Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or The Dark Knight.
All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy.
"Boo, you suck!"
"Not funny!"
"Rip off."
"Waste of my money."
The young man ran off stage as quickly as possible to avoid the onslaught of garbage, drinks, and the occasional food. He sighed in defeat while slipping out the back, luckily he got his check before he went on stage. It was a precaution that he made, he wanted the paycheck before he had to leave every bar or comedy joint he was at. He walked across the alleyway into the next bar, this city was good about those kind of things, a bar on every corner and a drug dealer behind everyone's shoulder whispering their corruption to the innocent. A young woman sat on a stool in waiting, she sipped on some water while keeping to herself. The young, scared, man enter and walked up to the woman. He wrapped his arms around her, breathing in the peaceful scent of his love.
"Your back earlier then expected." She teased playfully and turn around to kiss him. They sat next to each other to talk. "So how'd it go Jack?"
"Awful!" This brunette man responded while raising his hand to get the bartenders attention. Promptly a shot was placed in front of him and the man proceeded to down it with a painful look on his face. "I didn't get to the punch line before I was booed off."
The woman leaned over and smiled, "Come on, Why so serious?" She said jokingly as she prodded the sides of his mouth to make him smile. She stopped and smiled at her dear husband.
He turned to his loving wife who had a sympathizing look in her eye. Jack placed his hand on her stomach and rubbed it gently, "I have you get you out of here Jeannie. You and the baby."
"Jack, we've talked about this." The long hair blonde sighed, "We can't afford anywhere else. And besides Gotham isn't that bad of a city, both of us grew up here and we turned out fine." She smiled.
"Yeah but we didn't grow up in this," The washed up comedian looked down as if studying the grains of the bar. "There was no wannabe masked vigilante running around, endangering the citizens."
"I think Batman has done some good for this city, you know he stopped that incident when that psychiatrist went insane." Jeannie responded and finished her water.
"Yeah but there wouldn't have been an incident if this masked man didn't push him over the edge."
"And how to you know thats what happened?"
"Because, people become the way they do for a reason. Without someone to be the cause, the Doctor wouldn't have changed."
"You know you have a cynical view of the world." Jeannie giggled as she spoke.
"Then you don't even want to know how I see this city."
That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once, am I right? I know I am. I can tell. You had a bad day and everything changed.
XXXXX
The bar was completely empty of all people when Jack entered with an increased heart rate and hope that he didn't do anything wrong today. The pair of thuggish looking men eyed this bow tie wearing man as he walked over and took the only empty seat in the crowd. He gulped obviously nervous about this situation. Normally this reserved man would never do was he was about to but this was a desperate situation and it called for extremely desperate measures. The head guy rolled out a map and started talking.
"Ok, we are going to enter at this entrance." He pointed to the map all eyes following.
"I'm sorry Sir, but why is this man here?" The other who was eyeing Jack spoke up.
"I forgot introductions." The head man said, "This is Jack Napier and he is going to be part of this tonight. I personally vouch for this man... Is this a problem?" He said menacingly as if threatening, of course the other men didn't talk back.
Jack had to work hard in order just to be here tonight. For the past three months he worked for the head boss, Chechen, just to gain his trust and he had to admit that those dogs were not the easiest to look after. It wasn't until a month later he was invited to join of this heist, this was the moment he was waiting for. Jack would be able to get all the money he needed, to move out so his wife and child will have a better life. After this Jack would quit, the boss already knew he was a temporary member so this would be no problem. People like Jack were a dime a dozen.
"When the explosive goes off we have 3 minutes before police arrive." Chechen continued in the explanation of the plan.
"um... Sir?" Jack spoke up timidly. All hostile eyes looked at the goofy man. "There is one thing we haven't discussed, what about The Batman?" The men looked taken back, he sure a guts to talk about the enemy openly.
"Thats why you are important" The leader said with such a thick accent Jack had to pause in order to make sure he heard right. "All my men have to wear a red mask on the first mission, it will distract this Batman if he shows up."
