Disclaimer; I do not own any of the DC characters or the song mentioned. I own all original characters.
I'm really proud of the Joker series I've written. I may combine this series with the Scarecrow fic I wrote. If it's too much, just tell me to stop. Double brownie points goes to whoever recognizes the city I stole the street name from.
Setting: Jeremy is 18, the same time the Joker started making his presence known in Jack Napier's mind. Gen's and Jack's story is set in our present time while this is a little in the future.
Series order: The Joker's Secret, Revenge of the Joker, His Secret and His Revenge, Sins of the Father
Notes: When Jeremy says Mom and Dad, he means Rebecka and her husband. When he says mother and father, he means Genesis and Jack/Joker. After fight with Jeremy and Rebecka, the 'he' Jeremy refers to is the Joker.
I always knew I was adopted. It was the elephant in the room. My parents knew I knew, or at least suspected it, but never voiced it. Whether or not I was legally adopted was what I thought was the question. I assumed for the longest time that was the reason why no one mentioned it. I was wrong.
I was in sixth grade when I first began to wonder if I was adopted, the year my advanced science class started talking about biology and genes. I didn't possess my 'mom's' unruly red hair nor my 'dad's' preternaturally blue eyes. That day, I went home feeling like I was living with strangers and it really messed with me for a few weeks.
I began to wonder about my biological parents when I turned thirteen. I was heavily encouraged to join the track team or pick up a pen to write by my adoptive parents to displace negative emotions and pent up energy. Where these talents my biological parents possessed or were my adoptive parents just arbitrarily picking hobbies for me to try?
Whenever I got in trouble at school or home, the consequences tended to be a little of proportion to whatever I did. I had a strange feeling my parents were trying to stop any I behavioral problems in their tracks. I went to psychologists every year just like other people went to general practitioners. I quickly learned it was not normal to have mental checkups. When I was in eighth grade, my grade had an annual field trip to Gotham City to visit an art and history museums. My parents did not allow me to go, I had a feeling that they did not want me in Gotham for whatever reason. Were my parents insane criminals that lived in Gotham? It could have been that my parents just wanted the best for me health wise, were a little strict and didn't want me going to one of the most criminally active cities. Whichever reason, the fear of knowing what my biological parents were scared me and kept me from starting my search.
Recently, I was given a book report to do for my Creative Writing class. I had to analyze the writing techniques the author used. I had a thirst for books that started at a young age, so most of the books I had at home were read, or in various stages of being read, (a talent for reading multiple books at one time without entangling separate plots, I would later learn came from my actual, biological father). I had spent my paycheck on my cell phone bill and car expenses, so I had no choice but to visit the school's library rather a bookstore. I never liked the library because I actually had to give the book back.
I skimmed the shelves for several minutes until a spine caught my eye. "Book One of the Teardrops At Midnight Series by Genesis Napier." It screamed chick-lit, but I knew of several other guys who did read the series and I was compelled to study it further. I was secure in my masculinity enough to read a chick-lit book. I sat down at a table in corner and opened the hardcover. The story opened with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe, "We loved with a love that was more than love," Flipping past, I began to read the first chapter. It was a decent book. On a scale of Stephenie Meyer to JK Rowling, Meyer being the worst of the worst, and Rowling being the best, this authoress was a solid Ellen Hopkins, (in non-Jeremy language, the book was an eight out of ten). I flipped to back of the book to read about the authoress, only to be confronted with a ghost from my past. I jumped out of the seat, throwing the offending book away from me.
Several of my classmates looked at me like I was crazy. I chuckled nervously, "There was a scorpion in the book…"
After I regained my composure, I went back to the book. I studied the authoress like she had the cure for cancer hidden in the black and white pixels that made up her visage. We had the same eyes. Was Genesis Napier, the acclaimed, deceased author, my mother?
