A/N: As much as I would love to make this a 90 chapter monstrosity of a fanfiction, I haven't the time, so... a bit of a fast forward...
~What doesn't kill you
Makes you ugly
Life gives you lemons
At least it gave you something~
~AJR~
When Joker had agreed that Peach would come and work for/with him, he had thought that being so close to her would be a bad idea. He had been pleasantly surprised how much his wife had actually helped him. She had really only been a fun distraction at first. When the stress of the day got to be too much, they would sneak off and have a quickie all over the fun house.
By February, she had started to help get the men and the few women he was now employing into their new lives and identities. She was very organized and he was impressed, though not surprised, by how well she could boss them around. He liked watching her square up with the men. She doled out punishments like a champ.
While getting this newest adventure moving, he had his men pulling a few robberies and a bit of arson. Had to keep his name in the papers to help recruiting. Plus, it kept the guys from getting too antsy. The police were woefully inadequate to keep his guys in check.
Joker hadn't heard anything from Bruce Wayne or the bat. He tried to push thoughts of his failure to bring the bat back to Gotham into the back of his mind. He was moving on to bigger and better things. He refused to be bothered by it anymore.
By March, Joker was getting excited. So many things were starting to happen. He had nearly 100 people out and about in the city on his payroll. They were infiltrating all aspects of the city. Some were baristas some were working construction. Hell he even had a substitute teacher and vet tech. They were acclimating well, and checking in often. He had to keep them working for his cause, not just deciding to deflect and actually become one of the mindless masses.
The weather was dreary and wet, but slightly warmer. He could feel himself getting antsy, having had to pull back the urges to just start it all now. Not everything was ready yet, just a bit more time, a few last details to work out, supplies to get. It was so close he could taste the triumph on his tongue.
By April, the most exciting thing happening was there had still been no sightings of the Batman or Bruce Wayne. Joker was worried at first, but this saved him a bit of work. He didn't really want to get rid of Batman, but if Bruce tried to stop him… It would end badly.
Not that he had to worry, it seemed Bruce Wayne had become reclusive. He had stopped going to charity events, stopped everything. They had printed a big story in the paper about Bruce taking a complete step back from all his financial holdings. Basically, he had retired. No one had seen him in person in months. Joker assumed he had finally broken him. The thought was bittersweet.
By end of May, the most hilarious thing was happening. Peach was visibly pregnant. She had a slight waddle to her step. Joker couldn't help but watch her as she moved around. The days he would go home with her, he would rub her feet and lower back. He made sure she never seen him chuckling at her.
She had 5 weeks left until her due date. Joker had gotten tired of hearing her complain about the long drive from the house, so he just had her stay with him in the penthouse. Once the kid came they could go back home. Peach had decorated the nursery months ago. Joker would take the extra time out of his day to go out and feed the dogs.
Spending a few hours there in the quiet was always nice. He would still drive back to his apartment and slide into bed with Peach. It was strange now sleeping next to her. He would either spoon her, ending up with a mouthful of hair and a hand usually tucked into her bra. Or, he would startle awake when the not so tiny jelly bean would kick him in the back.
The nights he couldn't sleep, he would lay like he was now, watching her stomach. It wasn't as huge as he had pictured it would be, but it was nicely rounded. The moving mass inside her looked alien. Joker was amazed she could sleep through it.
Peach was not enjoying pregnancy. She had just left her doctor appointment. At 35 weeks, her doctor had told her she needed to gain more weight. It had taken every ounce of self-control to not reach into her bag and pull out her .22 and shoot him in the face.
She had gained 20 pounds. With her being so petite, that was a lot. She looked and felt huge. The baby was fine, and almost finished baking. She had decided not to find out the gender. One less thing to worry if she should tell her husband. This way the choice was out of her hands.
She was feeling pretty useless with her mobility down. She got winded easily, the baby felt like it was pushing into her lungs all the time. What infuriated her the most was she would catch Joker smiling, his eyes lit with laughter. He would chuckle when she walked by. She wanted to hit him. Maybe she should.
Oh and don't get her started on the trips to the bathroom. She felt like she was doing nothing but peeing all day. She really needed to have this baby soon. She wasn't sure she could do 5 more weeks of this.
She was driving back to the fun house. She still didn't understand what exactly her husband's big plan was, but she helped whenever she could. She had helped him get houses ready and new identities set up for these people he was bringing thru the place.
