"Where'd you get that scar, baby?"
His voice had that ever so slight twang to it that she loved. She glanced down at where he was tracing his finger along a white stripe that marked her shoulder, then put a hand on his, over it. He looked up at her, and their eyes met. "Can't you tell me?" he asked.
"It's not interesting," she said.
"It's on you," he said quietly, his face nearing hers, "and you know you're the most interesting thing in the world to me."
She smiled as their noses touched gently. "I was a little girl," she said, "and I was pretending to be a ballerina… and I slipped and fell and hit my shoulder against the edge of a kitchen counter."
He hissed in sympathetic pain. "Oh, ouch," he said quietly. He touched her lips gently with his, and she smiled.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," she assured him.
"And this one?" he asked, lifting her wrist and looking at it, resting his chin on her shoulder. "Where did this one come from?"
She looked down at her wrist, at the burn mark that had discoloured a small patch of her skin. "I was cooking, and I burned myself on the stove," she said.
"You don't have any really dramatic scars?" He chuckled, pushing her mousy-brown hair away from her face and kissing her cheek. She giggled, letting her hand drop down into her lap. He gently let her down onto their bed and kissed her collarbone, undoing the buttons of her shirt and pulling it off of her. His own shirt was already on the floor beside the bed. He rested his head against her soft, swollen stomach and smiled. "I think I can feel it kicking," he said.
"I don't think so," she smiled. "I would have felt it."
He looked up at her, smiling. "Why won't you get a test? Find out what it is."
She shook her head. "We both know it's going to be a boy," she said. "A boy who looks just like his father… and we'll name him Jack, just like his father." She stroked his face, taking in his features. "A little boy… with his father's eyes," she said with a slight, wistful sigh.
He smiled at her, then lay down next to her, tracing a pink shape on her ribcage, right under her breast. "It looks like a heart," he said.
"You keep saying that," she said, looking down at the birthmark. "I don't see it."
"It is, look," he insisted, tracing his finger around the edge of it. "Lookit, that's definitely a heart."
"You're crazy." She smiled at him and leaned over, planting a soft kiss on his lips. He grinned.
"They haven't caught me yet," he said with a chuckle. He exhaled, satisfied, and lay back against his pillow, staring up at the ceiling. "Tomorrow's another day," he said, the smile starting to leave his face.
She turned and looked at him. "You're still working for those guys?"
He hesitated, staring up at the ceiling. "Kitty, I don't want to talk about it." he said quietly.
"You are! You're still working for them!" she exclaimed.
"I said, I don't want to talk about it, Kitty," he said, a little firmer.
She sat up in bed, staring over at him. "What do they make you do, Jack? Do they make you sell drugs?"
"Kitty, when I say I don't want to talk about it that usually means I don't want to fucking talk about it," he groaned, closing his eyes.
"Jack, look at me," she said. "Look at me, Jack." He turned and looked at her. She turned on the lamp next to the bed and looked at him, inspecting his eyes. "Have you been taking drugs, Jack?" she asked sharply.
He groaned and turned away from her. "Shut off the light, Kitty. It's time for bed."
"Don't 'shut off the light, Kitty', me!" she exclaimed. "I am your wife, and I am carrying your child! I have a right to know if the father of my baby is a junkie, o-or a drug dealer, or even one of those… hustlers, or pimps!"
"I'm not a fucking hustler, or a pimp, Kitty," he said patiently, putting an exasperated hand to his face. "I'm just doing a little bit of moonlighting. Now can we please go to sleep?"
"Do you use it, or do you just sell it?" she asked, still upset. "Do you- do you- do you cut it before you sell it, save a little on the side, use it at home? Huh? Do you- do you 'spoon it', Jack? Mix it with Splenda o-or powdered milk or powdered chocolate milk and sell it to your little buyers and then save some for yourself when you get home?" She shoved him. "Is that why you always take so goddamn long in the bathroom, Jack? Huh? Are you taking rufies in there, or rolling joints in there? Are you smoking crack behind my back, Jack?"
He looked up at her, frowning. "Now you're being ridiculous," he said. "I don't do any of that. And how would you know about cutting and mixing, Kitty? A bit of an adventurer yourself at one time or another?"
She stared at him, frowning. "I read," she said solemnly. "I read the same things you do."
"What?" he asked. "Dickens?"
"No, Davies," she said. "You think I don't see you, sneaking around, reading Candy. But I see it, Jack."
"Oh, for Chrissake," he scoffed, sitting up in bed. "You don't honestly think I'm shooting up because I decided to pick up some Australian literature, do you?" She stared at him. "Do you?"
"Would you be willing to take a drug test?" she asked.
He frowned. "We can't afford a drug test," he answered.
