, murderous clown playing with his food again, being a bit dopey with his aim due to sedatives in the system.
To The Joker, this was war!
"Right! Get back here and get in my mouth this instant you-!" At his raised voice, the dog bowl of slop had jumped and let loose some small greyish thing that disappeared out of his sight instantly. "...Huh?" It must have gone behind him, if he couldn't see it in front of him, but now the food wasn't moving any longer.
Feeling something small behind him, the bleached man took a gamble and turned himself around, using a thin, white foot to push his food bowl back between him and the camera. Whatever that thing was, he'd give it a little privacy to see what it would do.
As he ate, slightly slower than usual, gradually the straitjacket began to feel a little more flexible, the straps around his chest and then arms loosening. Aware of the camera, The Joker held it all in place whilst he dined, then kicking the metal dish back in the direction of the door – It tumbled and spilled the dregs left across the floor – before shuffling himself back into the opposite corner from the camera. It looked as if he might just be dozing, or being his usual whimsical self, but actually his body shielded whatever the little thing was that had freed him from sight.
Glancing down into the shadow he cast for it, the clown's bright eyes picked out a small, beige mouse wearing what appeared to be a little, burgundy fez. "Well, I like your fashion sense little guy, hehe, and your taste in assisting."
There was a little scroll of paper tied to the underside of the mouse.
Carefully, using the arm away from the camera, The Joker managed to grasp and open it still in his shadow to read. The mouse didn't fear him or resist; he wasn't going to question its bizarre utility though. Arkham, home of the criminally insane, was where The Joker tended to be most sane at times. It was a place, after all, that needed escaping from in order to really complete his life's work upon Gotham, for darling Batsy's eyes.
Batman never watched him in here...
"I owed Ms. Quinn a favour. Please escape and meet her at this address."
There was an address given for somewhere not far from Arkham.
The message was simply signed with a doodled top hat.
The Joker laughed to himself. "Old Hatty-boy huh? My, wonder what's Harley ever done for him..." He frowned severely, thinking of what the blonde harlot- harlequin might have done for the tea-sucking Brit so obsessed with blue-eyed blondes. As you might expect, it was a principle thing more than any real feelings if it was some favour of that nature.
But maybe she'd just found a nice, little girl for Titchy-Tetch to play with.
Well, whatever the case, he wasn't letting this opportunity to get back to Bats go to waste. The small missive had been wrapped around a switchblade knife.
~#~
A handful of hours later, The Joker was strolling on his way to the address mentioned in the mouse's note, twirling his new switchblade in his fingers whilst he whistled Three Blind Mice and the moonlight glinted sharply of his sheer white skin.