Venom twirled a knife in her hands absentmindedly as she waited to Mike to get to her apartment. It had been a few days since the Joker had given her the proposition, and even though she had already decided to accept she wanted to make the Joker wait a while. It was a pride thing. She also really wanted to see Mike's face when she told him what she was planning on doing. She had already made sure her security cameras were working so she could capture the moment.

Soon a knock came from the door. Venom jerked towards the sound and cut herself with her knife. It was one of her poisonous ones, but luckily over the years she had built up an immunity to most of the poisons she worked with. Wiping the blood on her jeans Venom went to open the door. "Hey luv," She said as Mike walked in, "How've ya been?" She hadn't visited him since her little meeting with the Joker; she'd started work at the garage and time and just kind of gotten away from her.

"Not bad, it's nice not having a dead bouncer."

"You're welcome." Venom interrupted, smiling.

Mike just shook his head and continued. "By the way you owe me $700 for the bouncer." Venom nodded and walked over to her purse, pulling out a wad of cash and throwing it at Mike.

"Keep the change, because your face in a minute is going to be priceless." Venom smirked as she sat back down.

"V, what did you do?" Mike asked, his eyes growing wide.

"See? I haven't even told you what happened and your face is already hilarious! Sit down old man, trust me you're going to want to be seated." Mike did as she said and sat down next to her. "Ok, so you know how the Joker had guys looking for me?" Venom began. Mike nodded, not really trusting his voice at this point. "Right so I got home at night a couple of days ago and a couple of the Joker's men had set off my security system and were hanging from my ceiling. I walked past them and started cooking dinner, then called Jeff-"

"Wait, who's Jeff?" Mike interrupted.

"He works for the Joker," Venom explained. "Anyway, then I called Jeff who got the Joker on the line and I basically told him to come pick his guys up or I was going to kill them. So the Joker came, I released his guys, we had a nice chat and he gave me a proposition."

"Wait, just let me get this straight, you invited the Joker over to your place? And then you "chatted" with him?" Mike questioned. Venom had been right, his face was priceless, and it was only going to get better.

"Yep" Venom replied, popping the 'p' like the Joker. "And long story short, he asked me to be his partner in crime." Venom smiled at Mike. Mike opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better of it and closed his mouth. Only to open it again, splutter out something incomprehensible and shut it once more.

Finally Mike seemed to find his voice, "V, are you crazy?" He asked, looking at her as if she had grown a third head. Venom just smiled at him, she was enjoying this. "Working with the Joker? Do you have a death wish? You know how easily and often he kills his men!" Mike shouted.

"Good thing I'm female then." Venom joked, but Mike didn't laugh.

"Venom, this isn't funny. Please tell me you haven't accepted yet!" he practically begged her.

"Of course I haven't." Venom replied insulted. "I'm not going to look fucking desperate! I'm waiting for a while."

"And then you're going to call him and say no, right?" Mike asked her. Venom simply raised an eyebrow at him. "Venom, please tell me you're going to say no."

"Where would be the fun in that?" She questioned. "C'mon Mikey, think what we could do together. We could make this town come to its knees in a matter of months." She looked over at Mike who looked extremely pale. "And plus, if I get annoyed with him or don't like working with him anymore, I can just kill the Joker." She added in an attempt to comfort Mike. She didn't approve when people reacted this strongly to news, but she liked Mike, they had been friends since first grade, and this was pretty big news, so she let it slide.

"Kill the Joker?" Mike asked her. "Seriously, that's your plan if things get out of hand? V, people have been trying to capture the Joker for years with no luck, let alone kill him."

"Um, yeah, and that's their problem. Especially Batman." Venom replied. "Seriously, how are they planning on beating the Joker, if they're playing handicapped? Batman won't kill, the Joker will. Batman fights honourably, the Joker doesn't. Same with GCPD. Me on the other hand? I fight dirty, and I have no qualms killing him if it becomes necessary. I'll be fine." She patted Mike's cheek as she got up to make tea, she felt like Mike could use its calming powers. "So I'm thinking of calling him today and accepting, I just wanted to give you a heads up."

"You are absolutely crazy." Mike told her. "What's going to keep him from killing you when he gets bored of you?"

"Well it's a bit hard to kill people when you're already dead, so I'll just have to make sure to kill him first." Venom replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "You worry too much for a criminal."

"Well I'm not exactly a criminal, they just come to my club. Technically I don't do anything illegal." Mike retorted.

"Yeah?" Venom challenged, "What did you do with the body of the bouncer?"

"Ok, so I normally don't do anything illegal," Mike amended. Venom smirked at him in victory. "So there is no possible way I can talk you out of this?" Mike asked, already knowing the answer.

"None whatsoever." Venom replied. "Now stop worrying and drink your tea." She commanded as she placed his tea in front of him.

Mike stayed for a few more minutes but eventually he had to go back to his club. When he left Venom figured it was probably as good a time as any to call the Joker. She walked over to her room and picked up the Joker card. "I swear to God if this is a fake number," she mumbled under her breath as she dialed the number on the card.

The Joker was getting a little annoyed. It had been almost a week since he had given Venom the proposition, and he still hadn't heard back from her. It's not like he needed to work with her, oh no he was just fine on his own! It's just he didn't like having to wait for her to call him. I should have given her a deadline. He grumbled to himself as he glanced over at the phone again. The week had gone by as normal, he hadn't really pulled any big stunts in a while. He was waiting from Venom. That would be a great time, the two of them working together. Gotham wouldn't know what hit 'em.

