Title: 'Ramatazz': Crashing Gotham's Parties I
Summary: More-than-a-bit-but-not-wildly-AU. "Sometimes I'm a, uh, I'm a clown, but usually I'm more of an idea. An idea of a man, but, uh, not quiteone. How'd ya like them apples, Mr. Party-pooper?! You killed all my- you killed all my jack-in-the-boxes!" Part I of a series about various interruptions and the aftermath. In this part: the Joker's plans are interrupted by an uninvited 'guest', he hasn't met 'the Batman' yet and time is spent considering red. This part is set during 'Batman Begins'.
This story was previously published on - by me! But with a different nom de plume- as a chaptered story, but is now being re-uploaded as one-shots, because I'm annoying like that. And have yet to finish the final part.
Whilst this story does not contain any overt homosexual leanings- no more than some of canon could be interpreted to, anyway-, the sequels are higher on the Kinsey scale.
PART I: 'COSTUMED VIGILANTE PROWLS THE STREETS OF GOTHAM: WHO IS THE BAT-MAN?'
He was in one of those old family banks- not crime family; one of those banks that was run by a specific family, with their surname reproduced ornately in a little plaque above the door-, that had probably been reputable once, above board,- it did, after all, bear the name 'Caine' ('Caine's Bank', that was), which he thought sounded kinda English and therefore, likely reputable (as all English people were polite and honest and drank tea and said 'Ma'am' convincingly), at least at some point, 'cos the only folks in Gotham who were decent were out-of-towners and England was about as 'out-of-town' as ya could get- but was now one of many small, exclusive banks catering to the mob's pressing and recurrent need to deposit large amounts of money, quickly and quietly.
However, if you were clever and knew criminals- he was smart, (if I do say so myself!) and a pretty good criminal, up-and-coming-, you knew how to track and apply guesswork to locating the mob's next drop. Also, being a member of Gotham's not-so-exclusive 'Sleazy Underworld Reprobates Club', y' kinda picked up on gossip.
Someone had just happened to mention that one of the smaller families- Italians; 'Bolognese' or 'Boloney' or something else that sounded an awful lot like something he'd eat (he licked his lips; he was hungry…He'd have to pick something on the way home; slice a Hotdog vendor or somethin')- was making a tiny, little drop in Caine's Bank (an unimpressive, butworth-having one-point-five mil) and he'd popped along, as it didn't seem like anyone else who might be interested in robbing overweight, overly-hirsute Italians would be interested in such a small amount.
Of course, for him, it wasn't about the money, although he could get a lot of gunpowder, gasoline and greasepaint (All 'G' words! I believe that is, um, allit-..ah, um, alliteration!) for that much. And, oh-…Hmmm- about 1500 pairs of socks; that sounded like a good, round number. He liked socks- he really did- but he always lost them or left them somewhere; places he didn't remember. He'd have to pay his lackeys, too, the ones that weren't too insane to care (he could've paid them in cotton candy or orange peel for all they'd notice or care) or in love with him. Which some of them were, which was weird.
(He'd had to defend his virtue, by way of disembowelment, more than once.)
His admirers were also mostly insane, but it was somewhat, ah, flattering, all the same.
What had he been thinking about?
Oh yeah.
No; it wasn't about the money, not really, specifically, purposely. It was a nice bonus, but, no; what he really cared about was sending the right message. Earning himself the right repute.
So, yeah; he was stealing the Boloney Sandwiches' money, just 'cos he could and because it was a Tuesday and maybe because he'd grown tired of stabbing that cat and the apartment in the Narrows was starting to smell of its former occupants, who were still occupying, he supposed- they were in the hall closet, all folded in on themselves, wrapped around each other like a pretzel…Damn, I'm hungry- in the physical sense, even if legally and- heh- spiritually they had vacated the premises. Because the dead couldn't own fuck all, could they?
"No, Sirr-ee Bob," he murmured, with a swipe of his tongue and a brief, cheerful, smile as he stooped over a felled security guard- blood was blossoming out like ink on his grey-white, poorly-ironed shirt. Like ink, but prettier. He preferred red to blue. However, if he was asked to chose between red (blood, cherries, balloons, paint, guts, jelly, strawberries) and black (shadows, night, holes, cats, peppercorns, eyes), he wouldn't be so decisive- in order to pull a shiny new tazer- top-of-the-line; how ostentatious, these rich old banks!- from his belt. He slipped it into one of the pockets of his faded aubergine jacket- saving it for fun-times later on- as he wandered towards the vaults, humming to himself and really rather enjoying the sound the heels of his shoes made when they connected with the marble floor.
Hang on just one second, folks!
He halted, one foot frozen in the air.
