I do not own Batman. That whole shebang is © DC Comics. Eleanor Black and everything that goes along with her and this plot do belong to me. Daria Vaudry/Queen of Spades belongs to my friend. The song titles in the chapters belong to their respective artists, named in the Author's Note at the end of the chapter. This fic is rated T for violence, gore, language and some sexual situations. Enjoy.

Joke's On You
Chapter One: Bright Lights; Comin' Home

The late-winter sun was oppressive.

Eleanor Black sat on her small hotel balcony, leaning back in her chair, ankles crossed on the railing, and stared out at the oh-so-shiny buildings of Metropolis with a distinctive grimace on her face. She'd been in the city for about five and a half weeks and she'd hated every minute of it because it wasn't her home. Her hotel room that had become her temporary residence had become her hellish sanctuary all in the course of just over a month, and she only left it for one of four reasons: to buy groceries, to walk her dog, to go down to the pool or gym, or, three days a week to go to a karate class she'd promised herself she'd take up after the whole Doppelganger fiasco a few months ago: having your life seriously threatened more than once and not being able to be of much help when trying to take down said threat can make one seriously reconsider their lifestyle. In Eleanor's case, she'd taken to regular workouts in an effort to make herself more capable of helping him when she returned home.

And, of course by him she meant The Batman.

Bruce Wayne.

The man she loved and the man she missed more than anything.

Thinking of her billionaire made her even more homesick than she was, every time she thought about him. Before she'd left Gotham, she and Bruce had reached this weird new level in their relationship and having to leave so soon after she'd discovered his deepest secret and after having been welcomed into his life had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. She sighed and leaned back in her chair, pulling her thick sweater around herself tighter. It wasn't snowing, and there wasn't any of the wretched white stuff on the ground anymore, but there was still a chill in the air. Blaze, her red Siberian husky, whined and nuzzled her elbow with his nose, as he did every time she started to get overly sad; he was an incredibly intuitive dog. Eleanor wanted so badly to return to Gotham; she craved the flaws of her home: the darkness, the rain, the noise. She missed her friends and family and Bruce; she wanted to be back at the manor, back in the cave. The green and gold hotel suite felt nothing like home; she wasn't even that comfortable in it. She was only in Metropolis because Bruce had talked her into it. He thought it would appease her worrisome parents and it would give her any time she needed to think about what had happened with the crazed woman Ashlynn Chiang who had been the Doppelganger; to think about if she wanted to leave Gotham for Metropolis. But she knew the answer to that, and she always had. She didn't want to leave Gotham. That was her place. Beside Bruce. Beside Batman.

Blaze barked and licked her hand, leaning into her fingers as they entwined almost subconsciously into his thick fur. "I know, boy. You wanna go home as much as I do…" Eleanor turned her cobalt eyes down to her beloved pet and scratched his ears. "You miss your park, don't you?" Blaze barked again and Eleanor managed to laugh a little as her dog's pink tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. "Eh… let's go watch the news?"

She followed her dog inside and closed the sliding door behind her, locking it out of habit; in Metropolis, there really wasn't as urgent a need for locked doors, but growing up in Gotham, some things were ingrained. Eleanor turned on the television and fell into the large armchair, Blaze taking up post seated beside her. As the opening notes for the evening news sounded through the room, the husky yawned and curled up to sleep and Eleanor curled up in the chair, her eyelids half-closed as she waited for anything important to pop up. Her definition of important included only what had to do with Gotham, but she didn't get the Gotham news stations here and the Metropolitan coverage seemed to be lacking a certain amount of detail, like there was some kind of censorship trying to protect the purity of the shiny, shiny city.

"Coming from our sister city, Gotham, reports of Bruce Wayne's annual New Year's party are glowing. The billionaire's reputation for throwing outstanding parties still holds even through the Prince of Gotham seemed strangely absent from his own celebration, at times wandering off for no good reason."

Eleanor snorted in laughter, her attention drifting again as the news anchor went on about which celebrities showed up, what wine was served, yadda yadda—all that useless information. She smiled warmly to herself as a picture of Bruce popped on screen, smiling crookedly. A tightness appeared in her chest, but she kept smiling; it was a familiar tightness and she welcomed it.

"In other news from Gotham, Batman has failed to prevent several high-profile robberies. It is believed he may be in league with this Catwoman."

"Bullshit," Eleanor snapped at the television.

Almost as if on cue, the phone began to ring. Eleanor got to her feet and pulled the cordless phone off the hook, wondering who the hell would be calling her as she pressed it to her ear. "Hello?" she asked, sitting in the less-than-comfortable chair beside the small table where the phone kept residence.

