A/N: Well, it was meant to be a one-shot but it got a little out of hand. That seems to happen to me a lot.

And Wears The Crown

The sign on the door, done in purposefully unsteady crayon, the letters staggering one after another like drunks playing follow the leader, says, "No Girls Allowed." She hesitates, and decides to ignore it. It surely wasn't meant to apply to her— after all, she'd practically been invited here. The clues had not been very subtle: a lipsticked message on her bathroom mirror surmounted by a smiley face, like a note from a girlfriend, or to one.

For about the twentieth time that evening, she asks herself why she was doing this; and for the twentieth time, she pushes the question away firmly, like a moth in the dark. There was no point in asking herself questions that she would never know the answer to.

She pushes open the door; it's not locked.

She doesn't get much of a feel for the place before she's descended upon. They must have been waiting for her, watching for her, lurking for her in the corners. They're in masks, all of them without exception, and she wonders where he buys all these, and if there's a discount for bulk shipments. For that matter, where does he dig up all these henchmen, these lackeys, these mercenaries? Several hired hands have been killed every day for months now, in the gang wars and related strife; Gotham should by rights be running out of men.

But this is probably just wishful thinking on her part.

She is not hurt, but she is hustled. Along a corridor, through rooms dimly lit and rooms not lit at all, through one room full of skylights so all of a sudden she realizes she is going up, and the light has dazzled her so when she plunges into darkness again she can't see anything at all.

"This is ridiculous," she manages to get out through her tight lips. One of the men, the one holding her left arm, only shrugs, but the other one says,

"You walked into it with your eyes open, lady."

And he has a point. She has to admit. This is all her own fault, and there's no one else left to blame; it's a relief, almost.

The building has been abandoned for some time, apparently; it had been built in the early Nineties by an entrepreneur who overshot his dreams more than a little. He fell in with the sharks, she remembered, and the waters had run red. She wonders now who got the money. They're on the top floor, and the windows are broken. She can feel the breeze, see the sky but not the ground. Her eyes adjust to the light just enough and he's there, suddenly, a bodiless face looming up out of the darkness, white as chalk with hollow eyes. She can't help it, it's a surprise; she screams a little.

This makes him laugh.

"What's the matter, babe? You look like you've seen a ghost."

She swallows hard as though this will cure her of fear. Her own stupidity in coming here is getting clearer by the minute, as she takes in the face that she's only seen in papers and on the news. In the jail he was maskless, marred not with paint but only with those indelible scars. Now here he is, all decked out, purple suit thick as dusty velvet and his lovely hand-painted grotesqueries shining like a child's worst dreams. She reminds herself that this is what he's chosen, this face to present to the world.

Just like she chose to come here, to see it.

"You startled me, that's all," she says at last. He cocks his head and grins.

"Oh, good," he purrs. "Nothing like a little startling to get things rolling. Next time I'll show you my favorite knife first. That startles the crap out of people."

She wants to edge away, but she's hemmed in. She jerks her arms ineffectually in the iron grasps of his men, then raises her eyebrows at him in a pointed look. "Are these goons necessary?"

"Goons?" he repeats, delightedly. "Ya hear that, boys? She thinks we're in Dick Tracy! Goons!" He skips over, cuffs the one on the right on the back of the head, moves to the one on the left and pulls the mask out, letting it go, the elastic snapping it back onto the man's face with a painful sort of noise. Both of them stumble backwards, and she stands free; she regrets it a little, as he comes closer to her and grins in her face.

"You're never going to guess where I got these two prize specimens." He waits, she says nothing, he narrows his eyes at her. "Go on. Guess."

She shrugs. "Broke them out of prison?"

"Ha," he says vindictively. "Told you you couldn't guess. Fresh out of our beloved institution, Arkham Asylum— land of the brave, home of the free. Incarcerated, I'll have you know," he angles his head to the right and eyes her balefully, "on mostly false charges. I believe bestiality was involved." He wrinkles his nose to let her know she should find this distasteful.

