Title: The Joke's on you
By: RogueCajun
Rating: Pg-13.
Disclaimer: The Dark Knight © Chris Nolan
Batman & all related characters © DC
Smallville © WB
Summary: The Joker is back in Arkham but how long will he stay there this time? Sequel to Greatest joke of all.
Timeline: Prologue is set directly after the events of "Greatest Joke of all".
A/n: My version of Harley (when she actually shows up) is heavily, and repeating it for emphasis—heavily based on this version here:
.com/watch?v=5TNNWyOxz4c
Because that entire series is BRILLIANT. And I just adore it.
Prologue: Know thy enemy
The Joker was on his way back to Arkham Asylum. This should have put Bruce Wayne's mind at ease. It didn't in fact, it only succeeded in making him even edgier—The Joker knew that he was Batman. It was bad enough having that demented clown know his identity, but if he told any of the other occupants whom the Bat put away all hell would break loose. Bruce wasn't sure the people he cared about could handle that type of hell; the Batman could, there were few things the Batman couldn't handle, but Alfred and Dick…Bruce was more than a little bit worried about the two of them.
"Do I really look like a guy with a plan?" The Joker had asked Harvey Dent. Harvey, heh. Now that guy had a true psychopath lurking just under the surface; then again, didn't most politicians? He had a lot of fun pulling Gotham's white knight down to his level. It hadn't taken much, just a few drums of gasoline and a little speech about the nature of chaos. He had anticipated it being much harder, he was looking forward to wearing down the District Attorney. He had hoped for more of a challenge. Truth be told he was a teensy bit disappointed in dear old Harvey. He had been so easy to turn but he had so much potential and he wasted it. It was time to turn his attention to his next plaything.
The art of turning someone to "the dark side" (he smirked at the turn of phrase—it made him sound like some sort of Saturday morning cartoon villain; he'd like to live in a world where children's show villains were just as twisted as him.) was a delicate operation. Take his doctor at Arkham for instance– he had been working on her since before his last escape. She was a crucial part of his new plan. True, he wasn't usually the type to plan—being an agent of chaos became difficult whenever one sat down and planned it all out. However, the Batman was a planner. To beat a nemesis that one was the antithesis of one had to truly understand them, and to do that one had to think like them; so that's what he was doing now: getting inside the head of his good friend Batsy.
He was going to make this city remember why they needed the Batman and then he was going to laugh as the Batman let them all down.