"How's the Sparkling Pit?"

"Shauna!" Eleanor's face split into a wide grin as she pictured her engineer friend huddled at her desk in the basement of Wayne Enterprises. "I hate it."

"Missing Bruce Wayne, are we?" Shauna asked, a very audible smile in her voice.

Eleanor rolled her eyes, even though it was the truth; she missed Bruce a lot. "Not as much as I miss you and Adam," she said instead of confirming Shauna's observation.

"Well that goes without saying, love, but we all know you miss Bruce more than anyone else, even your own parents. You can't lie to me." Shauna laughed, her voice cracking slightly over the line. "But it's fine because we all know you two are going to get married and have little kiddies and it'll be so cute! Awe, little billionaire babies with your eyes and his hair… Did you ever notice how fabulous his hair is?"

Eleanor rolled her eyes again, but she laughed. "Yes I have noticed how fabulous his hair is, but Shauna, trust me, the whole marriage and baby thing is not going to happen. Not any time in the near future anyways." Eleanor knew there was a slim chance anything like what Shauna had said would happen, but the thought still made her blush, especially since her and Bruce were much, much closer than they'd been before. She didn't even hold out any hope that that future existed for her, but the idea was still important. "How's Gotham been doing these past five weeks?"

"Without you, it's pretty boring. There's like, there's this big hole here at Wayne Enterprises, up on the top floor, by Mr. Fox's office… But otherwise, pretty much the same. Crime and darkness, even during the day. Good ol' Gotham." Shauna paused and sighed and over-dramatic sigh. "Can you come home now, PLEASE? You don't REALLY need to time to think about what happened, do you? You've got it together, right? Like, you're super close to Batman and Bruce Wayne. What do YOU need time to think about?"

"Shauna, stop rambling and tell me about what Batman's been up to." She wanted to ask who the hell Catwoman was, but she knew Shauna would get there in her own time. Bully for Eleanor for waiting.

"Ha, figures you'd want to talk about the Big Black Bat," Shauna said with an obvious smile in her voice. "Well, he's been kicking ass and taking names, as per the usual. But he's been sticking to the normal, basic crimes. There's some new freaks floating around Gotham though." Without prompting, the engineer continued speaking, and Eleanor could almost see her hunched over at her desk, the mischievous glint in her eyes. "There's this woman who has a taste for high-profile robberies. She takes the cat-burglar who takes things a little too far. She's a mask who runs around in a tight leather suit with goggles and cat ears and calls herself Catwoman. From what I've read in the news, she's pretty good. She's managed to avoid Batman several times." There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like flipping papers. "Oh, and there's this guy that looks like a demented clown or something—"

"Are you talking about The Joker?"

"Oh yeah! I wasn't in Gotham the last time he was terrorizing. Anyway, he's running around with these two henchwomen, and they're supposed to be as crazy and ruthless as the Joker. The names I've heard floating around are Harley Quinn and The Queen of Spades. They've been keeping off the radar since the breakout at Arkham."

"Yeah, I heard about that. Would you judge me if I said I really wanted to come home now?"

"Yes I would judge you; I am judging you. You're a crazy bitch, Eleanor, to want to come back here after I've told you about the freaks running around, but that's you. And we all miss you here and want you to come home, regardless of what gets you here."

Eleanor paused. She looked across the room at Blaze, who was looking back at her with a sad expression on his overly-expressive face. Whatever resolve she had left to stay in Metropolis for three more weeks broke in that moment. "I'm coming home, Shauna."

"What? I thought you were staying for two months."

"Yeah—don't tell anyone. I've still gotta phone some other people."

"Everyone else?"

"Yeah, everyone else. I'll talk to you later?"

"Yup. See you when you get back. And don't worry. I won't tell the blabbermouth I work with. Promise."

"Thanks Shauna."

"Bye."

"Bye."

Eleanor hung up the phone and returned it to her pocket. She pushed herself out of the chair and walked back to the window where she crossed her arms under her chest and stared out at the city again, but this time, she was smiling. And it was a smug smile. She was going home. At that moment, Metropolis didn't seem as repulsive as it had. Not even the images of Superman flying across the screen of her television—more news about how the alien superhero could do no wrong—could dampen her superior mood. She was going home. She was going back to where she was happy.

"Come on Blaze," she said. "Let's go for one last walk."