Several years ago, her novels was made into popular movies and her and her series became apart of the public consciousness. I never paid much attention to her, again, she was a chick-lit author, but I knew her husband had some kind of trouble with the law and died with her the same night. Needless to say, my curiosity was peaked.
I went home soon after with the book hidden in secret part of my backpack I made. I really didn't my parents know I was starting my search. I didn't think they would welcome it.
When I got out of my truck, I noticed the door to the backyard through the kitchen was open. Our dog, a slobbering, obese basset hound named Oogie was on her runner in the yard. She's the daughter of my childhood pet, Mundungus.
As I walked up the door I could hear my parents talking, so I stayed out of their line of vision. "When he was 18, that's when everything started going wrong. I do not want Jeremy to end up like him!" I heard my mom say, fear lacing her voice.
"'Becka, we have to tell him. I'm sure he knows he's not ours by now. What about the trust fund they left behind for him?" Dad replied.
"They thought it would be best to let him have access to it when he was older. He still has a few years left."
It was confirmed. I was adopted. Next, I wanted to know about my biological parents. When everyone was asleep that night, I began my search. I would have used the school's computers to hide my search from my parents, but my password and internet privileges were revoked until I graduate for hacking into the school's network.
I typed in Genesis Napier into the Wikipedia search. I jumped a little when I saw her face again. It was so jarring to see someone who looked so much like me when I never grew up with it. I started read.
She had a very lucrative career with many of her stories winning several awards, topping charts and a large amount of gross sales. Normally, you think I would be stoked to have the possibility that my biological parents were loaded and I had a trust fund coming my way, but it was quickly tempered. I saw her page was linked with a page that I really hoped was a mistake. He was listed as her husband.
Everyone knew who the Joker was. Personally, I knew the basics about him and never saw an actual picture of him. No one wanted to talk about him and wanted to forget him. He ranked up there with Hitler when it came to the most hated and despicable human. When he died, everyone rejoiced like a dictator's regime had finally fallen. Everyone was that much more safe. Soon after, a movie about his siege on Gotham was made. The actor who played him died shortly after he finished filming. Many believed playing such a sick individual led to his own death.
Slowly, I dragged the cursor to his highlighted name and braced myself. The page loaded quickly.
"Shit!" I yelled out of fright, throwing my laptop away from me as though it became electrified. That man looked just like me. Even though the greasepaint and mental instability, I saw myself.
I inadvertently caught my reflection in the mirror attached to my dresser. I saw him again, that evil, self superior sneer, the mangled Glasgow Grin, his eyes. You could see insanity in his eyes. Could you see the beginnings of insanity in mine? It explained so much about how I raised. I couldn't stand it, I slammed my fist into my mirror, destroying his reflection. I didn't want to believe this. It was Wikipedia for christs sakes, hardly reliable. Someone was trolling and I was the unfortunate victim. With a bloody hand, I snuck up to the attic to see what I could find. The place was littered with family history. Each wall had some kind of antique furniture on it, boxes were filled with littler antiques and family heirlooms. Towards the back, I found what I needed.
In a box, I found my birth certificate, other records, news paper articles, older baby pictures of me, first editions of Genesis Napier's novels, a old shirt and pair of jeans and other trinkets like four graduation tassels. The inside of the box was smeared with white, green, red and black colors. I repressed a shudder, knowing who those colors were associated with. Still, I wasn't ready to believe.
I looked at my birth certificate first. It was odd because I always had a birth certificate, now I'm led to believe the one I always used (that listed my adoptive parents as my biological) was forged. One of my dad's close friends works with authenticating documents. I bet they went to him to help them.
My parents were listed as Genesis and Jack Napier. I ran my fingers over their slightly raised signatures. The thought that this piece paper was last touched by them and now by me, nearly brought tears my eyes.
Coming back to reality, I dug through the box to find the personal records inside. I found my mom's medical records detail her pregnancy with me, but didn't spend much time on those. Under those papers, I found what I wanted. My father's mental health records.