Just a second ago, he hadn't been able to hear the lovely sound, 'cos the clowns- literally; they were dressed as clowns at his request. They found it weird ('"Why, Boss?" BANG! "Hehehehehahahahaaa! Anyone else got any ques-tions? No? No takers? Huh? No one?"), he found it exhilarating and right- in the vault had been clanging and banging and scraping and shouting to each other as they loaded up the bags with his hard-earned money.
They'd gone quiet. Ominously quiet.
"Hmmm," he said to himself, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with a gloved hand. White paint came off on the blackish leather and he frowned, wiping it off on the leg of his pants.
He considered what to do. And put his foot, which had been hanging in midair, down on the floor.
Shrugging- what's a clown to do when everything goes all suspicious?-, he sloped into the vault and found his gang bleeding all over his piles of money, some with their necks broken, some with their throats slit.
Good job.
There was a back- a man's back- at the other end of the room. It was attached to a person, the back, but, currently, he could only see the back, so didn't have much else to go on. The guy was tall, and rifling through a tray of gaudy jewellery disinterestedly. He was waiting.
He felt vaguely insulted by all this.
"Hey," he complained, drawing the word out into a whine. He put his hands on his hips.
"You broke my toy soldiers, Mister," he charged the intruder, raising a finger accusingly, "That's not nice."
"'The Joker'," The Back began, his voice austere and almost-something-British-but-not-quite, "No other alias. No records. No history. Nothing. I must admit, I am impressed."
The man turned.
He had a proud face, slightly craggy like rocks near the ocean. Not that the Joker could ever remember visiting the ocean. Maybe he'd seen it on TV. In that movie, The Titanic.
No. That's icebergs. I like the part where they all die. Freeze and drown. Floating furniture. I like that.
"It is very rare for a man in my position find nothing on a man," Back-Who-Was-Now-Front- what position is that, huh? Pain in my ass? Hehheheheh!- informed him, his hands braced casually in front of him. Beneath his neatly-trimmed moustache, the Joker thought he could see the hint of a smile. The hint of a smile was no good to him; he wished that everyone had a big smile, like him. Easier to read. He was always smiling.
"I'm not a man," the Joker contradicted with an incongruous wink, "Sometimes I'm a, uh, I'm a clown, but usually I'm more of an idea. An idea of a man, but, uh, not quite one. How'd ya like them apples, Mr. Party-pooper?! You killed all my- you killed all my jack-in-the-boxes!"
"I apologise," the man said graciously, dipping his head but not really looking all that apologetic- the Joker wasn't really one for apologising himself, so couldn't begrudge him his insincerity-, "And I can appreciate that; the idea of a man. I often see men that exist conceptually, for either their own good or the good of their beliefs. I find that it is something to be admired. In most cases."
"Uhhhhh-huh," the Joker responded, a little doubtfully. He tongued his scars, smacked his lips, narrowed his eyes.
"Can I help you with anything? Specifically?" He paused, indicating the deceased flunkies as if they were a minor annoyance- like litter or leaves blown inside by wind or minor venereal disease- and not, in fact, corpses. Which they were. Flunkies? Dime a dozen!
"'Cos, you turning up here, at a private heist, using my name seems awfully spe- specific to me."
The man assessed him silently for a moment.
"I have a proposition for you."
The Joker cocked his head. He placed his right thumb on the right side of his jaw, directly below his ear, and put his right middle finger on the left side. He pressed his fingers into his bone until they slipped forward with a flash of friction and a brief nip of pain in his gums. It gave him time to think, this gesture. And unnerved the guy, just a tiny bit, which was good.
He nodded jerkily. Man continued.
"My name is Henri Ducard-"
The Joker cut him off with a violent snort, wagging a finger at him chidingly.
"Nuh uh. No it isn't. If we're going to be bestest friends, you're going to have to, eh, tell me the truth! That was a lie. I don't like liars. Don't trust 'em. Not that there's much difference between 'honest' men and the liars of this world, but-…If you want to swap cake recipes, let's cut the crap, huh? Huh?"
The look 'Ducard' gave him was calm and understatedly impressed.
"And what makes you think I'm lying?"
The Joker smiled, then, the grin spreading out slowly across his face. He could feel the tightness of the dried paint as puckered skin stretched across muscle and bone.
"You've got a liar's face," he stated, with a small, erratic nod. His arm rose, his hand curling into a fist. Slowly, it unfurled until he was pointing firmly at his new friend.
"I can tell," he continued assuredly, "I know a lot of liars. A lo-t."
"Very well," conceded 'Ducard', after a pause, "I shall be concise, as I suspect you are a man of little patience. My name is Ra's al Ghul. I am the leader of an organisation called the League of Shadows."
The Joker chewed on the inside of his mouth pensively, feeling the familiar, comforting texture of jagged scar tissue against teeth and tongue. Carefully, he leant back against the nearest wall of individual drawers and lockers, folding his arms in front of his chest.