Daria Vaudry, nineteen years old and completely alone in the world, had always been a little loony, ever since she was six and witnessed her mother's death by electrocution. Some freak had jammed metal rods in her ears and then attached a bunch of car batteries. Bye-bye Mommy. After that, little Daria had been placed in the not-so-capable hands of her career-driven and high-powered lawyer Daddy who hired nanny after nanny but could never seem to get Daria out of her little world. Therapist and therapist had proved fruitless efforts as well. The little, red-eyed girl was broken. Even she knew she'd never be the same again, but daddy dearest didn't seem ready to make that realization yet.

Her first kill had been her pet cat Whiskers, a present from Daddy to try and make her smile. The first nanny had quit after finding the dismembered and bloody kitty carcass.

Daddy knew he'd lost his daughter the.

Years and years passed without anyone really realizing how crazy the child was. She could appear and act normal whenever she felt like it, but the smallest thing would set her off; with the cat, it had hissed at her. All the squirrels and racoons and mice and rats had looked at her funny. She'd learned to switch her kill-button off when people were involved, but then she would hunt down an animal or a hobo to viciously tear apart.

When she was thirteen, Daria could take no more yelling, no more therapists, no more nannies, and, following some impulse, she ran away from her suburban home in New York. For the next five years after that, she'd drifted from city to city, town to town and no one came looking for her. No one cared about the broken, odd little girl who was too skinny for her own good and had eyes as wild as anything. She'd killed more animals and random transients she'd encountered who looked at her the wrong way, but she'd stayed away from the main streets, from the people who reminded her of her mother and father, from the people who would be missed if they were killed. She'd ended up in Gotham by the time she was eighteen and what just happened to be one of the first things she'd seen? News coverage of the Joker robbing a bank. That thing that switched on before she hurt someone switched on upon seeing the pasty faced, green-haired villain, and it had never turned off.

And now, she was sitting in some dingy, dirty bar watching some small, decrepit old television and sipping some lukewarm ass-beer and waiting.

Waiting for the Joker.

He'd broken out of Arkham the week before. She'd heard on the news that he was hovering around this area of the city. Maybe she could find him. Maybe she could help him do whatever he was trying to do. Maybe she could put her viciousness to use. Maybe, maybe, maybe. She drank her beer and waited, staring incessantly at the door with intense, dark red eyes. Someone in the bar had seen the Joker in here once. That was good enough for Daria.

The door swung open and a loud gunshot echoed through the small bar.

Crazed laughter followed.

Daria turned her head and a savage grin split her face. One of the men sitting at the table behind her fell to the ground, a pool of dark blood spreading beneath his stringy hair. More crazed laughter shivered around the bar, all the patrons sinking farther into their respective shadows, even the bartender disappearing into the backroom. Daria was the only one who remained where she was, smiling weirdly and the switch inside her blaring in full force. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

"My, my, looks like there's someone at my favourite table." Another gunshot and said someone—sitting at the same table as the other dead guy—slumped forward, face falling into the slop he was eating. "Now there's a dead guy in my food." An overly exasperated sigh. "Hey you there, bring me something."

"Whadda ya want, Mista J?"

"Anything. Just make sure there's no bodies in it." He laughed again, high-pitched and wonderful to Daria's ears. His crazy eyes found her staring at him. "What are you looking at?" he asked, the gun hanging limply at his side. "Why don't you bring me something too?"

Daria nodded and climbed from her stool, over the bar and fell to a crouch on the other side, eyes peering at dusty labels, looking for something suitable. Her fingers brushed clean a label of something perfect. Something green. Something weird. She climbed back over the bar—never one for convention—and handed him the bottle, staring at his white face, her eyes sliding over the scars mangling his mouth in a permanent smile; she was incredibly conscious of the wide grin still holding her face.

"And what can you do?"

Daria picked up the jagged steak-knife from the he table and chunked it into the wall across the bar. The knife embedded itself in the wall less than an inch above a man's head. She picked up the other knife from the table and threw it too, landing it in the wooden handle of the previous knife. Then she picked up the fork and tossed it almost lazily. The fork went in the guy's eye and he slumped forward, dead. More confident than she'd ever been before, Daria smiled down at the Joker, who was now sitting on one of the men he'd killed. His henchwoman reappeared, a hunk of raw meat in one hand, and stared at the knives and the new dead guy.

"Oh, she's good Mista J," the woman said, flopping the meat on the table and wrapping her arms around the Joker's neck. "She might be able to help bring down the loser in the black tights." She looked up at Daria from under her white-painted eyelids in what was unmistakably a glare. "As long as she doesn't try and take you away from me, J, she could be useful."

