Of Madmen, Misfits & Everything In Between

Pairing: Joker/OC

Rating: K+

Warnings: Swearing. Violence. Like torture and blood and descriptions. Not really, very descriptive though. If it's not your thing then go to the next chapter. All you need to know is that Misha got kidnapped.

A/N: I'm back. Mid terms have started and I screwed my Maths paper! AAGH. You'd think I'd do well in that subject because I'm MAJORING in it but nooo- I left my brain at home and slept through half the paper. Seriously. But whatever. Study break with two chapters. Cheers!

Chapter Twenty One- Missing.

The sound of a door slamming woke her up.

Misha winced.

Her head was positively throbbing, making her vision blurry and generally hard to concentrate on her surroundings. She was, however, aware of the fact that she was in a dark, unfurnished room with just enough sunlight coming through the cracks in the wall and the window to tell that was still daylight.

She briefly wondered how long she had been out.

She would have wondered how she'd gotten where she was at the moment but knew that pretty well.

The Joker.

She gritted her teeth in irritation- some of it directed towards the clown while most of it towards her own physically limited self. She hated it when her mind became murky. And it definitely was that- murky. Her head hurt like hell and she was tired and sore (and not in a good way at that) and- and this was a first- hungry.

It must have been a few days then, she thought as she tried to stand. For someone who was keen on torturing her, the Joker really didn't bother with the tedious task of tying her up.

Maybe he knows that I'm too tired to do anything too, she reckoned, stumbling back a few spaces. Her body felt like it was on fire and she had to take the support of the wall behind her to stand up.

Yup, definitely a few days, she thought to herself, trying hard to focus on her vision. She looked down to find that the front of her clothes had blood stains on them. Misha frowned, inspecting herself for any injuries. She was definitely not hurt. Why w-

She growled in pain when her hand reached the side of her neck. Misha felt a thin line of raised skin- no doubt it was dried blood. Ignoring the pain, she inspected it. It wasn't deep. Honestly, it seemed a little more than a cut. If she could get a first aid kit, she could clean it up- she wasn't too hopeful about it not getting infected. It probably infected at this point. Oh well, nothing she wasn't used to.

She sighed.

She didn't exactly remember when she'd gotten it. As her hand reached her forehead to massage it in an attempt to rid herself of her headache, she found that her forehead hurt as well. Had someone hit he-

Oh yes.

She rolled her eyes.

She did remember that one.

Jack had oh- so chivalrously decided to hit her with a the back of a fucking dagger before, well, kidnapping her.

She really did hope that Karma was real so one day their roles could be reversed.

She'd teach Jack a thing or two about being a nut job.

And that, is the fundamental difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, she told herself, sociopaths are sneakier, psychopaths are all out.

In any other situation, she would have found that to be hilarious but right now- oh boy, she really had no idea how to feel about the situation.

She gathered her strength and made her way towards the door. By the time she got there, her head was spinning. She was so tired!

It did not make any sense to her. She had never felt like this before. Had he drugged her?

He had never done it to her, or to any of his other victims for the matter, before but it seemed like a possibility. She shuddered to think that she might be an exception- who knows what the Joker thought of her?

That she betrayed him.

Oh yes, she remembered the events of the previous week. Bruce had told her that it was the best way to make Jack surrender and possibly give in to the police but she might have taken it a bit too far since he had managed to escape after blowing up the fucking police station.

Misha still found it hard to wrap her head around it.

How had she ended up in such a world?

Just a few years ago- and really, she did not even notice the time fly by. She was sure it had all happened in a matter of months- she was a normal college student. Somehow along the way she'd gotten caught up with the Joker. Though Misha highly doubted that she'd even be in this position- let alone, alive- had she never met him, she still found herself at awe with all that had happened.

So much had happened in the past three years.

But right now, she realized, there was no time to contemplate that. She had to find a way out of this room. It was making her claustrophobic and she was afraid that she would faint once more.

"Hello?" she called as she banged the door multiple times. It was only when she reached for the doorknob that she realized that it wasn't locked.

Misha rolled her eyes. Her foolishness had not, however, decreased in the past three years though. If any, it seemed to have increased because she had just basically alerted the Joker that she was awake.

Brilliant. Just Brilliant, she thought spitefully as she pushed open the door. The brightly lit hallway was a sharp contrast against the room she had been locked in and it momentarily blinded her causing, and this she welcomed sarcastically, her headache to go up by a few notches.

Nonetheless, within minutes she recollected herself and walked down the hallway, peaking around the corner to see if someone was there an-

"Well, hellooo to you too!" the Joker yelled in her face, causing her to stagger back.

Once more she found herself clinging to the wall for support.

"Do you have to speak so loudly?" she asked him, hating how that only seemed to make her headache worse.