The first started when he was 18, probably why my parents are so afraid of me turning 18. It talked about a disassociative episode he had and set fire to a football field and carved a Glasgow Grin onto his face. I sighed and closed my eyes. That was the final nail in my biological coffin. I was the son of the Joker. I was the son of evil. I wanted to stop reading, but I couldn't stop at the same time.
After that disassociative episode, he was prescribed a medication. The next records were from Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane in Gotham City. The patient was listed as "Patient 0801 Name Unknown' and alias as the Joker. The records were sent to a false address and what I assume was a pseudonym for my mother. I think she tried to hide that she was married to the Joker. In Arkham, he received a full mental examination, but no one either had a long enough crack at him (many doctors either gave up on him and the weaker ones where committed too the records basically explained) and passed him to a more qualified doctor.
I was done reading about the Joker. I wanted to know more about Jack. I dug around in the box and found old newspaper clippings from when he was my age. He was very accomplished in track and field. I guess that particular strength helped him evade the police so much, huh? In the old yearbooks I found, it showed him as the class clown that everyone liked. I found his senior pictures after I found the yearbooks. One of them had him posing with a red light saber and caught in the middle of a good laugh.
One thing was bothering me, could I end up like him? I shuffled through the old medical records to see if I had a chance in taking up his criminal dynasty. Each doctor said the same thing; they didn't know what caused his problems, they didn't know how to treat it correctly and they didn't know if it was hereditary. Was the Joker like Megatron in the third Michael Bay Transformers? Would I inherit the Joker?
By the time I finished, it was getting light out. I wanted so slap myself for getting so caught up. I should have paid more attention! Now, I would be cutting it close to the time my parents usually started getting up. I didn't want them to see me coming out of the attic.
I slowly got up from my sitting position, not wanting to cause any creaking floorboards and dusted off my clothes. I crept towards the door, barely putting any weight on my feet. Thankfully, our staircase to and from the attic was a permanent one, no pulling down a rickety step ladder to cause unwanted noise.
When I slowly opened the door, I saw the hall light on. I had been caught. "Jeremy." I heard my dad call from the kitchen.
"Can you come down here please?" My mom finished.
I sighed, slowly going down the stairs. I felt a mixture of emotions whirling in my mind, anger, frustration, relief and a tinge of fear for what awaited me. I came into the kitchen, I could tell they had been up as long as I had. The look of failure stained their visage.
"What do you know, Jeremy?" Mom asked, cutting to the chase.
"I was adopted and he is my father."
"Don't-" Mom started, but I didn't want to hear her defend him.
"He was evil! How many were killed because of him! He literally walked down 71st and Memorial shooting people just because! Even Hitler had a reason to kill his victims! That actor who played him a few years ago, remember him? Yeah, the Joker killed him from the grave!" I yelled.
Mom slammed her hand on the table, it was angriest I had ever seen her. "Your father was a good man! Your father was Jackson Napier, not the Joker! There was a difference! I've seen him stay up for thirty six hours without sleep because you and your mother were sick! I don't know how he did it, but when he was around your mother, he could change back! I swear to God, I think he was possessed!" She replied, sharply.
"Yeah right, did he come from a murder spree just to take care of me."
"I'm not trying to be funny, but from what I heard, he was known to do just that." Dad finally piped up.
We both ignored him. "What sickens me the most is that you didn't think to tell me. Not just the he was father but that I was adopted. Did you really think I wouldn't find out? You both sat right there and helped me with my biology homework on genetics. I'm slightly offended that you didn't think I wasn't smart enough to put two and two together!"
"That's not the case, Jeremy. Your biological parents, two of my closest friends, did not want you to know about either aspect." Mom replied, trying to stay calm. She was nearing tears.
"I don't want to hear what rationalities you put on it. At the end of the day, you lied to me." With that I headed up the staircase to room and put on my clothes and hurried back down the stairs with my keys in my own blood-smeared hand.