"Shut up Harley."

Daria sat down at the table and just smiled.

Eleanor and Blaze jogged through the dry and chilly streets of Metropolis to the park where Blaze tried to chase the ducks in the pond without getting wet and Eleanor had to listen to a group of little boys playing catch go on and on and on about how Superman was so cool, so amazing—like, he can FLY! As soon as Blaze was bored of the unobtainable game birds, they took off again, heading deeper in the city. The sun had set by the time they turned around and the temperature had dropped several degrees. Regardless of that fact, Eleanor was sweating buckets.

When Eleanor and Blaze returned to the hotel, they were stopped at the reception desk. Apparently, over the two and a half hours—a rather epically long walk—someone had called the hotel, not her room, and left her a message. Which was weird, since everyone she thought would want to talk to her while she was gone had her room number and her cell number, so they could all get a hold of her directly. Regardless of the strangeness, she ignored the note until she was back in her room, showered and changed into her favourite penguin-patterned pyjama pants and baggy t-shirt with the hole in the shoulder, and curled up on the couch with her hair twisted into a towel and her book in her lap. The note was only six words and it wasn't signed, but she could guess who it was from as soon as she'd finished reading it.

I'm coming to get you tonight.

Without thinking, she grabbed the little black phone off the table and pressed the button that would connect her to her favourite person. "Who told you?" she asked as soon as the line connected. No hellos, no greeting of any sort, but Eleanor was smiling brightly.

"Who said anyone told me anything?"

She'd phoned him yesterday, but hearing Bruce's voice still sent shivers down her spine. Even though he couldn't see her, Eleanor's eyes narrowed in a glare. "I know Shauna told you. She's under obligation since she's working on your secret." Bruce had been planning a surprise since she'd left and he kept dropping hints, taunting her and making her want to come home all the more. For someone who had wanted her to take a break in Metropolis, he hadn't been doing a very good job keeping her there. "She's got to tell you all my plans since I could come home and ruin everything. It's fine—I kind of thought she'd tell you, but I was hoping she wouldn't."

"All right, so Shauna told me you were planning on coming home. Don't get mad at her. I knew you were going to try and escape at some point, although I didn't think you'd last this long."

"I'm not mad at Shauna, and when are you coming?"

"I'm leaving in a minute, so make sure you're ready for eleven."

"I will be." Eleanor paused. "Thanks Bruce. I'm so tired of this place."

"I know, Ellie. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Bye."

Eleanor didn't wait for him to say good-bye. It was a habit of his to hang up as soon as the conversation proper was finished. She slipped the phone back into her pocket and just sat on the couch for a while, staring ahead, smiling. Earlier in the day, she'd been happy about the thought of going home, but she wasn't sure she'd actually go through with it. If she had just left, just shown up in Gotham three weeks earlier than planned, Bruce would be mad. He'd forgive her, but he'd still be angry that she'd gone back on her word. But now that he was coming to get her… She was really going home. The images of Wayne Tower, of her apartment building, of Wayne Manor, of the cave flooded her mind, and she smiled more. Blaze, asleep on the floor, whimpered in a dream and pawed at the air, as if he was trying to bring something closer; maybe he was dreaming of home too. Eleanor turned her cobalt eyes to the large clock on the wall. It was just before eight in the evening. Three hours to pack. It wouldn't take her that long… She sighed and settled back into the couch and thought of home.

Bruce hadn't expected to miss Eleanor as much as he had.

Five and a half weeks ago, after he got back from getting her settled in the hotel—that had taken six hours in itself and three hours to get back to Gotham—he'd gone down to the cave to prepare for that night's patrol. At first, everything had been fine, until he'd said something before thinking it all the way through and had expected a sarcastic comment from Eleanor and it wasn't there; she wasn't there. There was a hole in that cave. He hadn't realized it, but when Eleanor had been living at the manor after her hospital stay, she'd really become a concrete part of his life, of Batman's life. She was always right beside him; ready to do what he needed her to do, ready to do whatever was needed to help. She was always right beside him, smiling and ready to offer support, always ready with an idea or… a hug or whatever he could possible ask for or need. And without her there, something had been missing.

So, when he saw her across the hotel lobby at eleven o'clock pm that night and he felt incredibly happy and relived, he was prepared for it.

But he still couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable at the happiness and comfort she brought out in him. It was something he'd never really felt before.