She clutches her arms around herself.

"You think they're impressive now, you should have seen them about an hour ago when their medications kicked in. Hiding in fear, gibbering in terror of the human condition." He darts his tongue out and over his upper lip. "I tell you, that is the last time I give a bunch of whack jobs an overdose of laxatives."

She eyes him.

"Probably," he admits. "So. What brings you here, Ms. Quinn? Just dying to be back in my company, that it?"

"I'm curious," she says, truthfully.

He tuts. "Well, you know what that does to felines, don't you? Classically, tragically—"

"I mean, I'd like to know," she clarifies. "I mean, I don't really know myself why I'm here."

He pauses, considering, giving this all due thought, and then comes closer again, waving his henchmen off with both hands. They leave with alacrity, both of them still rubbing their heads, and then they're alone: just her and him and their respective demons. She wonders if there's a swarm of the things, a veritable tornado as they combine. She wonders if any of them overlap, or if any of them are compatible.

He opens his mouth, sucks in breath. "Are— are you afraid of me, Ms. Quinn? Do I give you the shivers, the shakes, the night terrors? Do you come over all wiggly when I get near, start to squirm, neck hairs standing up? See, I've had these things described to me, by— various ones, and— it interests me, because, is it fear? Or is it electricity? My magnetic, heh, personality?" He tilts his head the other way. "And how can you tell?"

"I don't know," she says. It's not what she wants to say; she wants to tell him that yes, she's absolutely terrified standing here with him; as afraid as she was that day in the jail, having watched him kill an armed officer with nothing more than a ring of keys and a well-developed talent. But he's asking her more than that, and she knows she doesn't have the answers. So she settles for I don't know, and hopes it will suffice till she has more time to find out.

"You're not too bright, are you?" He grins suddenly, sharply, and she wonders if it hurts, like all old scars hurt, in that mental space where your body is still unscathed like you were as a child. "That's okay. I like my women stupid. Otherwise they think they can waltz around like they own the place."

"I used to be— a doctor," she offers, frowning slightly with the effort of remembering. "A psychiatrist. I used to help people."

He arches eyebrows nonexistent beneath the paint. "And you came here because you wanted to help me? Very generous of you, Ms. Quinn. A little, uh, stupid. But. Generous."

"No," she contradicts. "I came because you asked me. My past doesn't matter." She frowns harder, and he tilts his head to one side. "I can hardly remember it, anyhow. Mostly by choice," she adds quickly, as though she fears he's going to pity her for her loss of memory. "I've just kind of— let it go."

He settles his face into lines of patience, purses his lips, folds his gloved hands in front of him. "Do you want to talk about it."

She teeters between all possible answers, and then says, "No."

"Good. I don't want to hear about it. You're a killer and a nutcase, Ms. Quinn, whatever else you may have been, and that's good enough for me. Do you want to know why I asked you here? I asked you here," he informs her, again much closer than she would have liked, in her face with hot breath and biting teeth, "not only because you were a wonderful janitor— and, really, the house-wife thing? Quite the turn-on." He flips one gloved hand at her. "Just so you know. But I could sense that there was something else in you. Hatred. For the place you worked. You'd been behind the bars, you'd seen behind the scenes— and even though they let you out, you never really escaped. Did you? And you weren't happy." The top half of his body leans to the right as he seeks a new angle to pick at her from, like a sniper on a rooftop. "Were you?"

She shakes her head.

"Miserable," he says, in a rumble like a dog's growl, so stark that she jumps. "Miserable, free, and all on your own." His tone returns to normal. "And that's why I asked you here, see, Ms. Quinn. I'm a collector of miserable minds." He backs up a step or two, and puts his hands on his hips where the fingers tap nervously, twitching. "What do you think of that?"

