Then the kid came along.
He was like Batman's younger twin; the same brooding scowl, the same too-harsh fighting style that cared not for broken ribs or fractured spines, but where Batman was scared, always afraid of crossing some line that existed only in his imagination, the kid was sharp. His eyes were thoughtful, took in everything; his anger was proud and without apology. He was Batman as he could have been, if the world had only been a little kinder to him, if some slow torture hadn't worn him down to the bone. A kid too old for his years and a man stuck in childhood, and somehow it worked; they helped each other. They were a team, a dynamic duo: Batman and Robin.
They would fight together against their enemies, they would have screaming fights amongst themselves, they would sit together on the edges of rooftops, eating chili dogs. They made each other smile.
It hurt.
It was like someone shoving knives into his throat, every time Joker saw that smile on Batman's face. It wasn't lightness, because Batman was never light. It wasn't even happiness, because Batman was allergic to the notion. No, it was something much more pervasive: it was contentment. It was responsibility. Batman was growing up, and leaving Joker behind, like a toy shoved into the back of a closet. It was an outcome that became ever grimmer and clearer with every time they fought.
With the kid around, Batman reconsidered what it meant to go too far, as though seeing a mirror of his own actions was enough to give him pause. It didn't matter how much Joker taunted or cajoled, he'd be summarily handcuffed and taken to Arkham without a bit of rough play in between, and that smile, that damned smile that seemed to exist only to break his heart was flaunted before him like Joker wasn't even there.
The property demolition went down, for something in Batman's one-track funnel of a brain seemed to shift enough to come up with solutions that didn't involve destruction. The gatekeepers left ominous hints that something had to be done.
Joker could see the end of Supervillain Initiative, whenever those old farts next got together and looked at their cost-benefit analyses. And with that, went everything: his freedom, his very self as the Joker. And Batman, who so cavalierly flirted with bringing everything tumbling down, no longer seemed to even see him at all.
There Joker was, in the back of the car, feeling trapped for the first time in a long time, while Robin turned on the radio.
"We had to part…"
Joker looked out the window to have something else to look at than Batman and Robin, at the megawatt grin that the youth was bearing, so he couldn't see the bright colors, red, and yellow, that seemed to call even a shade of sunny-day blue from Batman's workmanlike costume.
"The moment you had touched my heart…"
"Good job, chum," Batman said, quietly, with a softness in his voice that Joker had never heard before.
The dilapidated buildings, all that remained of Gotham's glory days, now just a sordid money-making scheme, washed by. Outside the dust and grime that spattered the edge of the Batmobile's windows, like a wave of brown rubble in their wake, the pennants of the old typewriter companies and novelty museums still advertised to an audience that had left long ago. Joker wanted to cover his ears, just so he didn't have to hear it, so he couldn't feel the shards of his heart solidifying, turning to anger in his chest, but the cuffs stopped him, and all he could do was bury his head in his arms and try to pretend.
"…And with you went my dream,
all too soon."
/
Batman had become known, somehow, outside the self-immolating vortex that was Gotham. A man known as Bane made it his sworn mission to destroy the Bat. Joker was unconvinced. He'd heard it before; Gotham would do what it always did with upstarts. Chew them into pieces, digest them in its rambling streets. Maybe, if they survived, they'd be reborn into something Gotham could stand, something that fit within the rules of the theater, the performance being played. Joker was an old-timer, and he knew every move and measure. He'd seen it happen time and time again, a sort of cyclicality that was enough to drive the sane to madness, and the mad even madder.
Crane was out on business, and Harvey was Two-Face, so the only person of any note to listen to was Mad Hatter. The good thing about Tetch, in Joker's opinion, was that he was terrified of Joker, and right now he needed to see someone cower. Don't let anyone say he never looked after his mental health.
They sat in the cafeteria, with tall, mullioned windows letting in only the ghost of light through a pea-soup fog; around there was the usual chatter and screaming and the ever-continuous clink of spoons against bowls.
"And Batman's been ignoring me," Joker ranted, "just left me behind for that wretched Robin!"
Jervis nodded timidly.
"You know how to make people do what you want, Tetch," Joker said at last. "Do you think I could get one of your cards up his cowl?"
Jervis rocked back and forth, chewing his lip. "I wouldn't recommend it, not at all," he said.
"What do you mean," Joker growled, throwing his arms wide in exasperation. "Haven't you heard anything I've been telling you?"
"I did," Tetch said, measuredly. "But the people under my control don't behave like people, you know. They're chess pieces. Very orderly; quite unlike themselves. You wouldn't like him that way, for he wouldn't be your Batman, only something that looked like him. You'd have more luck asking Ivy for a plant-clone."
