Hello All! This is a little change of pace for me, since I don't normally write for The Dark Knight or any of its characters. I only do this because I don't think I can do them justice, they change so quickly that it is hard for me to keep up sometimes! XD Oh well, here is my first atempt at it though.

This is special because it is my first entry and submission for TDKCardClub at DeviantArt. I am the 15 of Spades, and my character is Will Blake, a hacker. This story details her first encounter with the infamous Joker, before she goes to work for him. I will elaborate on her character on the next installment, but until then I think this will sufice. Hope you enjoy!

I only own Will Blake, not the Joker or any other characters in this story along with Gotham City or its inhabitants. Unfortunately...

Bus Rides From Hell

Will decided that it had been a long day.

No not long as in hours or minutes, but long as in tired and frustrating. You see, Will was a computer tech expert that worked at the local electronics story down on St. James Street. She was also a professional hacker for hirer. This particular branch that she worked for just so happened to serve almost ten city blocks worth of people, and in a city like Gotham that was a lot of people.

Today had been extremely busy because of the recent power surges in that part of town, which conveniently fried almost every computer within the district. Technically St. James wasn't in the Narrows, but it was close enough to it that wasn't particularly well kept. No one seemed to care that people were without power, as long as it didn't affect them directly.

Will decided that it had been a very long day.

Sometimes Will whished that she lived near downtown Gotham, so that all of the utilities would be kept running. But she had no such luck, or didn't she mention that already? The only luck she had was to miss the second to last bus home. Now she had to wait for the last one, which didn't come for another thirty minutes.

No, she had little to no money and couldn't afford to move downtown. Her little rat-hole of an apartment was the best she could afford to have, and that wasn't saying much. The only nice thing she could be proud to say she owned was her laptop, which she had built herself and was currently carrying.

Sometimes she wished that the crazed maniac know as "The Joker" would blow it up, but she knew that that would never happen. Why would someone like him bother with something like the Catherine Court Complex anyways? He wouldn't even look twice at someone like her.

She had seen him once when she went to get groceries. He had been walking down the street with his men while she was in the store. Will had spotted him out the front window, and caught his eye. He smiled widely at her and winked. He actually winked at her! She had been so stunned that she openly gaped at him as he walked off.

Will had told herself then and there that no one like him could ever possibly show any interest in someone like her. Maybe that was why she was still single and alone. Perhaps that was why she did what she did. At least she had her memory of the Joker…

Hey, a girl had to dream didn't she?

Even if they were dreams of a psychotic clown in face paint.

Will shook the thoughts from her head as she stood to wait for the bus. This part of town wasn't somewhere that one should linger in for very long, and here she was stuck waiting for the bus. She would have gone to sit down on the bench except there was someone sitting there, and she didn't want to go near them unless she had to.

Damn that guy who came in last minute! If he hadn't come in I wouldn't have missed my bus… At least things can't get any worse than they already are.

At that very moment it started to pour down rain. Will sighed and turned towards the benches. At least the bus stop bench was in one of those little three sided cubicles, and she would be partially out of the rain. She quickly moved out of the rain and under the shelter.

Will hugged her computer close to her chest so that it wouldn't get wet. She couldn't afford to loose it because her job depended on it, and she also couldn't afford to replace it.

She eyed the man sitting in the corner carefully. Will couldn't see his face because it was turned away from her and huddled down in his long, dark colored coat. She couldn't exactly tell what color it was because the lighting was bad, but she new it had to be custom made. Nothing like that could be bought in a store, especially one around here.

After a few minutes she decided that he was asleep and there for no threat to her, so she sat down at the opposite end of the bench. She scooted as far away from him as the cubicle would allow. The bench was only about five foot long though, so she wasn't as far away from him as she'd have like to be. But no matter, she would just have to live with it until the bus came.

Will pulled her legs up onto the bench so that she was sitting with her knees pressed against her chest, her computer wedged in between the two. She sighed lightly, and moved some of her wet hair out of her eyes. Sometimes she thought about chopping it off, but she never got around to it. Instead she let it hang in her face.

"You know that if you uh-h cut your hair it wouldn't hang in your face so much."

Will jumped a foot and a half. It appeared as if the man had woken up, and was now watching her. Quickly she turned to look at him and tell him to mind his own business. She was in no mood to get harassed by some late night drunkard.

"Hey buddy, why don't you…" the words died on her lips.

"Why don't I uh-h what?" giggled the man.

No, not a man. Thought Will dismally. It wasn't a man at all sitting there; it was a demon in a human disguise. There, not three feet away from her, sitting on the bench was The Joker in all of his clownish and terrifying glory. He was grinning widely at her, and slowly moving to sit up so that he could fully face her.

"Come on pumpkin, I uh-h don't have all day here. Why don't I what?"

Will couldn't answer him. If she did she was sure to incur his wrath and die, if she didn't she was sure to die… She didn't know what to do, so she started to think.

When Will thought like this she tended to pull in on herself, and disappear into her mind leaving the conversation. It was a sort of self defense mechanism that her mind pulled from time to time. She hadn't even noticed she'd done this until she felt a tapping on her forehead, and snapped back to reality.

"Hey, there you are pumpkin! I had thought that you had uh-h disappeared on me." He paused to lick his lips. "You wouldn't do something like that would you pump-kin?"

She shook her head from side to side, her eyes growing wide with fright. Will was afraid that if she spoke that she'd stutter, which would tip him off that she was terrified. Not that he probably couldn't already see it in her eyes, he was only about two inches from her face anyways. God he was so close to her that she could feel his breath on her face, hot and sticky with a coppery smell.

Suddenly she felt another pressure on her face, this time on her cheeks.

"You were doing it again Pump-kin… Can't have that now uh-h can we?"