When she had told Ace that she was pregnant, the man seemed shocked. Peach had laughed at his face, Joker had ignored Ace's reaction, turning back to the laptop to keep working. Ace had come to talk to her later, telling her congratulations.
She laughed at the memory and parked her car. She walked into the gates and made her way back. She had very fond memories of this place. She was completely out of breath by the time she pushed through the doors and got inside the funhouse.
She looked around, the room fairly empty, once the people had been put out into the city, there was no real in person contact with them. If they needed to know something, they had a phone number to text their issues to. Peach checked the phone regularly. Otherwise, their hired help were productive members of society.
She thought back to the beginning, one of the men had lapsed back into drug use. Joker had left it up to her to discipline the man. In her opinion, there was only one thing that was worse than an addict. She had no mercy for lack of control of your life.
She hurt him, she had taken her anger out on the man. She felt a little bad later, once she had thought it all through. She blamed it all on her hormones. The extra anger, the brutality, and the crying. Fucking hormones. It had been a lesson to the others, they had no more people relapse.
Bruce had been a busy boy. After he had resigned any and all positions that required him to be physically or mentally present. After he had cleaned himself up, getting all of the alcohol out of his system, he had thrown everything he had into figuring out a way to stop the Joker.
He had been staying mostly in the old cave system on the old Wayne property. He remembered the name Joker had given him when they chatted at the hotel. Jack Napier. He had started there, searching for any information on him. There wasn't much.
There was no birth certificate, no school records, nothing. He didn't exist, it had made Bruce wonder if it was Joker's real name. This man had either not done much with his life, or had paid a lot of money to erase who he had been. The only thing he could currently find in the legal system was a marriage license. So Joker had told the truth. He was married.
The thought made Bruce sick. He tried to trace the woman's name that was on the license. There wasn't much in her background either. Besides a birth certificate and the marriage license, Lyra Mosley (Napier) didn't exist. He needed to figure this out and get rid of this madman once and for all, and get this woman some help.
With that coming up with nothing, he had spent the months since New Year's Eve, focusing on tracking the Joker. He had a map, marked with every crime Joker or his men had committed since the beginning of the year. The problem was, they all seemed random. Bruce couldn't find a pattern to it, or guess what would be next. No part of the city seemed immune to the violence of his.
Bruce had statistic from the police station. Crime had stayed steady. No one area hit more than another. Jokers touch seemed to even out everything, which only seemed to infuriate Bruce. He knew in his soul that Joker was a horrible human being. The man brought death and destruction to anywhere he went.
It was impossible to actually find the man. Bruce had been trying for months, facial recognition software running nonstop. It seemed a waste of time. Joker seemed like a ghost. Bruce had pieced together a file so far. Known Joker related crimes in chronological order. He also had a file on possible Joker crimes. That file was ridiculously huge.
He rarely went back to his apartment, only to get a few days to reset his mind. He would head back to the cave system with what he hoped was a new perspective. One small break was all he would need. He was waiting, hoping Joker would mess up somewhere. Anywhere.
He currently was staring at the painted faces of both of them. Joker and Lyra. The pictures were slightly grainy and his programs couldn't pull clear enough features to try to match it with anyone. The more he stared at the picture, the more he felt a niggling in the back of his brain. It was like he was forgetting something important.
Bruce leaned back in his chair, his hand rubbing his eyes, the burn from staring at the screen finally starting to lessen. His hands moved down to scratch lightly at his facial hair. He found that growing it out had helped him avoid the cameras and media that were always on the lookout for him.
He laughed at the entire situation, he laughed so hard tears were running down his face. Joker had basically made him lose his mind. He was no longer the man he used to be, but felt it would all be worth it if he could stop him. He needed some rest. He left, driving a much less obvious car to his apartment.
Once he was back in his penthouse, he moved to his bed, lying on top of the blankets and fell asleep. He had the same dreams that seemed to replay in his head since January. It always started the same, He was watching the murder of his parents, reliving the pain. The difference was his parents' faces were blurred. Their features unrecognizable.
The other thing was their murder was no longer the same. Now it was always her, since he had learned her name, Lyra, Her painted face was the one he watched murder his parents. Every time he slept, he hated her more.
After she murdered his parents, he could hear Joker, laughing and taunting him, but he couldn't find him. Every time he thought he'd found him, the laugh came from somewhere else. The rage he felt when he woke each time, fueled his obsession with finding Joker and stopping him. For good.