"Would you?" she insisted. "So help me god, if I have to scrape together the money myself, I'll get up enough money to get you tested, so help me god I will - "
"All right!" he exclaimed. He sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. "All right." There was a long moment of silence before either of them spoke again. Then he sighed and took his hands away from his face. "I've been cutting it and selling half," he said. "Keeping the other half for myself… to use."
She stared at him for a long time, and for a long time, neither one said a word. Then she turned, shut off the light, and lay down in bed, pulling the covers up to her chin and turning away from him. "Goodnight, Jack," she said quietly, coldly.
He looked over at her. "Kitty…" he said, pleading, but she would not look at him. He watched her for a moment, her petite form, just breathing, then he sighed and got back into bed, himself. "Goodnight, Kitty," he said quietly.
That was the last time Jack Napier had ever seen his wife alive.
In fact, that had been the last time Jack Napier had seen his wife at all.
He had never received word of a funeral to attend, mostly because he had not been there, physically or mentally, to attend it, even if he had been invited. He assumed that he had been conveniently forgotten by Kitty's upper-class relatives, who had never approved of him and his blue-collar bohemian lifestyle from day one. He grimaced to imagine how they would think of him now; he had gotten a bit more eccentric since the last time they had seen him.
…All right, perhaps more than a bit.
He crouched beside a storm drain, staring at his reflection in a puddle that had not managed to go under. He absentmindedly pushed his green-tinted hair out of his eyes as he smudged a careful red grin across his white face. He had already remembered to black out his eyes, and he was just adding the finishing touches. His makeup had needed a touch-up, and now that he had given it one, he did not have to look at his own, real face ever again. He did not have to remember the young man he had once been… the face he had once had… the face of a lover, a worker, a father, a husband, a human.
That was over now. He was no longer Jack Napier. Now, he was the Joker.
He reached over and pulled his ratty suitcase to him, opening it and looking inside. He set out the weapons on the ground, arranging them neatly as he took each one out. He had his trusty machine gun, but now he had a variety of handguns, various knives, what looked like a machete, a buzz-saw, a couple of explosives - he had already had his fun with those, at the old abandoned Gotham train station - and a few other things he did not quite know how to use... or if they were even weapons. He gently ran his hand over each one of them, examining them closely, his dark eyes dissecting every feature of every weapon.
He was sure that he would get the chance to use every single one of them, if not against Batman, then against the poor, snivelling city of Gotham.
Kitty, his wife, his everything, the love of his life, was dead. Someone was going to pay.
. . .
Crane stood outside Arkham Asylum, staring up at the building that he had once been so proud to oversee, and which now he would have to be crazy to return to.
It was a good thing he was crazy.
Crane let himself in through the front doors, making sure not to step in anything, and made his way to the front desk, where Jessica sat, the bruise on her head starting to heal, but still apparent. She seemed a little bit more on edge since the last time he had seen her. Whatever could be the cause of that, he was not quite sure. He grinned. Maybe one of her patients had gotten the better of her. It had been known to happen, after all.
He approached the desk and leaned against it. Jessica did not even look up. "Yes?" she asked.
"I'm here on a visit," Crane said. "Wanted to see one of the patients."
Jessica nodded, moving to her computer. "Name?" she asked, still not looking up at him.
Crane smiled, paused, and then said, "Doctor Jonathan Crane."
Jessica hesitated, then looked up at him in horror. "D-Doctor Crane," she stuttered. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to see you, of course," he said, with a false tone of affability. "I've missed you so." He stood, moving around to the other side of the desk. Jessica got up from her seat quickly, grabbing up the phone and holding it in plain view, like a weapon of some kind.
"I'll call the police," she said. "Don't come near me, Doctor Crane. I'll call the police!"
"They won't come," he said. "And besides, why would you call the police on an old friend?" He took the phone from her hand and hung it up, then wrapped an embracing arm around her. Jessica swallowed, then her eyebrows knitted together in surprised propriety.
"Doctor Crane!" she exclaimed. "Are you… happy to see me?"
"No, Jessica," he hissed into her ear. "And now you'll do what I say, or some of your internal organs will make a very nice addition to the flooring of Arkham Asylum." Jessica looked down and saw that what she had thought had been Doctor Crane was actually a handgun he held pressed against her abdomen. She looked back up at him.
"Which inmate did you want to see, Doctor Crane?" she asked, hoarsely.
Crane looked at her. "I think you know which one," he said.
Jessica shook her head. "We can't do that, sir," she said. "You know I can't. That man… do you know what he did to his wife?" She looked frantic now. "Doctor Crane, he's crazy!"
Crane grinned. "Join the club." he said. He jabbed the gun into her side. "Now, Jessica," he said slowly, "can we please go see my friend?"