Jack's eyes became so huge that they nearly covered his whole face. "Don't worry he has never shown." The leader said, "We will meet here tomorrow at 6 p.m. exactly." The black haired man rose and walked out leaving all to disband. Jack silently slipped out and trudged home, for a brief second he questioned why he signed up to do this in the first place.
This sad man approached the broken down apartment complex in which he resided. He walked up the creaky stairs and in through the door that was barely hanging onto the hinges. He fell back onto the couch and sprawled out trying to forget his job as the decoy. If that masked vigilante decided to show up there would be no escaping his wrath, Jack could always bail out but that probably wouldn't go over so well. He was stuck in a lose-lose situation, there would be no way he could make a better life for his family. Jeannie walked into the living room and sat down next to her husband, she was around 5 months and her stomach had started to get round, it was obvious she was expecting. The blonde leaned on her lover as he gently stroked her stomach.
"How'd the job hunt go?" She asked calmly.
"Good I may have something, I need to go back tomorrow to know for certain." He said lying through his teeth. There was no way his wife could ever find out about this, she would not approve. Jack needed to get his wife out of here by any means necessary.
Something like that happened to me, you know. I... I'm not exactly sure what it was. Sometimes I remember it one way, sometimes another. If I'm going to have a past, I prefer it to be multiple choice.
XXXXX
The very next day after his wife left to go shopping for baby supplies, Jack gathered a few things from his apartment and set off. It was already getting close to dusk and he needed to be at the bar soon. As soon as he opened his door he was greeted two police officers, he panicked. He hadn't done anything wrong yet, there was no way the police could arrest him, maybe they wanted him to rat out the others. He gulped before asking what they were doing here.
"Are you Jack Napier?" One of the cops asked, Jack nodded wordlessly. "Is your wife Jeannie Napier?" He nodded once more curious as to why he wife was being brought up. The cops sighed, "I am sorry to tell you there has been an accident, your wife was killed. She was pronounced dead on arrival."
"What?" Jack said for the first time. "What do you mean dead? Jeannie can't be dead." He could feel the tears swell up in his eyes, "She isn't dead, I was going to get her out of this dangerous city. She's not dead."
"I'm sorry sir."
He collapsed to his knees in agony. "How, how could this happen?"
"There was an electric shortage with a baby bottle heater, the chances were one in a million." The second officer spoke. "When you are ready her body is at the city morgue." With that the two uncaring officers left this broken down man to wallow in his own misery.
Jack stood with a tear stained face and walked to the bar. He could barely see let alone walk right now but somehow he managed to arrive at his destination, he was a bit late and the others were not happy. Before they had a chance to yell Jack spoke up, his voice full of a confidence he never had before.
"I'm out." Jack said and turned to leave but heard a gun cock, he slowly turned around.
"What do you mean you are out?" Chechen asked finger ready on the trigger. "There is no going back now."
"Go ahead and pull the trigger, what have I got to lose?" He said taking a few steps forward.
The foreign man growled, "There is no backing out, if you have nothing to lose then you are coming."
"My wife just died, I have no need for the money anymore." Jack said his eyes watering once more.
"I don't care," Chechen spoke his voice steady as a rock. "You are in."
But my point it... My point is I went crazy. When I saw what a black, awful joke the world was, I went crazy as a coot! I admit it!
XXXXX
The three men arrived at the power plant, this was the one Jack worked at before he quit to become a comedian. The men hand him a mask and they started to enter the plant. Jack put it on, it was no more then a read beanie which the user could see through.
"Hey" Jack caught their attention, he brought out a few tins. "I brought face paint incase you guys needed it." The others shook their heads and Jack replaced the tins of face paint into pockets. He followed silently, his grief was intense but he knew the time for mourning is after. He looked back into the tinted window, this red mask made him look kind of like that new villain, Red Hood was his name.