"S-Sorry…" she got out.

"There you go Pumpkin! Now was that so uh-h hard?" he ran his tongue over his lips again, slowly this time.

"N-No i-it wasn't." she said quietly, flinching slightly as the pressure was revealed to be a blade.

"Now be a good little girly and uh-h say you're sorry."

"I-I'm s-sorry Mr. J-Joker. I d-didn't mean to."

She gasped lightly as the blade moved across her face until it came to rest on the tip of her nose. The Joker smiled devilishly and tapped the blade against her nose, giggling softly as he did so.

"That's uh-h so much better don't you think? Now, what is your name pumpkin? You already seem to know mine!" he let out a torrent of laughs that would have scarred the Devil himself.

Will flinched backwards involuntarily as his hot breath moved forcefully across her face, stinging her eyes and nose as it made its way across the gap. The Joker noticed the slight movement and grinned even wider before he reached out with his free hand to grab a handful of her still wet hair.

He pulled hard, causing her head to bend at an awkward angle and open up a vast expanse of her neck. The Joker leaned forward slightly, so that their eyes could still meet and repeated his question. This time Will didn't refuse.

"M-My n-name is W-Will."

"Well hello W-Will! And what are you doing out here so late at night? You know, this is uh-h bad part of town to be out wandering around by yourself. There are all sorts of crazies running around!" he continued to laugh at his own joke.

"I m-missed the b-bus because I h-had to work later t-than usual tonight."

"And W-W-Will, where do you work at?"

"I-I work at t-the electronics store d-down on St. James Street. I'm a c-computer techie." She mumbled.

"Well Will the computer techie, I think that we finally have uh-h conversation going here!" He smiled happily, grinning like a small child on Christmas. "So, why'd yah miss the bus Will?"

"I h-had a customer come i-in last minute, w-wanted something complicated s-so I had to unpack e-everything and tend to him. H-He wasn't very n-nice about it either so I h-had to do it twice."

"Well, that wasn't very nice of him uh-h was it?" he said, rolling his head slightly as he talked. "Did you get it wrong or something?"

"N-No, I didn't do it the way h-he wanted it done. It wasn't wrong, b-but it wasn't "his" way."

She talked more easily now, but she wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he really cared about her or her stupid job; it was probably just his way of teasing her before he kills her. Will could feel tears well up in her eyes, but didn't dare to shed them in his presence.

Slowly Will began to retreat in on herself again.

Suddenly her head was knocked backwards swiftly, and Will felt a stinging pain in her cheek. But it wasn't just the stinging that brought her back to the present situation; it was what just had occurred.

He had slapped her.

The Joker had slapped her, and hard right across the face in order to regain her attention. Clearly he didn't like to be ignored.

"Look at me." He pulled her hair again roughly. "I said look at me!"

Will felt the tears start to run down her cheeks as she once again focused all her attention on the man in front of her. She had told herself not to cry, but once again her will wasn't as strong as she would have liked it to have been.

"That's better…" he said patting her cheek lightly. "Now, what have I said about that little habit of yours?"

Will just stared at him in terrified silence.

"That's right; I said it was rude of you to leave the conversation without my permission. Now…" he licked his lips. "Why don't we talk about going to happen to you?"

He said it so matter of factly that it startled her more than when he had been yelling. She was certain that he was going to kill her, and she almost whished for it to come. How long had she been alone in this stupid city, forced to fend for herself for years before her time?

Too many, and now it was time to end.

"You're going to kill me aren't you?" she said quietly. "Just do it already…Please?"

She sounded pathetic, but she just didn't care anymore. Will was ready for the end, and it no longer scared her. It would have disturbed her greatly had she not been feeling this way, begging for some mass murdering clown to end her miserable existence.

The Joker giggled loudly once more, and released the grip he had on her hair. He slowly sat back down next to her, and rested his head lightly against the back of the cubical. He turned his head back to face her and smiled.

"No, I'm not going to kill you." He patted her knee lightly. "You can't kill someone who's already dead pumpkin, and somebody's beat me to the punch."

Suddenly he stood up and peered out of the bus hut, clicking his tongue as he did so. Will glanced over her shoulder and looked the same direction he was starring, and spotted the last night bus as it pulled towards the stop. She finally tore her eyes away from the bus and focused them back on the clown, waiting for him to make a move.

"Well Ms. Willamina Blake, I think that this is your bus." He looked back over his shoulder and winked at her. "You'd better not uh-h miss this one. It's the last one of the night, and we wouldn't want you to have to walk back to your apartment in the dark all by yourself now would we?"

He laughed loudly as he walked into the rain, and out into the darkness of the night. As he disappeared Will swore that she had dreamed the entire thing up while waiting for the bus. She hadn't been getting much sleep lately because of her late night "activities", which were currently paying for her rent, so he could have always been one of her minds over worked figments.

She contemplated this as she climbed the stairs to board the bus, only pausing long enough to pay for her fair. She couldn't be sure how it had happened, but she had to have been dreaming or hallucinating. There was no way that the Joker could have known her full name, especially since she had only told him her nick name.

Nope, it had definitely been a figment of her imagination and sleep deprived mind. No doubt about it.

Will turned back when the woman driving the bus grabbed her wrist, and stopped her from sitting down.

"Honey, what happened to your face? You are bleeding something wicked and you look like you've been crying!"

Will reached up gingerly with her free hand towards her cheek where the Joker had slapped her, and held her at knife point. She winced as she brushed an already bruising cheek, and cried out softly when she poked a gash that was indeed bleeding fiercely. Facial wounds tended to do that.

If she had indeed dreamed the encounter up, then how had her cheek gotten into such bad shape?

Will decided that it had been a terrible, awful day.