The Joker was pulled out of his musings by his phone ringing, eagerly he reached for it, but waited a moment before picking up, he didn't need Venom to know that he had been waiting for her. "Hell-o," He said as he picked up his phone.

"You picked up rather quickly, Joker." Venom said, "Were you waiting for me?" The Joker could practically hear the smirk she was probably wearing. He silently cursed himself; he should have waited longer.

"I don't wait for people doll," The Joker replied. "My phone just happened to me right next to me when you called."

"Sure it was, anyway I've called to answer your proposition." The Joker rolled his eyes; of course that's why she was calling! That was exactly what he had told her to do. "I'm in, but on one condition."

"Depends on the condition dollface." The Joker answered, he liked her. Most people wouldn't dare to demand conditions while working with him.

"Ok, make that two conditions." Venom amended. "One, don't ever call me dollface again. It's creepy. Second, Mike is off limits. I really don't care what else we do, but we leave Mike and his club out of it."

Hm, the Joker thought to himself very interesting, I'll have to look into Mike more closely. The Joker assumed she was talking about the guy whose bouncer she had killed just a few weeks ago. "Works for me doll" The Joker responded smiling. He hung up before she could yell at him for calling her doll. In his defense he hadn't said dollface!

Venom glared at the phone in her hand before laughing. Even though it was annoying, the Joker had been pretty funny. Not that she would ever tell him that. He still hadn't told her if they should meet up or something, and she didn't feel like calling him back, so she decided to shoot him a text.

So is this going to be one of those weird partnerships where we live separately but we're still a family unit and the kids spend time at both of our places, or are we taking the next huge step in our relationship and moving in together? –V

A few minutes later Venom got a text back.

Move in, I wouldn't want to stress out the kids, 1437 North Cumberland St -J

Venom closed her phone and packed up some of her things. She still really loved her apartment and wasn't ready to leave it yet. Plus it would be nice to have a place to crash if the Joker ever annoyed her, which would probably be pretty often. So she left most of the things there. When she was done packing she only had three bags to bring to the Jokers. It would be easy to fit the stuff in the bags on her bike. Before she left she shot Mike a text.

About to dance with the devil, wish me luck ;)-V

She only had to wait a few seconds before she got a reply.

You are completely mental. Try not to die. –M

Venom laughed to herself about Mike's overprotective tendencies before closing her door and setting her security system. Just because she wasn't going to live here anymore didn't mean that she was going to leave it unprotected. She walked down to the garage where her bike was parked and in a few minutes she was on her way to the Joker's. It only took her about 15 minutes to get to the address the clown and given to her. As she had expected he lived in the Narrows. The buildings around it looked like they had been deserted for a long time, and if she hadn't known the address she would have been hard pressed to find the place on her own. She pulled her bike into an alley and hid it as best she could, if she came back and found it stolen there would be hell to pay. As she walked up to the entrance of the building she felt eyes on her, but decided to ignore them for now. It was always best to have the element of surprise, and if her watcher didn't know she was aware of them, she could use that to her advantage. Just as she was about to knock on the door she felt a gun pressed to her back.

"What are you doing here?" A rough voice asked her. Instead of responding, Venom quickly turned around, grabbed the arm that was holding the gun, and disarmed him. Before he could recover she had grabbed one of her own guns and pointed it towards him.

"Open the door, would you luv?" She asked him. The man hesitated, and she saw his eyes flick over to his gun. Venom rolled her eyes and cocked her gun, "That wasn't really a request." The man shakily walked over to the door and took out a key, opening the door. Venom shoved him inside and he stumbled, almost falling over.

"Honey, I'm home!" Venom shouted out. Almost immediately she was surrounded by goons.

"Drop your weapon." A voice told her. The voice sounded familiar so Venom turned to face him. When she saw him her face broke into a smile.

"Ah, Jeff, it's so nice to see you again." Venom told him, walking towards him with complete disregard of the guns trained on her. "Didn't the Joker tell you to be expecting me?" Just at that moment the Joker came bounding down the stairs. "Speak of the devil," Venom mumbled to herself. The Joker took one look at Venom surrounded by his men and started laughing. Venom rolled her eyes and walked over to him. "Where's my room?"

The Joker finally stopped laughing and looked at her. "Upstairs and second on the left, I'll show you." He turned around and began walking away. "Oh, by the way guys, you may uh want to put your weapons down, Venom here can get a little testy." Instead of replying Venom just turned around and smirked at the men before following the Joker upstairs.

A/N 1: Ok so I realize that this is a lot shorter than my normal chapters, and I 'm really sorry. Apparently overloading your school schedule means that you have less time and more homework…who knew? Anyway so I didn't have a lot of time to write this but I didn't want to have it be another year before I updates again. So here it is!

A/N 2: So I'm going to try to update stories at least semiregularly, but that doesn't mean often. My hope is to post one chapter to either this story or my other Joker story once a month. I know it's not often but with my schedule it's the best I can do.

A/N 3: I know not a lot happened in this chapter, it's kind of a filler, to set things up with Venom and the Joker working together. Don't worry things will pick up soon! As always reviews are welcome!