"Well, Razmatazz-" he languished over the word deliberately; al Ghul did not flinch, his expression did not change,"-as it happens, I've heard of your little, hum, League,. When I first got into crime- professionally; y'know, not just as a, um, hobby- one of the guys I worked for-…He was a, uh, a member of the Illuminati or somethin', I think. Kinda crazy; I think he shot his face clean off in the end." (Oh, imagine the blood; purdy red on the walls…Mmm!)
He waved dismissively, paused, starting speaking again.
"Any-hoo, he knew lots about history, secret stuff, conspiracies. He was part of some, right; conspiracies? Them, um, Illuminati, 'New World Order' guys are in-volved. They've got their, uh, fingers in every sinister pie. I don't know why I'm telling you this; you probably have an annual barbeque with them. Heh!...Um, oh-…So, he'd tell this crapola to anyone who happened to be around. Now, I was around a lot. I was stealing his silver and poisoning his parrots and fucking his daughter, but that's not important. He mentioned it. I think he did. Something about you guys and your crusade to protect mankind from itself. Burning, destroying, creeping off. He was a-scared of you. Respected you. Am I right? A-am I? Huh?"
"In essence, " al Ghul answered, taking a few steps towards him. (Slipping a hand into the pocket of his jacket, the Joker ran his gloved thumb along the blade of a knife.)
"Gotham is crawling with treachery. With crime and hate," he declared in a measured tone, as if this was news- Hey, Mister; you're preaching to the freakin' choir!- "This place- this festering pit- is truly despicable and it's disease will only spread; spread until it consumes another city and another and another..."
At first, the Joker giggled haltingly. And then he started to laugh and carried on laughing until his side hurt and his hand had clenched so hard around the knife that he could feel blood pulsing out of his palm, sliding down his hand and dripping off the cuff of his gloves.
"I-" he panted, "-I, um-" he giggled, "well, um, hey-" deep breath, "I'm pretty sure, uh, anyone could've told you that. Anyone who has spent more than two seconds here. It doesn't take a man of your obvious-" he leered,"- expertise. Heh!"
"Exactly," al Ghul remarked succinctly, "And that is why I have set in motion events that will make this city consume itself. As it rightly deserves."
"Congratulations, Ghouly," the Joker chirped, laughter bubbling up his throat and then settling just before it leapt off his tongue, "But, I, er- okay-, I don't see why you're telling me this? Why'd big ol' you need the help of lil' ol' me? Short-staffed? Union strike? What; huh, huh?"
Something about al Ghul's face tightened, almost imperceptibly , but the Joker caught it and smirked in delight, storing the moment away to remember the next time all his colours- all of them; even red and black. Even though black was a shade, not a colour, although he didn't knew how he knew that, only that he did- faded to something prosaic and silent. It sometimes happened to him, though he didn't distinctly recollect those times. But they did happen and he'd woken up with a corpse at his feet more than once with no idea how it got there and no blood on his hands, but the feeling that there should be.
"There is always the chance that any plan will fail," al Ghul explained softly, his voice nonetheless superior, "And the League has not come this far without putting in place alternatives, in the event of failure. A back-up, if you will."
"And I'm this 'alternative'? I'm Plan B? Geez, thanks, Ghoolio. Shucks. Flatter me tender."
He wasn't a goddamn afterthought! He was the main event! He just hadn't quite figured out how to get everyone else to realise that yet. But he would. Gotham would be his- though, what would I do with it, if it were? Demolish it and make it into a- oh- a-…a bowling alley! No, I'll…- and he'd have billboards and pie throwings and public executions of the self-righteous and the moronic and-
"You would be compensated, of course. Fiscally."
The Joker blew a raspberry pointedly; he wasn't certain, but he thought that Mr. Big-League-Evil looked momentarily startled. And bemused.
"I don't really care about dollar signs or gold bars or stocks and shares or property or jewels or land or oil- I like things that go 'bada-boom.' Money is, huh, really, everyone else's means to my end. And the heists? Targeting the mob and big-daddy, corrupt corporations of Gotham's most-financially-blessed-and-heavily-dosed-on-diazepam? I'm just showing Gotham its reflection; just showing them how they've already cracked the mirror. The money isn't- the money's not the point. It's just pretty paper."
(He'd been considering making it prettier by somehow dyeing all the money in Gotham red. Real blood money. Heh! Take that, Gotham!)
"An enlightened opinion," the other man commended, eyes narrowing with a warmth that was as cool as warmth could get before it became cold, "But, you did not let me finish…All I am asking of you, is that you continue on as intended, in the event of our failure."
The Joker squinted. He bit down on his lower lip, trying to stop himself from beaming.
"And if you don't fail?" he inquired, fiddling excitedly with a button on his shirt.
"It won't matter," al Ghul pronounced, "For all practical purposes, Gotham will no longer exist and you'll be dead."