"Where are you going Jeremy?" Dad asked sternly, standing up from the table. Mom had her face in her hands, sobbing. I didn't have the capacity to care that I was the cause of those tears.
I say nothing and head out the back door to my truck. I pulled out of the driveway without really knowing what I wanted, I had the confirmation that I wanted, all the resources that could tell me about me about my biological parents where back home, but I knew where I wanted to go; Gotham City. The streets that they walked, the city they lived in and the people who knew them. I guess I wanted to know if I had the capability to become him. Gotham City has the affect of bringing out the worse in people.
Gotham was a thirty minute drive from home. I definitely had the opportunity to turn around, but I also had the opportunity to figure out what I wanted to do more so. I wanted to find his old thugs if any where still around, either in prison or his capriciousness had killed them. Could I lead them like he did?
"We were young, we were wild, we were restless," The radio sang, but I quickly turned it off. I couldn't think with noise in the background.
The miles to Gotham City limits started ticking down and tendrils of darkness started to pull me closer to the city. If I had a nickel for every fame hounding ghost hunter, psychic and scientist that tried to investigate this city trying to figure out what was going on, I'd be swimming in them. That feeling you get when you come into the city is a documented feeling. People tend to think it's just natural negative energy that drive citizens to crime, like the city's' feng shui is thrown off, or something more sinister like demons control the city's fate.
I drive deeper into the city, to the more low income parts. Transients litter the street just like the garbage at their feet. Many stared as I drove by, probably because my average used truck was too 'nice' to be in this part of the city. I know who I was looking for, he tended to brand his thugs by visibly cutting a J into their flesh.
I must have driven for nearly three hours when I finally found a small group Joker alumni. I parked my truck at the curb and got out.
The five men ranging from tall to short, disgustingly skinny to disgustingly rotund, pockmarked by drug use and/or street life, stared at me as though I were infringing on them.
"Hey, you worked for the Joker didn't you?" I asked, trying to hide how scared shitless I was.
"Go home kid. You wouldn't last two seconds here." The oldest and fattest said, passing me off. That pissed me off. I hated being underestimated.
"Wanna bet!" I yelled, "Guess who's son I am!" The thugs looked at me, the few who were lucid enough recognized him in me and looked at me in disbelief. "That's right, I'm the Joker's son!"
The fat one chuckled mockingly at me, "Ok, ok we'll hear you out. What do you want?"
I was silent for a few moments and they looked at me like I was missing half my brain What did I want? What drove him? Batman. Even after all this time, Batman was still flying around this city. He wanted the Batman dead. If I could kill the Batman, then I knew I was screwed, I could be just like him and if I couldn't I would know The Joker would leave me alone.
"Batman. I want Batman dead." I said definitively.
"Nah, kid, we don't mess with the Batman anymore. Our new boss has bigger fish to fry."
"Why the hell not you lazy fucks? You did it before! Do it again! What happened? Did your balls drop off?" I yelled angrily.
"I think this kid needs to pay his dues before he gets to talk us like J did." One said with a J carved in the middle of his forehead, cracking his knuckles.
"I say we shut him up, after all, it's not like his daddy will be here to save him," The one with a green mohawk and tribal pinchers hanging out of his gauged earlobes in mocking baby voice.
"Not that J would have if he were alive today," The smallest added.
They quickly advanced on me before I could turn tail and run. The fat one bashed my head on the nearby dumpster, the rest swarmed on me like I were a dead carcass and they were buzzards. I've had a concussion before, I knew he didn't hit my head hard enough to cause anything more than pain so I knew when I passed out from that rather than trauma. Before I did, I swore I saw a man dressed in a purple suit fight them off then come up to me and "You'll be ok, son." But he looked like Jack, not the Joker, no greasepaint, not wild green hair. I knew he meant I'll be ok now and in the future. I would not inherit the Joker.