When her cobalt eyes located him across the lobby, she closed the distance at all but a run. She wrapped her arms around him when she reached him, and nuzzled her face into his chest, just like she always did. He returned the embrace and kissed the top of her head, which was the part of her he could most easily reach. He pressed his face into her hair, and in that moment, Bruce was incredibly content. He didn't know how long they stood there, but it was a while and when Eleanor started to pull away, he didn't really want to let her go. She smiled and blushed a bit before she took a step back, taking his hand with her. Following an impulse, he pulled her closer again and kissed her full on the mouth, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her against him. A second passed before he remembered they were in public; there would be a picture on some tabloid front page tomorrow. Nothing new for Bruce Wayne, billionaire playboy—whole new experience for Eleanor Black. He pulled away and smiled down at her.

Eleanor blushed furiously red, but returned the grin. "My bags are upstairs with Blaze," she whispered.

Bruce nodded and let her lead the way to the elevator, up to the fifteenth floor and down the hall to her room in the corner of the building. Her bags were indeed packed and Blaze was sitting patiently in front of the stack, leash already attached and coiled on the floor. When he saw Bruce, the husky leapt to his feet and barked, tail wagging and pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Taking the cue, Bruce walked over and greeted the dog by ruffling his collar and scratching his ears and taking the proffered drool with practiced grace. Eleanor smiled and picked up two of her bags and Blaze's leash, leaving Bruce to take the other bags; Eleanor looked incredibly thankful that you didn't need a free hand to lock hotel room doors. They headed back downstairs where Eleanor checked out and they loaded the bags in the car. Her bags took up the entirety of the trunk space and Blaze stretched out to take up the whole back seat.

"Alfred didn't drive?" Eleanor asked as she closed the trunk. "What? You're willing to sit the whole three hours back with me? It's going to be one in the morning by the time we get back. Wait, what about B… that other thing you have to do?" She hopped up to sit on the trunk, wincing a bit as what Bruce guessed was her ribs protested.

"Are you OK?" Bruce moved so he was standing in front of her and subconsciously put his hand on her knee. He didn't move his hand.

"I'm fine." She forced herself to smile. "My ribs still smart if I move the wrong way." In truth, she'd taken a good punch in karate class the night before and her nearly-healed ribs had decided it was a good idea to get themselves bruised again and hurt like a sonofabitch. "Now what the hell are you going to do about your problem?" Eleanor was smart enough to keep her voice down, but she was so profoundly curious that it was a tiny bit irritating.

Bruce rolled his eyes and moved his hands to her shoulders. "Calm down, Ellie. Gotham can live without me for a few hours. Now get in the car so we can go."

"Why'd you kiss me?"

Bruce sighed and stopped himself from rolling his eyes again. "I missed you. Now, we've got to go. Please get in the car?"

"See? You can't stay away from Gotham for very long."

"Ellie…"

"Fine, fine." She smirked and the gesture made Bruce smile; he really had missed her. She slipped off the trunk and hugged him again. "I missed you too." She pulled away and climbed into the passenger seat of the car and kicked off her boots again. The blue-eyed Gothamite propped her feet on the dashboard and tilted the seat back. "Come on Bruce! We've gotta get back to Gotham!"

He really had missed her.

Even at her most annoying.

Author's Note
"Bright Lights" – Matchbox Twenty
"Comin' Home" – City and Colour

Just for your information, I'm not choosing songs based on their lyrics—just their titles. They will all be songs I've heard and/or listen to frequently and love. If anything by Hans Zimmer is ever used, you can guarantee I love that song and you should all find a copy of it a.s.a.p. Oh, and the whole "fabulous hair" thing is a bit of an in-joke between myself and the real-life Shauna that began with an episode of Star Trek Voyager.

Anyways, moving onto the actual story…

First of all, another HUGE thank you to everyone who read and reviewed Reflection of His Enemy. That fic was a huge accomplishment for me, and I was glad so many of you liked it and stayed with me over the year it took me to finish the story. Hopefully, the sequel won't take me as long to finish. I'll do my best. Since I'll be working on this one and Chances Are at the same time, updates may be slow, but I'm going to be trying to implement a schedule. I've tried this before, but I'm hoping this time it'll work a little better. Anyways, I hope you liked the start to this fic, even though it's a little on the short side.

Oh, and I moved it to the Batman Comic category because this really doesn't have anything to do with th movie besides Rachel... I moved Reflection of His Enemy too.

Next Chapter: Kiss Your Past Good-Bye. Bruce's secret is finally revealed and everyone is furious. Everyone except Eleanor, who thinks it's the best thing that could have happened. Everyone thinks she's crazy.