Jessica moved silently through the halls of the asylum, trying not to attract too much attention to herself. The guards were all off-duty somewhere (so it seemed; where were the guards when you needed them?) and so she and Crane were able to make it to the cell he had specified with no trouble at all. She turned to face the door, got out her ring of keys, and hesitated, staring at them. Then she looked up at Crane. "I don't think I can do this," she said. "This man is a madman and a killer."
"Which is exactly why I want him," Crane said slowly, nodding.
Jessica stared at him, then went back to her keys, shakily flipping through them until she found the right one. "This is wrong," she said quietly. "This is so wrong."
"I'm waiting, Jessica," Crane said, pushing the cold metal of the gun a little harder into her side.
Jessica nodded, flipping through the keys faster, until she found the one she needed. She swiped it through the lock on the side of the door and automatically the door unlocked. She held her breath; this was the end of her career, for sure. She had been forced not once, but twice, into freeing the people in Crane's asylum - the first being Crane, himself.
"Go inside," said Crane, indicating with the gun. Jessica did as she was told, and Crane followed her inside, continuing to hold the gun in her side. "Now undo his straightjacket," he said.
Jessica turned to Crane, her eyes wide with panic. "No! I can't do it, Doctor Crane, I won't free another madman to wreak havoc on Gotham City - !"
He cocked the gun and placed it between her eyes. "Undo his straightjacket, Jessica," he said slowly, articulating his words.
Jessica swallowed hard, staring at the gun, then turned to the man and, with shaking hands, started undoing the straps, until the man was free of the straightjacket. She pulled the straightjacket off of him, leaving him completely free. Her breathing was staggered, scared.
Crane smiled, lowering the gun. "How does that feel?" he asked, more to himself than to the inmate. He inhaled, proud of himself. "Thank you, Jessica," he said.
Jessica nodded, lowering the straightjacket. "Anything you say, Doctor Cr-"
BLAM. Where Jessica had once stood there was now nothing but a large, gory blood spatter. The secretary lay, glassy-eyed, on the floor of the cell, one hand still clutching the straightjacket, a large, bloody hole through the back of her head. Crane stared at her, inspecting his work, and raised a haughty eyebrow before tucking the gun back into his belt and looking up at the inmate. He grinned at the inmate.
"Ready to find your daughter," he asked, "Mister Goodhart?"
The man didn't look the least bit distraught at the sight of his caretaker's bloody corpse, or the gaping wound in the back of her skull. In fact, the edges of his mouth twitched up in what could have been a manic grin, then fell back down. Then his gaze turned to his savior. He rose slowly from the chair like a king from a throne and stepped to the bloodstained floor with a rather unsteady gait; nearly three years sitting still in the same chair could do that to a man.
He flexed his arms and legs a few times, relishing in the feeling of being free. Then he met Crane's gaze with his own. The tired bags under his eyes, in addition to his pale skin, made his face a frightening picture.
"Gladly."
Charles Goodhart had been raised a good Catholic. His parents carted him off to mass once a week the minute he could crawl, and every day when he started walking. Stories about hell and the monsters living inside it, how they could jump up to earth and take over regular people, had been deeply ingrained in the man from when he was very young. Thus, he strongly believed that demons lived among ordinary people like himself. Well, to be more accurate, two demons. Unfortunately, by the time he recognized the first for what she was, they were married. And they had one daughter, who at the time was just turning ten.
He wasn't a wasteful man by nature, but he knew what he had to do. The girl was tainted, and there was no helping it.
Chloe was easy enough to get rid of. It was ridiculous how frail women were getting; had he taken the four strikes to the head with the iron, he wouldn't have dropped as easily as his wife. He hadn't counted on the neighbors overhearing the commotion, though. Being locked up in the local loony bin wasn't the ideal place to get rid of the abomination he was supposed to call a daughter.
The doctors at the place said that he had some condition. The words "hallucinations", disconnection from reality", and "episodes" came up a lot in their diagnoses. He'd spent nearly fourteen years at that asylum before Maria decided to leave the ghosts of her past behind and strike out for Gotham City.
The day she left, he nearly killed three of his fellow inmates during relaxation time.
The director decided that it was high time they get this particular man out of their hair. As a bonus, Arkham Asylum was known for miles for its superior facilities. Thus, Charles Goodhart was moved to Arkham, and Maria was never informed.
. . .
Nice day. Low temperature, good light, little wind, not many airborne pollutants. The regular high amount of noise pollution, but when did downtown Gotham ever quiet down?
Of course, none of that really concerned Jeanette Rossini, who was busy directing every curse she knew at the black van blocking what had been a perfect shot.