"Like she'd ever do a thing for me," Joker grumbled. He pushed aside his Arkham-issued gruel; he wasn't hungry. Rarely was, when it was Arkham food to speak of, but less since this had happened. His worry ran circles in his head, using his poor battered brain as a hamster wheel. If he could only get the hamster out, maybe everything would go back to normal. He slumped down, resting his head on the table and closed his eyes.
"If you're not having that, may I?" Tetch asked.
Joker blinked his eyes open blearily, confused, before following the Hatter's gesture to his abandoned food.
"Be my guest," Joker said. He closed his eyes again.
/
Joker and Crane teamed up for a bit of good-old-fashioned mayhem, kidnapping the mayor and holing up in the sewer, trying to avoid Croc, waiting for Batman to come. That was the problem with any scheme, even the ones designed to take his mind off Batman: they all came back to him. And there he came, with that bright-clad figure in his wake. With hardly even a few broken pipes to show for it, the mayor was rescued, and Scarecrow sprayed his gas behind them as the two fled; it missed Batman and hit the boy, who stopped with a face suddenly ashen-grey, swaying on his feet. He didn't scream. He just seemed to crumble; his feet falling from under him, and Batman turned away from the chase to catch the sweating youth, whose eyes roamed the darkness seeing something else, longer ago.
"Are you all right? Robin… Robin…"
That voice echoed through the tunnels, taunting their successful escape; and by the time they had gotten back to their safe-house Joker was trembling with rage.
Crane, whose sense of self-preservation was always a bit lacking, didn't seem to notice. He slumped down onto one of the crooked old chairs and sighed. "What a complete waste of time," he said.
"Yeah, pal?" Joker asked. "And whose fault was that? If we'd waited a little longer, we could've got the ransom without Batman even—" he fell silent, unable to continue, the force of some trembling wave of emotion was so great, stringing its way through his entire body until he felt like he wanted to kill something. But the only something in the room was Scarecrow. Joker took a deep breath, stuck his hands in his pockets, and was on his way out of the room, to some other level of the building where he could trash the place as much as he wanted without consequence, when Crane answered.
"Have you forgotten, the whole point was that Batman would 'ruin' our plan? I admit, getting to test my newest concoction was a bonus, but if anyone let down his end of the deal it was Batman. We're on thin ice with them right now, and you know it."
"Stop," Joker said tightly, his shoulders tensing. "Stop."
"You told me your plan was foolproof—that we'd have a good amount of destruction to show for it!" Crane's voice was rising higher in anger, and he was standing when Joker turned around.
"So I messed up!" Joker said. "It should have worked, it would have worked if it weren't for Robin. And who brought me into this, huh, Crane? Feeling confident now? Did this all turn out like you expected it to? How are either of us going to live any kind of life when this all falls to pieces, when we have a rap sheet this long on our hands?"
"I shouldn't think that would be a problem for you, Jack," Crane said condescendingly.
It was a mistake. With one stride Joker was barreling forward. Crane seemed to realize he'd gone too far, and put his hand out, pressing the trigger on the gas-release at his wrists. The mixture filled the air between them, and Joker stopped short, breathing it in. Then he put his head in his hands.
The fool. He didn't know.
"Now," Crane said, inching backward, "I think perhaps I'll leave this conversation for another time…"
Joker's shoulders were shaking.
Finally, he peeked out from behind his hands, and Scarecrow flinched to see his thin-lipped smile; his suppressed laughter. "Not bad, 'Crow. What other flavors you got?"
"But…" Crane stammered. "I don't understand…"
"Of course you don't," Joker snarled. "Thought you could strip me to my deepest fears, the way you always used to with poor, dear, Jack?"
Crane stumbled back, past the wooden chair, which Joker grabbed with both hands, raising it above his head. Crane was so shocked he didn't even think to run before Joker brought the chair crashing down on him, again and again, grinning manically. "Loser! Charlatan!" It was everything he'd ever wanted to say or do to Crane, the kind of power over the always-suave doctor he'd craved.
Crane, of course, wouldn't know that Joker had made his serum to have all sorts of interesting effects, that one of them was an immunity to Crane's toxin, along with so many other poisons. Joker was a fair hand at chemistry, he'd been good at it all his life and kept it up, having access in Arkham to any kind of books or equipment his heart desired.
When the doctor was at last only a whimpering mess on the floor, too cowed to even think of fighting back, Joker let the remains of the now-broken chair fall from his hands; it hit the ground with a dull, ringing thud.
"How tiresome our friendship has become," Joker said flatly. It was nothing more or less than the truth.
He felt finished with Crane; finished with it all. He turned around and left, walked into the streets, harsh and bright under the noonday sun, walked until he'd gotten back to Arkham.
.
.
.