First sensations come when he exclaims he has a plan. He rubs his fingers down your flesh when he shows you the schematics and genius. He kisses your neck and breaths into your chest hours before the punch line. The clothes are off by the time the trap is in motion. Climax comes in a reign of bullets, filled with laughter, painted with blood and the smell of sweat. The wind blows across her face as the car drives off and she is left to fend off the darkness, carrying a gun she worked so hard to even be able to hold. Firing, the only light in the dark, laughing as he laughs, because he laughs. This is love making on some sick level, the only level he knows, or ever will know.

Soon the sound of the car, the bullets, and the swinging of the wings soon cease, and somehow she is able to tune it out from years of practice. And all that is left is the sound of laughter, engulfing laughter until there's nothing left. And she knows this laugh, out of the many he has, this is the one she loves the most. This is the breath before the end, this is it. The laugh that means there's just two people in all the world, "you, and me, Kiddo." That laugh she lives to hear.

The Bat came for them and she shot his wings off and he drove them off. Sometimes they switch the roles but he was feeling generous that night and allowed her to shoot at the little thing. Money was made that day, some minor things stolen, nothing too big really, it's the moments before the big stuff, the playing and the toying getting used to it all over again. He doesn't even know why the Bat showed up, no one died that time, probably the fourth time in all their career.

And she's there on the bed that's always half empty. She's watching him from across the loft they've stolen by killing the owners, well he killed them, he's setting up the next plot. The next trap, counting the money and accordingly setting up a budget of what to get, hire some henchmen once more and so forth. The windows give in city light through their blinders and she sees him working by his one lone light. It's rare times like these when he's quiet. Always when he's plotting, like the sleep you get after the love, or when one partner wakes up to find the other gone. Time's like these she doesn't often dare speak, lest she break the silence that is held most precious to him since he doesn't allow it that often.

She simply waits for him to end, really hoping rather than waiting, for he never ends. There's no break, no lapse in this process, it's continual, and eternal, she just has to keep up with it all.

After a long while of laying in bed she gets up, light in her first steps, not to make too much noise she walks over to him, wiping her hand over his shoulders, unnoticed, uncared for. She continues past it, pretending like it doesn't bother her, to the bathroom.

Time for a shower, and to wash this sweat and blood away, get the gun grease off, and the find out where the new bruises are. First comes the head piece to remind her she has blonde hair, and then slowly the white make up she puts on to make him feel more comfortable, but she's beginning to believe she does it to make herself feel more comfortable. To be more like him. With that make up that doesn't come off.

Somewhere inside her sanity still lingers on, screaming at the madness of this all. She is not like him. This is all pretend for her. In second grade she was the leading role in her school play, she never knew however she could still act. For that is what she was doing, each and every day. Pretending, acting like she was like him. But under it all, her face was just covered in make up, that's all. Every now and again, especially in these quiet moments her sanity speaks up, and she looks at herself in the mirror with her real face and she can't help but want to cry.

And she wonders why it's like this. Why she stays with him even though she knows the reasons she fell in love with him were all lies. Why she stays when he hits her, when he tries to kill her because he's bored. Why, why, why did she do it?

It wasn't supposed to be like this. She had hoped when she decided to become like this, that he would change for her as she did for him. She had hoped their lives would be simpler. She had hoped she wouldn't have been pushed this far. She was younger then. She didn't want to know how to kill people, and she didn't want to know she had. But after a while when she saw her patient was never going to change she hoped that she would.

She hoped that after a long enough time to pretend and act like she was as insane as he was she'd become that. After so long of pretending to be insane she'd become insane. But in the quiet moments when her make up comes off she knows this is not true.

Her laughter is just a lie.

She's pretending for him, hoping soon he'll turn around and tell her it's okay she doesn't have to laugh if she doesn't want to. If some compassion and love would ever enter those eyes, that'll be the happiest moment of her life. But that will never come, she knows that now after the years they've been together.

He hits her.

She scars because of him.

Each she takes with a smile.

There is no greater fear, than the fear that you love somebody more than they love you.

She wondered sometimes in her saner moments if a man such as he could ever love. And her love blinded her, made her keep hoping that someday he'd hug her and hold her and kiss her. Hoping one day bullet fire would not be their intimate moments. She hoped and hoped, and that is why she stayed with those beatings and murders and laughter. She just wanted to be loved and to love.

But she could not do that as she was. Sanity inside her. She believed that if she was truly mad, if she was truly like him he'd love her, for they would become equals unlike ever before. This was the belief she held so dearly onto. One day she'll be like him, and he'll love her for it. But she was impatient, staring at her face, so impatient. And she wanted so much to be like him, to be loved by him, and she knew only he could do that.

Underneath it all she was still that psychologist giving a treatment to herself. Trying to figure out a way to cure herself.

One hopeful thought coming to her. Amongst all those whys, there was that one single question, why did he still keep her?

-------------

After the shower she put on that make up again and that hat, and walked out in her most attractive pajamas that a regular man would have died for. She crept closer to him and he maintained that atmosphere of not even noticing her. She waited for ten minutes seeing if he'd look at her, but he didn't and she was forced to speak.

"Puddin'?" She pushes out before she loses the courage to speak.

He doesn't notice her, a grin begins to come over his face as he stares at his plans.

"Puddin'?" She tries again.

"What!?" He screams. "I heard you the first time!" He throws some trash towards her.

"I know you're busy, you know?" She says. "But I was just wondering, you know, for the best, for both of us. I was just hoping…you could…maybe…you know, make me like you a little more?"

Even in the dark she sees his baffled expression, as if she's said a joke that he doesn't get. He gets angry whenever that happens and she's preparing for a fight once again, to take some beatings and give a couple of her own, but he pauses longer than usual. He seems to be in a very rare state of confusion, pausing to choose the many words he knows very carefully.

"What do you mean?" He asks.

"I mean, you know, like, crazy and stuff." She says.

Finally words are found but their difficulty shows in his voice.

"Why would you want that…?" Comes out.

"Cause…I don't know, I think it'd be nice." She says.

Silence once more, and in the dark the water of his eyes shine, while the rest remains black and soulless, unmoving, unfeeling. Until a burst of laughter parts his lips, and she knows this laugh, this is the laugh she hates the most. The one that makes her want to die. The one that goes on and on and asks "Stupid kid, why'd you ever think that?"

He pants trying to breath between his laughs. Spit dribbles from his red smiling mouth, unable to contain himself. The very idea of her like him, he just couldn't even imagine. It was such a funny joke he didn't know why he never came up with it. It was just so funny, so very, very funny.

And she stood there waiting until it ended, and when he noticed she had not left he stopped.

"Oh, you're serious." He said with disappointment. "For a moment there I thought you'd developed a sense of humor for once." He laughs a little.

"Come on, Mr. J!" She squealed. "Please!"

"Wait, now I can't tell if you're joking again."

"I'm not joking!"

"Good cause it isn't funny anymore."

"Please!"

"All right now it is funny again!"

He laughed and laughed and laughed, and she died a little inside.

She went to bed alone, falling asleep to that laughter.

And in the morning she felt him poking her with a stick. She moved and turned over to open her eyes, smeared make up all the sheets, to see her man in the shadows smiling that smile that meant he'd done something good.

"I've got a plan." He said.

--------------------

Next Chapter: The Day She Cried

I usually do long chapters, but I'm going to lean towards shorter ones for this story that will probably be around…five or six chapters long, short and sweet you know?