Onyxx: I'm aware, I should be finishing my other story. =P I came up with this idea in about ten seconds and then built on it, so tell me what you guys think.
Also, any appearances of the Joker WILL be in character (unless it's a flashback to the past when he was Jack Napier) this time, so I expect no flames.
This is not, at first, a romance, but I'm considering turning it into one featuring the beloved, disgraced Dr. Crane, too. =3 Your thoughts on the matter?
Prologue
Matilda was just another face. With blue contact lenses and her straight black wig (longer than her real hair, as well), she was just another kid on the streets of Gotham. She had no name, she had no substance. People shoved past her as if she weren't there, as if they didn't see the person in jeans and oversized T-shirts.
Sometimes they noticed her. Sometimes they'd stop right in front of her, squint really hard, and say, "You look like the Joker!"
She'd never reply. She'd instead walk past them with her head down, a blush creeping onto her cheeks. For, you see, Matilda didn't want people to see her. She wanted to be invisible.
When they noticed her, she would run away and hide, because it was when they noticed her that they gave her a name. A name took away from her hiding place, from her little place of solitude.
It was when they gave her a name that they shunned and ridiculed her.
No one knew she had dark brown eyes and light blond hair. No one noticed her wide mouth, her rounded nose, her pointed, elongated chin. No one saw the diagonal lines of her cheekbones that extended to her jaw. And it was when people did notice that she had to run away before they knew she was the Joker's daughter.
She hadn't spoken to her father in more than six years. She was sixteen now. He'd taken care of her for most of her life, but he had a mental breakdown when she was ten and she was sent to live with her grandmother. The terror that the Joker brought to Gotham forced Ruby and Matilda into hiding, forced them to hide their faces for the shame that Jack brought the Napier family.
Matilda wasn't ashamed of him anymore, however. She was just afraid she'd be pegged the freak, the outcast. She wanted to fit in. She wanted to grow and change like the rest of the world, no matter the cost.
And if it meant disowning her father, then that was the price she was willing to pay.
She walked down the street, counting the cracks in the pavement as her feet stepped over them. She sighed and looked up at the sky. So peaceful. It was hard to believe that under the same sky, there was a madman running rampant through the streets; that in the same city where such beauty as the Wayne family and the good they've done, there was uglyness like crime and filth.
She looked down again and continued walking until she reached a small house on the outskirts of town. She could see in the kitchen window, and smiled as she saw a tall woman with graying blond hair and dark eyes trying (and failing) to make a decent batch of cookies. Ruby Napier had never been one for cooking, forget baking altogether.
Matilda opened the door and walked in, dropping her schoolbags on the floor and swiping a spoonful of raw cookie dough.
"Okay, Tildy, I hope you know that's one less cookie for you," Ruby said, smiling.
"They're all burned anyway."
"Then that's one less burned cookie for you." Her grandmother sighed and dumped the burned batch in the garbage container. "What do you say we go to Wal-Mart and buy some cookies from the bakery?"
Matilda smiled. "Sounds like a plan," she said, taking off her wig. Her hair underneath was short, barely brushing her jaw, and curly, like her father's.
Ruby ran a bony, wrinkled hand through her granddaughter's hair. "You look so much like Jack," she whispered with a sad smile.
Matilda sighed and walked to the refrigerator. "You talk as if Dad's dead," she remarked darkly, grabbing the milk.
The mustard-yellow jug matched the wallpaper perfectly. Ruby always said she'd paint the walls, but they never got around to it. They had buckets of paint on the back porch, but something always came up.
The older woman sighed. "I know," she said softly. "I know. I don't mean to talk that way."
Matilda gave her a small smile. "I know." She poured herself a glass of milk and put the jug back in the refrigerator. "So, before we go to Wal-Mart to get the cookies, what do you say we watch the news and see what Dad's been up to lately?"
Ruby sighed. "I don't see why you insist on watching the news just to see what crimes Jack has committed lately, Tildy," she whispered. "I don't see what good it does."
Matilda didn't say anything. They both knew the reason they watched the news, read the paper, looked for any familiar names in the obituaries. They both knew they had to face the truth: Jack Napier, Ruby's only son and Matilda's loving father, was a murderer, a thief, and a psychopath. There was no getting around it, no alternative.
They went to the living room soundlessly and turned on the TV. Ruby pulled Matilda into a one-armed hug as the anchorman launched into the headlines.
"Good evening," he said. "Gotham City is in shambles as the Joker's attempt to blow up two ferries goes wrong for him. Reporter Cindy Donovan is live at the scene."
The screen cut to a woman standing on one of the higher floors of a half-constructed building, her perfect blond hair whipping about her face in the wind. A dark figure in a cape walked away from the scene behind her, refusing the microphone and camera. The Batman held his head down, as if he felt disgraced and guilty of something.
Ruby and Matilda shared a look of confusion.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we're coming to you live from this building where the Batman and the Joker's battle has come to an abrupt end," the woman said. "This evening, the Joker planted a bomb in each ferry trying to escape the city, telling the passengers of each that if they didn't blow up the other boat, he'd blow them both up. The Batman managed to stop him, but at what cost? SWAT teams and police officers arrived at the scene. Just as the Batman tossed the Joker over the side of this building, an officer took a shot and killed the clown prince of crime. The Batman attempted to rescue the Joker via his grappling hook, but it was too late. Edwin, back to you at the studio."
The camera cut to the man again. "We have a photo of the Joker without his makeup and we ask that if anyone in Gotham knows who this man is, please, come claim his remains and give this man a funeral." A photo appeared over his head of a scarred blond man, once handsome. Now he just looked dead and cold.
Ruby and Matilda sat in stunned silence.
"He... he's..." Matilda couldn't speak. She choked, unable to cry. Her grandmother put a hand over her mouth and began to sob. They clutched each other until Ruby decided to get the phone and call the studio.
"My name is Ruby Napier, and that man is my son Jack..." Matilda heard her say. She sat there in numb silence, unable to speak, to breathe, to feel anything. Her father was dead. Dead, dead, dead and gone. She'd never see him again, never hear him laugh again (not the iconic laugh he'd become known for, but his genuine laugh). He'd never give her a proud, happy look when he saw her, he'd never give her a smile and a warm, fierce hug when she made him proud.
Of course, he hadn't done those things in six years. He hadn't done those things since the day all the mental, emotional fatigue set in and he left Matilda at her grandmother's house and went out to drive the city as mad as he was.
And when all this, the reality of death, of her father's death, began to set in, that was when Matilda found herself able to cry. Hot, fat tears rolled down her cheeks in torrents as she sobbed painfully, clutching a pillow to her chest, as if it was Jack himself. She cried out in anguish until Ruby pulled her into her warm arms and began to sing a lullaby.
Her crying ceased, her sobs subsided, and Matilda began to drift off to a fitful, nightmare-ridden sleep.
She knew her life had taken a turn for the worst; it now spun out of control in a spiral, always heading down at breakneck speed. She knew that, no matter what, nothing would ever be the same again.