Author's Note: I really hope you all enjoy reading this story. The Joker is slightly OC, but I've tried to keep him as in character with regards to his situation as possible. Please review! Reviews are the essence of my motivation and inspiration.

Chapter I

Friday evening, Rayne Silverstein found herself walking in a dark alley in an unfamiliar city: Gotham. Despite being in a foreign region, each of her strides was filled with confidence.

Although the sound of her boots against the cement resonated throughout the cramped space, she could hear a slow heavy beat echoing hers.

Her right hand inched toward the gun strapped to her thigh.

"Where ya goin' lovely?" a sleazy voice called from behind her, igniting her ire.

God, if you wish for one of your not so perfect creations to live to see another day, you may want to stop the grease ball behind me before I blow his brains out.

Just as she finished her thought, she felt her foot catch on something on the ground and found herself landing on top of something oddly warm and soft, albeit wet.

A masculine groan came from below her.

"Ugh."

Rayne looked down. The 'body' she had landed on had truly been a body. Although she, herself, did not truly care, propriety demanded that she asked the common question:

"Are you okay?"

Great, now I landed on someone I don't know and will be delayed from reaching home for the next 5 minutes

She repeated her question as she turned the body on the ground to face her.

When the stranger's body was finally turned, she could only assume that the man before her worked as a professional clown either for birthday parties or for circuses: his green hair was plastered against his face and a light sheen of sweat was slowly washing off the face paint he had took the pains to apply earlier on in the day.

Rayne looked at the large gashes across his right shoulder and left thigh and slowly lifted him up from the ground and could still hear her potential victims's footsteps grow closer to where she was. Perhaps it was curiosity that made her drag a stranger's body with her to her apartment.

Rayne set the injured stranger's body down on her bed. She glanced at him and started coming up with mental solutions as to why he had been injured in such a way.

Maybe he's a clown who's lousy at his profession so he had to borrow money from loan sharks. The scars on his cheeks would back that hypothesis and also tell me that this probably isn't his first time facing a 'financial crisis'.

She inched towards the stranger and let her hands trace over his purple suit.

Or not. His costume looks shabby from the outside but the material it's made out of is top tier. Then why was he knifed? Bad luck? No. There's no such thing as chance. Hmm… he looks familiar. I could swear I have seen him before. Maybe he's actually a famous clown. Cirque du Soleil?

At this point, Rayne knew that she had to make another choice: would she save this odd stranger or let him die? She reasoned with herself internally and ended up opting for the 'saintly' option. She had gotten home without killing, after all. Might as well keep up the tally.

She moved her hands over his jacket and started to undress him.

Rayne had already wiped the makeup off of the stranger's oddly handsome face and had started on cleaning out his wounds when she felt his fingers twitch. When she felt a pair of eyes staring at her, she let herself look away from his wounds to meet his eyes. Brown met with brown. There was an awkward silence that filled the air.

"Welcome back to the land of the living. I tripped over your bleeding body in a dark alley and brought you home with me," she forced a smile on her face and she spoke and plucked a piece of cement from his wound.

The room suddenly blurred and the next thing she knew was a body pressed against her back, forcing her to be trapped between the stranger and the bed.

"Morning, Doll Face. You don't really expect me to believe that do you?" he licked his lips, "Also, forcing a smile will cause premature wrinkles."

His voice dripped with sarcasm. Rayne could tell that his nasally tone was an attempt at trying to force some 'humor' to his character. Irritation and her natural impulse started to boil in the back of her mind.

Just when I thought I would be able to pass one day being peaceful and kind.

She moved her right leg from being trapped under his and applied pressure to where she knew the gash on his thigh was and shrugged her shoulders into his injured shoulder. He didn't react to the pain but was caught off guard enough at her reaction towards him for her to flip him over.

He laughed manically, "I see you've got a bit of fight in you."

"Not just a little, clown." She spat back, "Now be a good little boy and go back to sleep."

Rayne pulled a syringe out of her pocket and uncapped it with her teeth.

"Night, night."

She stuck the needle into his neck, steadily pushing the liquid into his veins, and watched as he became limp beneath her.

"Now I remember. You're the reason I'm in this godforsaken city in the first place," she muttered to herself.

The next time the Joker woke up, he was strapped down to a king sized bed.

"Good morning, asshole."

He heard the unamused voice of his host and looked at the leather straps around his wrists while the black comforter covered the lower half of his naked body.

"You know, this is a really kinky habit for you to have, Doll Face," he said lazily.

She lifted her left eyebrow and smirked, "That's not my only kink, and my name is Rayne."

The Joker felt amused.

"Well, Rayne," he licked his lips, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your beautiful company?"

"Well, Mr. Joker, I originally brought you here because you acted as a meat cushion and I felt curious why a stranger would be dying in an alley without being robbed."

She threw a ball into the air and caught it, repeating the process again and again.

He cackled. "I thought you'd be interesting, but so confined to helping out the powerless. How boring of you."

"I wouldn't say it was because of a wish to 'save humanity' that I saved you. I'd say it's more of a whim than anything else." She stopped her repeating movement and stared straight into his eyes, "Now, what would you like for breakfast, love?" She smiled sweetly.

Rayne brought the food over to the bed and set up a table near the Joker so that there'd be a place to set up the pancakes and scrambled eggs. The Joker stared at Rayne throughout the entire process.

"I'll untie you after I pour our drinks under the condition that you drop that nasally tone when you talk," she said without looking at him.

With each glass she filled, the Joker felt more and more amused.

His voice fell to his normal tone, "Why untie me?"

She looked him in the eyes.

"So I don't have to feed you."

She made her way to a button on the wall and clicked it; immediately the bounds around him came loose. He stared at her for a while more before he focused on his food and started to eat what she offered.

"By the way, that's poisoned," Rayne deadpanned.

He glanced up at her but continued eating. She grinned at his response and started eating her food as well.

"I don't care and there is no point in killing me now," he said around a mouthful of food.

"Ah… yeah. But I am here to kill you, you know" she replied.

"By who?"

"No one. I just wanted to come to Gotham and meet the man who people recognized as 'out of his mind' and 'evil genius', and then kill him" she explained as if it was a report on the weather.

He grinned at her.

"When do you plan to do it?"

"No rush. You're in my house now anyway." She cut into her pancakes.

The Joker reached over to her but was immediately pinned to the bed.

Her grin spread from ear to ear.

"Ah, ah, ah. Don't do that. I may be tempted to kill you earlier."

The Joker felt his own grin and amusement grow like fires being fanned by the insanity of his captor. He had never met a woman who had reacted in such a way to him. His nasally tone returned.

"Atatata, Rayne. Bad, bad position."

He flipped her over.

"See, I don't mind you killing me, Doll Face" he licked his lips, "I really don't, but that would be too… unentertaining… wouldn't you say? So, lets do it like this: I will strap you down to this bed, like you did me" he moved his face closer to hers "and place a timer on the release button for 3 days from now. If you still want to find me, come get me."

Her grin did not fade.

"The syringe for the sedatives is in my back pocket. Inject me with it. I'll come to you in 3 days time. Mark my words."

"Night, night, Doll Face."