The Joker- or was it Jack since he was not wearing the make up and the usual Joker garb? she wondered- leaned forward and whispered, "Is this better?"

She nodded, appreciating the consideration. She was about to even thank him when he decided to be an ass again.

"Well too bad 'coz I don't care!" he announced, his voice booming in the hallway.

Misha took a sharp breath intake. "Fuck you," she cursed and he smiled menacingly.

"You've already done that," he informed her and she glared at him.

"Unfortunately."

"Touché."

They continued to observe one another for a few moments before he spoke once more, "Well, I've got some ideas for what I'm going to do to you!"

Misha frowned. "Wha-" She began to say but he slammed the side of her head against the wall.

As much as that made him feel guilty, he had things to do, plans to go ahead with.

It was show time.

Meanwhile back at the bat cave, Bruce was looking for clues, connecting dots to find anything really that would lead him to his newly hired employee. Bruce had last seen her when he drove her home after work, a week after the death of Rachel and the Joker's escape. He blamed himself for it because he had known that the Joker would try to find her. But he had let his guard down and Misha had been taken.

What's worse is that he didn't realize that until a few days later when she did not turn up for work on Monday. And by then, when he got to her apartment, the police had already gotten there first as per a neighbour's request to check things out because a strange smell was coming from within the house.

The strange smell turned out to be burnt food. It was a miracle that the apartment had not caught fire given the amount of time it had been inside the oven.

But that was not what caught his and Gordon's attention.

It was the fact that the entire house was covered in trails of blood leading to the various rooms of the house. Initially, Bruce had thought that the Joker had killed her but after testing a couple of blood samples, he realized that they were all a different type and not one of them was Misha's blood type. So there was a chance that she was still alive- he just didn't know how much of a chance that was.

"I don't get it," he admitted to his butler and confidant, Alfred, after a few minutes of analysing another such sample. "It's not hers. Why would he go to extreme lengths to redecorate her entire apartment and not lay a finger on her?"

"Maybe because your guess was true and he truly loves her," piped in the good butler.

Bruce rolled his eyes at that. "Well, that doesn't exactly explain the message he sent Batman."

"Men like him have a strange way of doing things," Alfred went on to explain, "He's mad at her for siding with the Batman. Maybe it's payback for that? Maybe, there's nothing really which the Batman can do in this situation but watch. He's just a bystander while he deals with his lady love. After he's through with her, then he'll come to get the Batman."

"You think he's gonna kill her?" Bruce asked him.

"My guess is only as good as yours," he shrugged, "he has a problem. Perhaps Miss Alau'din is the solution to it."

The next time she woke up, she wished she hadn't.

For one thing, this time, not only was she tied up but her head felt like it had taken a swing from a sumo wrestler or somebody. She was surprised that she was even alive with the kind of headache she had. It took some time, but once more, she adjusted herself and found the Joker sitting in front of her.

By the looks of it, he had been watching her for a while.

"Finally!" he declared once he saw her stir. "I thought you'd never wake up!"

Misha groaned. His stupid, loud voice made it all worse.

"No really," she told him, "keep your voice down."

He shot her a murderous glare and this time, she knew, he meant business.

"As if," he retorted, walking up to her. It was only then that she noticed the knife.

"You-" he hissed, grabbing her chin and pressing the tip of the knife against her left cheek, "-do NOT tell ME what to do, understand?" He applied just enough pressure to draw blood and Misha screamed.

That only seemed to make him excited. "Oh yes, scream and perhaps, ah, your precious Brucey will hear you," he said, "maybe he'll get Commissioner too because apparently, that's what good citizens of Gotham. And where Gordon goes, Batman goes and then, you know the drill."

She decided to remain quiet after that.

When she did not say anything to that, he spoke louder, "Right?"

"Yeah, yes," she gasped, as the knife pressed deeper into her skin. She briefly wondered if he was going to kill her like he killed that mob boss, Gambol or something, his name was. The press had covered that in utmost detail and just thinking about it made her nervous.

She felt her heart sink. He wouldn't surel-

But, he could.

She had, after all, betrayed him and Jack had once told her that he didn't take betrayals lightly. But she could withstand whatever he was going to do to her, right?

"But," he continued and Misha strained against her blurry vision to focus, "that won't happen tonight. Tonight, we're gonna have fun and no one is going to interrupt us. You wanna know why?"

"W- why?" she managed to croak. She shuddered to think what horrors awaited her. She did not want this. She just wanted him to get better. She had always wanted that since she realized that he had a dual personality disorder. If only Jack would take over. She could plead, right?

He leaned forward. "Because tonight, Gotham will see fireworks," he whispered into her ear, "and everyone will be so busy cleaning up the mess, they won't even remember wittle Misha."