"You optimist, you!" the Joker cackled, clutching at his stomach. Abruptly, he sobered.
"And why are you offering me to continue my good work? I mean, uh, if you know I'm going to continue anyway, why pay me? Seems- wasteful. Foolish. Not, um- not business-smart. I don't know much about business- suits and meetings and mergers and, um- those letterhead things?- but even I can see that. Giving me something for something I'm going to do anyway. I'd never do that."
"It's a gesture of-…let us say, 'goodwill.' And I have personal interest in the matter. I believe you would be the best man for this situation, in the event of my demise. What I offer you in return- the most valuable thing- is neither riches nor anything others might consider remotely valuable." al Ghul paused, an odd light to his eyes.
"There is a man, like you, who chooses to exist not as something real, but as a concept. Behind a mask. I'm sure you can empathise-" his blue eyes tracked the different shades of colour smeared across the Joker's features; the Joker's tongue flicked out challengingly,"-…This man could be your enemy, but more than that, your equal. You can show him your world, I believe, and in doing so, communicate the message that you so desire to; you can make him part of your world. Show Gotham the downfall of the righteous and, in doing so, force its residents to see the unacknowledged truth that surrounds them. He could, perhaps, see you and understand you. I do not think I would be incorrect in assuming that such occurrences are rare."
The Joker sniffed, posing casually, "And why, theoretically, would I want that? Want to be 'understood'?"
"Because you are alone. Because you would find it fun. Because other than during violence and in the face of others' fear, you feel nothing but the desire for more violence and the hope of more fear. You are empty, without any real past and doubtlessly, considered quite insane, though I doubt whether that is truly the case. You are damaged, Joker, but the only thing that separates you and the deluded masses is that you, when staring into the hollow depths of that broken mirror, can admit this to yourself. With this man- this missing piece- you could become one of the lucky few who escape apathy and emotional anaesthesia."
The Joker mulled this over. Well, mostly. He was also wondering what al Ghul would look like if he cut off the skin between his nose and upper lip and then stuck it back on the wrong way so that his moustache was upside-down.
"So," he began, as cautious as he could ever sound, but still giggling a little, "You're setting me up on a blind date?"
Al was not amused.
"I suppose you might refer to it in those terms." A silent; 'although I would not. You are a freak. I find you distasteful.'
No more of a freak than you.
"And, uh, this guy is someone you want gone, right? 'Cos, pretty as I am, I doubt you consider me a prize catch for some friend of yours. You want, um, this guy to end up like me?"
Al Ghul pursed his lips- it might've been a smile-, "You are shrewder than your inane pranks suggest."
"They don't teach you how to pay a girl a compliment at Evil School, do they?" the Joker purred.
McEvil merely raised one eyebrow artfully.
Damn. Would he teach me to do that? If not, I'll rip it off.
He frowned and pushed off the wall of drawers, approaching al Ghul with a calculated prowl.
"Who is this eligible bachelor, then? Of course, I'll have to, huh, check him out before I give you any sort of answer. See whether he holds any en-ter-tain-ment value for me. I get bored easily, see? I mean, I gotta tell you, Rasface; I sometimes shoot henchmen if they don't move for five minutes. Short attention span; malaise du moment, right? I read that in a book. Huh?"
"I do not think boredom would be a problem with this particular playmate," al Ghul assured him, something smug creeping into his voice, "I believe you may have already heard of him; you've been in Gotham for the past year, have you not?"
The Joker sucked in his cheeks. He nodded enthusiastically.
"It's funny you should say 'eligible bachelor'," the guy said, chuckling a little, in that pretentious way that people who functioned completely sans any real sense of humour did, "They call him 'The Batman.' Perhaps you might've seen him in the papers?"
Now, the Joker didn't really see what was so funny about saying 'eligible bachelor' in reference to some guy who dressed up as a bat, seeing as he could think of nothing less 'eligible bachelor'-like than a flying rodent, except, maybe, for himself. Perhaps he'd get the joke later?
He hoped so. He hated not understanding jokes almost as much as he hated people not getting his jokes.
"The Batman," he repeated, weighing the name on his tongue- internally, he wondered at the best tone of voice to use for the name in future utterings: something suggestive? Awed? Fearful? Sarcastic? Familiar? Formal? He'd have to meet the guy to decide-, "I've seen mentions. Got the pigs nervous, right? Vigilantes do not a happy police force make, heh-heh! I've never really considered it, but, hey; I like him already."
He paused, tilting his head to the side. He perched himself atop the slumped figures of two dead clowns, crossing one leg over the other and perching his chin delicately on his hands.
With a blinding smile, that he almost felt could split his face clean in two- and he almost dared it to- he prompted, "Do tell me more, Raspberry."
Thoughts? Mistakes? Do tell the poor author.