I woke up in the same place with leather smacking me in the face. For a minute I thought it was a prostitute because of the leather, but when I opened my eyes, I saw Batman himself.
"Get up, kid. This is no place for you. Scarecrow wanted to take you in as one of his test subjects." He said gruffly, but helped me into a sitting position.
"You sure I don't belong here? Who do I look like, hmm?" I asked sarcastically, not quite ready to believe my deceased father just saved me from his old thugs.
Batman scanned me for a few moments, but his face was unreadable. "I'm the Joker's son. I came here to figure out if there was a chance I could end up like him. To say I don't want to is an understatement."
"Psychosis that severe is rare. Whatever you tried to do, would probably only bring you to the only thing you do not want, to be like him." Batman replied, his voice in it's infamous hoarseness. I resisted the urge to give him a throat lozenge.
"Easy for you to say. You try going through your like knowing The Joker's your father!"
"You father is square with law and world. Forget the Joker and remember the actual man. Don't let foolishness and new testosterone ruin it for him."
I thought it over for a few seconds. "Yeah, I guess you have a point." I said, looking down in self-disgust. I was a smart person, if I hadn't let my emotions get to me, I would have realized that. Killing Batman would only make me just like him. I had a choice in my life, to be me or to be like him. I knew the right answer. I looked up and Batman was gone. "God that's freaking annoying." I groaned, slowly getting up and getting in my truck. As I started for home, that song I turned off earlier, played it in it's entirety. I had a feeling my mother and father were there with me.
When I got home, I found Mom and Dad still at the table. Mom rushed to my side when she saw how battered and bruised I was. I spilled everything when she asked what happened.
"Jeremy, you need to know about you're birth parents." She said as she lead me to the living room sofa with Dad close behind with an ice pack for my head and a bottle of antiseptic and a clean cloth for my hand and other cuts.
"Your parents loved each other deeply. Your father would do anything for her. He died trying to protect her. Your mother was my closest friend. If anyone could stop the Joker, it was her. She never asserted herself until it was too late. When you're father was 18, everything started happening."
"What was wrong with him? Was he schizophrenic? I saw the records in the attic, but I couldn't get past Arkham's. "
Mom shook her head sadly, "No one knows for sure."
Dad started searching through the desk he and Mom did the bills and taxes at, "You get all the royalties from your mother's novels and anything else that comes from them." He found what he want and joined Mom across from me and pushed a two legal documents towards me. "Your father was a chemical engineer at a plant in Gotham. He had a life insurance policy in the event of his death. Since you're mother died with him that night, it was all put in you're trust fund, along with the royalties. You can't go near it for a few more years," He finished with a good natured tease.
I grinned and started to read the document. Once I realized I couldn't understand a word of the legalese, I put it down. "I'm sorry about all this. I really am."
"No, we need to apologize. We should have told you from the beginning."
"Don't use me to get to my trust fund and we'll call it even," I joked.
We talked about my biological parents for the rest of the day, every funny story, each quirk and habit, every defining moment. They told me where my mother and father were burried and after a few days of recuperating from this adventure, I went and visited them.
They were burried on private property my Mom and Dad owned. They were originally burried in the cemetery, but my biological father's grave was vandalized countless times out of anger or revenge and my biological mother's as well just by association. Many people blamed her for enabling him. My parents had them exhumed late on night and moved them here. It put a stop to the vandalism.
Their old house was demolished and the land was sold to the city when I was ten after being on the market for far too long. No one wanted to live in the Joker's old house. All their stuff was either sold, donated, trashed or kept at my Mom and Dad's house in the attic. That infamous suit the Joker wore, was burned and his weapons were destroyed and the pieces were thrown in Lake Gotham.
Now, I look at the black marble of my father's marker at my feet. It has a quote that reads "Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person." My mother was truly his saving grace.
"I'll make sure people remember Jack and not the Joker." I said, resolutely to the monuments at my feet. "You both were good people."