Jack's job was to lead the men through the plant and to the safe, from there he would stand watch while the others opened the safe and got the money. Everything was quiet as the men made it all the way to the other side of the power plant at to the safe. Jack stood watch on a platform that was raised well over the ground with a few large drums of chemical waste. He heard the explosion to open the safe, three minutes until the police arrived. He stood watch waiting for the signal to leave his post so they can get out of here quickly.
"Freeze! Police!" A voice yelled making the hooded man's heart race in fear. It hadn't been three minutes yet, why where they here so quickly? Jack looked in front of him and saw a row of police all with guns pointed at him, he turned and quickly tried to flee the scene. He shouted out to the other men who were not where they were suppose to be. The others took off leaving Jack as a distraction and to take all the blame. A few shots where fired but it was obvious they weren't trying to hit the man, only trying to frighten him or maybe they were just bad marksmen. The sound of something similar to wings was heard and a tall, dark, threatening, figure stood in front of him.
"You can't escape me this time Red Hood." Batman said with an deep growling voice. He had the type of voice which could make even the toughest men flee in terror. Jack had about a million thoughts racing through his head, mainly the subject of 'who' came up. Batman brought a fist back and launched a punch that nearly broke Jack's hand when he tired to block. He turned to run away but Batman knocked him down and Jack fell off the platform. Three stories this man fell down into the darkness. Not even Batman could see what happened, but there was no way anyone could survive such a fall.
Down into the deep depths of despair Jack knocked over a few drums of waste, they seemed to soften his fall. His head suffered the most damage, blood trickled down. His vision was blurry as he opened his eyes, he couldn't recall where he was or why he was here. The man crawled to his knees in writhing pain, he was covered in toxic waste. A flash of a smiling woman came to mind, he didn't know who this blonde was. Now this woman looked sad, a scream echoed in thought. The man grabbed the sides of his head which pounded in ungodly pain. A flash of guns, a dark figure, a mob. All these came up but he had no recollection who they were. A cop in front of him, pain in his heart, tears stinging his eyes. Not even a vague idea of what was going on, the brunette grabbed onto both sides of his head and stumbled through the green liquid. A red mask, guns, darkness. The smile of a beautiful woman fading.
He found an old bathroom and collapsed on the ground, he screamed out in pain, the waste seemed to burn the clothes he wore, it tainted the remaining fabric a purple hue. He pulled himself over the sink and looked in the mirror, he had not clue who this man staring back at him was. His whole body ached in pain, blood flowed endlessly out of the side of his head. He glared at the man in the mirror who did the same, hate, anger, pain, suffering, all these he could see in the man. The side of his mouth tugged up, a smile, everyone needs to smile.
"What good is life if you are always serious?" He asked the mirror. He lifted his arm and, with what little strength he had, broke the mirror shattering it into large pieces. He put his blood stained hand onto the wall making it slide down to help him up. He grabbed a large piece of broken glass, the side slicing neatly into his palm. He lifted this piece to his cheeks and cut each side following his cheeks making a morbid smile with blood oozing down his neck and onto his clothes. He smeared the red blood to make a ruby smile. The tins of face paint fell onto the floor and he picked it up with a great struggle.
He took one that was white and smeared it onto his entire face, it was crude, messy, and perfect. The black was put on next, it covered the eyes, it gave a wild and sinister look. The only color left was green, he took a hand full of it and smeared it into his hair, it was patchy but looked oh so satisfying. He looked at the broken mirror that remained attached to the wall. Who was this man staring back at him, it was not the other man but a new one, one that would help reclaim what's fair, one that could change the world. He looked next to the mirror at the blood stain, it looked like a 'J'. This man smiled, He would make the world laugh. He smiled cynically and chuckled.
"Why so serious?" He let out a daunting soul shattering laugh.
It's all a joke! Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for... It's all a monstrous, demented Gag! So why can't you see the funny side? Why aren't you laughing?
XXXXX
A/N I hope you all enjoyed this story. All the bold lines are quotes from the Killing Joke. I hope I did some justice to The Joker. Please leave a review, all help to make this story better would be helpful.