It sat directly in front of the glass double-doors of Gotham's First City Bank. The fuzzy blue hair of her target's clown mask was just visible, waving in the light breeze like a flag. The thirty-one-year-old had the distinct feeling that it was mocking her from behind its makeshift shield. She ground her teeth and reluctantly pulled her sniper rifle's muzzle from its perch on her bi-pod, a steadying arm for the gun. She needed a moment to cool down. The setup had been all she could ask for, and more. The goons were set to rob the bank at three. She'd made her way to the roof of the adjacent hotel half an hour before, secured her location, and waited. Every tiny detail had fallen into place. Then this van glitch had ruined everything.
The woman had high cheekbones and smooth olive skin, both trademarks of her very Italian parents. Dark brown hair, which was now kept up in a ponytail, was usually tumbling around her neck in soft curls. Her hips were accented by simple black pants that sat on her hips and flared at the bottom; a short-sleeved top rested on her shoulders under a black leather jacket. The toe of one of her black boots tapped in irritation. She was "a curvy babe," as one drunkard had put it seconds before landing on his bum in the middle of a bar and being asked if he knew what a stiletto felt like when it was shoved into one's throat. In all, she definitely didn't have the expected looks of her profession.
People would call her a murderer as an insult. People would call her an assassin as a compliment. But she'd always shake her head with a polite smile and correct them. "No, I just kill people."
Now, a frown sat on her thin lips. It looked more like a dissatisfied scowl than full-blown fury on her refined features, but her burning hazel eyes told a different story.
She had tried several times to pull this off, and each attempt had failed because of some small mistake, or an unexpected obstruction. It wasn't a habit she'd like to develop. Her gaze rested on the waving blue hair for a few moments. Suddenly, she moved towards the other side of the roof, grabbing the bi-pod from the edge of the roof and moving close to the ground to not be seen.
She was not going through another failure.
The reason she'd chosen her specific location on the roof was partially because it offered the clearest, closest shot, but mostly because it provided cover. The number one unwritten rule of assassins was to never be seen. You worked silently in the shadows, covered your tracks well, and were never spotted. Because the second you were spotted, you were done for.
Jeanette sighed and attached the bi-pod to her new position, being extremely careful to stay out of the line of sight of anyone below. She was just desperate enough to break some rules.
In a half-squatting, half-kneeling position, she peered through her newly adjusted scope and sighed in relief; her target was clearly visible now, clutching his automatic with white glove-clad hands that had obviously rarely held a gun before. She checked the wind one more time to make sure it wouldn't throw off the bullet's trajectory, and went through her usual pre-shot mantra.
Aim, shoot, double-check, disappear. Aim, shoot, double-check disappear.
She focused in on the right side of the man's chest.
She breathed in and pulled the trigger back a fraction of an inch.
She breathed out.
BANG.
"FUCK!" Napier jumped when the chest of the man he had been prompting suddenly exploded into a gory spatter of blood and he fell to the ground, dead. He looked around frantically, trying to find the source of the gunshot. He looked all around, pulling a knife from the sleeve of his jacket and picking up the automatic the man had dropped. Eyes wide, he turned in a full three-sixty before stopping, hesitating, and then looking up.
There she was - sitting there, just waiting to be seen. Napier picked up the automatic and opened fire at her, not aiming to hit her, but to scare her. He dropped the weapon to his side. "YOU WANT SOME?! DO YOU?!" he shouted up at her. "KEEP KILLING MY GUYS AND YOU'LL GET SOME!"
He walked towards the building where the woman perched atop like some kind of lethal bird of prey. "Gotham has fucked with me too many times!" he called up to her. "And I'm going to fuck it right back!" He let off another few rounds to make his point. "DON'T FUCK WITH ME!" he shouted.
Oh, shit.
Jeanette dropped to the ground the instant she heard gunfire, praying that the man's warning shots really were just warning shots. Maybe sacrificing her cover wasn't a good idea. She smoothed her hair and took one last glance at the man in the street below before packing her gun away into its inconspicuous black briefcase-like carrying case. Then she headed for the stairs down from the roof.
At least she'd gotten his attention. And some good psychological information. It was always good to know who you wanted to work. "Gotham has fucked with me too many times"? Maybe a throwback to something that happened in his past? That hinted at a crime committed against him, which might mean...
Jeanette paused at the landing of her suite and almost smiled. Better wait until she had a computer handy.
Opening the door to her executive suite was like stepping into paradise. God only knew why Gotham had a Radisson, but Jeanette was definitely not complaining. The carpets were softer than feathers, her bed was airy and ridiculously comfortable, and the room sprawled across three connecting rooms. A triple-lock on the door was a nice feature, of course. Sure, it cost a pretty penny to stay here for any long period of time, but who said Jeanette wasn't ready to fork out a few thou for a nice place to rest her head?
She dropped the gun case and her other equipment onto the bed and went straight to her laptop. She pulled up her running file on Jack Napier and moved her cursor to the bottom to begin typing. Maybe she could grab some dinner in a few hours and get ready for her first contact with the Joker.