She's not sure what she thinks of that; what she should think of that. She has to ponder over it, mull over it, digest it. He's right; she's not very smart. But it's all surface shallowness: there are deep waters in her somewhere, she was sure of it. And this man looked like a bit of a digger. He looked like he'd sunk some shafts in his time. Maybe he can find them.

She says, "I think I understand it."

He runs his tongue around his lips, not so much moistening them as simply feeling the air, tasting it, sensing it. "Well, that's a first."

She tries to laugh, and he looks at her as though astounded. The giggle quickly fades into nothing except a tight smile, and she attempts to explain. "It makes sense, because I'm a psychiatrist who cleans floors and you're a psychopath who dirties them. We fit. Do you see? You see it, you see what I mean, don't you—"

She stops suddenly, unsure of what to call him. The papers had labeled him months and months ago, taking their cue from his calling card; but was that what he called himself? She eyes him for a moment. He doesn't look the sort to go around making introductions; maybe he doesn't call himself anything. He's caught her hesitation, though, and the grin is there at once.

"Say it," he says.

"Um," she falters.

"Say it," he demands again, tone sharp, no room for argument.

"Mister," she says, and she suddenly thinks that this is maybe a test. What do his henchmen call him? Boss. Is she willing to put herself on that level, in that relationship? Is she likely to be paid for anything she does here, is she expendable, will she be dumped when he has what he wants? She wonders when she will find out what exactly he wants, and suspects that even he doesn't know; but she's wrong. He's looking at her with calculation, and his knife is there ready to hand, and if she doesn't come up with a label for him soon he's going to carve one of his choice into her forehead.

"Mr. J," she says, nervously.

This makes him laugh; but what doesn't?

"It's a start," he says between giggles; he laughs like he would if she was hurting him, because he has trouble finding the difference between pleasure and pain. He guffaws, and pounds his knees, and shakes his head, and when at last he stills he manages, "How can I take you seriously when you look like that?"

The knife is cold; he strokes it along her cheek, gently, lovingly, and with his other hand runs his gloved fingers along her chin till he's cradling her face between leather and metal, and she has to hold very still if she wants not to be hurt; which she doesn't, particularly, and so she presses very slightly to the right. The leather yields and the blade follows. He pauses.

His voice very soft, he says, "Oh, no no no nonono. Shhh."

He puts the knife down; strips off his gloves, and picks up the paints.

She is made white, as chalk, as a ghost, as his angel. He follows her hairline and rounds around her ears, and he's right: it isn't fear, it's electricity. He does her eyes next, as she holds them shut, paints black diamonds over them instead of gaping holes, neatening the edges with a finickiness she would never have imagined he could display. When he's finished her right eye she opens it to watch him and his gaze flicks to hers; he squinches one eye shut in a return to her inadvertent, artificially-induced wink, but he is playing no games, making no joke.

He does her mouth last, with his finger painting a delicate cupid's bow, leaning forward with head tilted, his own mouth slightly agape. He paints and repaints, thickening the red, stroking and molding it till her mouth, bloodless and unscarred, is the right shape to meet his.

She says past his fingers, "Is it war paint?"

"Do we look like we're at war?" he asks, focused on his task.

"But you never did tell me."

"What."

"I know why you wanted me here. But what am I supposed to do now? I mean, you've got me."

He looks away from her lips, and up at her eyes. He leans closer, narrowing his eyes, settling his shoulders into seriousness.

"All I need," he tells her, "is five minutes."

Some good time later, he says, "Amazing how long five minutes can last, isn't it."

Her carefully-applied makeup is well and truly smudged; traces of it are everywhere. She's also been bitten.

"You taste like blood and paint," she tells him.

"So?" He sounds almost tired. Snappish and irritable. "You taste like tuna fish. But you don't hear me complaining."

In deference to tradition, he offers her a cigarette from a brightly colored pack; she accepts, and it explodes in her face about five seconds after he's lit it. He laughs, he cackles, he sniggers and wheezes, but it's done no lasting damage, no permanent harm.

She sort of expected it, anyway.