Sorry about all the uploads etc... I was looking through this and – while I promise I'll update soon I swear – I noticed that I missed a bunch of things before submitting them. So here you go. Again.
And I've just realized exactly how much the uploading procedure changed from the last time I uploaded shtuff. Which was forever and a day ago.
Again, more apologies...
Recent update - spelling fixed on some stuff.
Disclaimer – I wish I owned, but I don't.
Potato peeler in hand, the Joker walked whistling, as best he could, out of the downtown Gotham Target. The potato peeler wasn't the only thing missing from the shelves in their meagre knife department, but his switchblade still needed to be replaced – difficult because The House of Knives had its switchblades under lock and key, and he still needed to get makeshift lock-picks out of Home Depot.
He still didn't have any make-up and that irked him. As much as a normal villain would have enjoyed walking around with people unawares of their identity, all the Joker got was odd looks and brief shudders; nothing like the outright, spine tingling, bone-chilling fear that exuded from the sheep as a wolf passed them by. Fear of the unknown, of the strange, of uncertainty; all that made the Joker one very widely grinning man was missing.
So makeup was on his shopping/stealing list, right after more knives, a decent switchblade, and a fitted purple suit.
No shopkeeper in their right mind would scrounge up a purple suit for him if he was actually in full regalia, so maybe the lack of afore mentioned makeup wasn't such a bad idea.
For now.
Until he 'found' enough money or knives to buy/threaten a good tailor.
Joker walked past Wayne Tower as the sun edged over the horizon, debating whether or not to walk in and try to sweet-talk the pretty secretary into telling him where all the money was. It was a pity, he thought, that the beefy security guards were already eyeballing him and reaching for their walkie-talkies.
He hurried past, turning his face away. As much as it would be fun to rob the corporation with more money than even the mob, he needed more than just himself. Still, he filed it away mentally – it was a good idea if he was ever strapped for cash. Again.
Because even though he never cared for money, people who sold firepower did.
Bruce had retreated to his underground base and was trying to stitch himself back up when the elevator started coming down from the ceiling.
"Master Bruce, what are you doing here?" Alfred said, exasperated. "Don't tell me you left the poor woman alone to chase down a criminal."
"I don't have a mask on when I go out publically, Alfred, so I can't have chased one without the press all over me," he answered sourly. "And she is no poor woman to be abandoned lightly." Bruce handed the needle off to the man, neck held at an angle. "Not with that bodyguard of hers."
"My apologies," the man harrumphed, dropping his packages on the computer counter and starting up where Bruce had left off. "Is that where you managed to get yourself hurt?"
Bruce twitched as the needle started running up the side of his neck for the second time that day. "They had a hand in re-opening it, so yes." Right after walking – not driving because Ms. Screlleta had picked him up – over to the storage container elevator, he had stitched himself up in a mirror he had transferred to make said stitching easier. Then his police scanner picked up some woman with a Joker sighting, so he, with nothing much better to do, suited up and left.
Only to have his stitches tear when he dropped from the fire escape. If it weren't for the heavy shadows in the alley, the Joker would have had a laughing fit at the sight.
Bruce was pretty sure the demented clown was laughing at him anyway, even if he didn't know exactly whom he was laughing at.
"How long have you been trying to fix yourself up here for, Master Bruce?" Alfred interrupted his thoughts fretfully, reaching for a piece of gauze.
Bruce handed it to him. "I'm not sure – lost track of the time between coming in and stitching," he said thoughtfully, keeping his face stoic when the butler doused his neck in antiseptic. Wary, he asked, "Why?"
"Because you already have a rather nasty scab forming over where you did not manage to suture." A bandage firmly fixed around Bruce's neck, Alfred took a step back to frown at his handiwork. "And if I'm not mistaken, there were bits of your suit inside."
"Where did you learn so much about wounds, Alfred?"
"From stitching you up, Master Bruce."
Joker found himself wandering in circles around Wayne tower, idly walking down streets and finding it dead in front of him. It would appear, in Gotham at least, that all roads lead to the new Rome.
Unfortunately, new Rome had cameras and didn't exactly want company. "You."
The Joker twitched and rammed his potato peeler behind him, skewering one of the guards who had been watching him earlier. "Yes, ah, me," he grinned, trying to yank his makeshift weapon back out of the man's chest.
The thick strands from the ripped Kevlar vest the guard was wearing tangled up in the narrow opening, turning his smooth tug into a tug-of-war, one the guard was both winning and losing. Winning because he kept the Joker busy while his fellow guards were scrambling outside to help him, but losing because of, well, repeated jab wounds from a dull potato peeler.
"I'm, ah, not usually one to give up on a knife, but, well, I'll make this an exception." He made a break into the circle the crowd had formed around them, knocking over a mother-son pair when they froze. "Outta the way, please. Get, ah, outta my way." The boy was fast enough to avoid a trampling, dragging his screaming mother away from another knife the Joker flashed to jolt the rest of the crowd into action.
"Good boy," he muttered, something clicking. Kids, he thought. Something about them reminds me of, ah, something.
A bullet spiralling over his shoulder made him twitch, bolting through the street and away from Wayne Tower.
