Harley managed everything perfectly, of course; Joker tolerated nothing less than perfection from either of his henchgirls. When he'd lured Clayface in, Harley was dragging Hatter by the trouser cuff. Joker placed Hatter's cards into Clayface's immobilized body, thrilled at the feeling of limitless power at his fingertips. From the ground, Hatter mumbled a section from Carrol's Four Riddles: "a mountain-summit, and a den, of dark and deadly mazes—"
It was meant for him, surely; and though he was outwardly dismissive of the words for Harley's sake, it stuck in his mind, as Hatter must have known it would.
Even during the meeting he set up, inviting all the other villains. He'd counted on their natural curiosity to bring them. After all, here he was, pretending to be cured, and the first thing he does is call a meeting of the criminal elements. It was the usual place for such a meeting; a warehouse, dim-lit and large enough to hold both a central span of tables and a contingent of guards brought along by anyone who wanted; standing and chatting in low voices, guns held casually in case there were to be any trouble. He'd tried to wash off the stain of gangster, but it followed him, and in his nondescript suit with a single spot of color in his striped lavender tie, he felt more like one than ever.
For a fleeting moment, Joker wondered what his life would have been like if he hadn't hung around the wrong dive, so many years ago, trying to tell the greatest joke; if he'd never met Joe, never gotten into crime; never betrayed Jeannie—
Never met Batman, his mind supplied. It was worth it.
…It has to be.
All of a sudden, the answer to Hatter's reference revealed itself to him, as another section from the riddles flashed into his mind:
"…And here one offered to a thirsty fair
(His words half-drowned amid those thunders tuneful)
Some frozen viand (there were many there),
A tooth-ache in each spoonful."
Tetch knew what he planned, that was the only explanation, Joker thought, as he watched the other villains drink. He'd gotten them each their favorite, so that no one would demur; it was all sealed, to the eye of the casual observer. No one was on guard. None of them, perhaps, thought even he would dare something so brazen, even knowing him as they did.
No one but Tetch, and Joker would have to figure out if he was a problem that had to be eliminated. He hoped not. Even time hadn't made killing any less distasteful, only easier.
/
The law offices of Hill & Hill had seen better days. Now, the crumbling concrete steps curved upward like a spar from the wreckage, and Joker had to hop over a gap to get into the remains of the upper office; the front wall blown off, the roof sagging and splintered. Harleen, who climbed up behind him, updated him on the state of the plan—everything as he expected of course; it was simple in theory, though the execution had taken some work. Overwhelm the cops, lure Batman into a trap—and call attention away from what they should have been paying attention to—him. While Joker opened the file cabinets, searching through pages pressed-together and yellowing, Harleen took the Hatter-tech headband from her head, holding it between her finger and thumb. He paid only half attention to her as she said, "you knew this would work. Predicted almost every detail—that's amazing."
He pulled out the file he was looking for. "I can't take credit," Joker said, modestly. "It's a gift from the Joker—whose genius was limited only by his insanity."
"If only he could see you now," Harleen said; walking up behind him; she slipped the headband into her purse. He couldn't look at her; felt sure that if he did, he would either snarl or laugh; instead he only answered, holding the fragile sheets in his hand. This—this was everything. Everything he could finally use to prove that Gotham was ordinary, was no different than any other corrupt city; its own secrets, buried in ink, would detangle its mythology, show them for the faded superstitions that they were.
"Hopefully he can't," Joker said vehemently. "Hopefully he's gone for good." And for one vertiginous instant, he believed his own words; the sound echoing back to him as though spoken by someone else. He stared down at his hands and pressed a distortion into the clean, printed white. I'm such a liar, he thought. Can't anyone see through it but Batman? Why does only he, out of everyone, know me so well? What gives him the right?
/
He made the speech before Batman could put it together, come up with anything to say or do that could defeat his persuasion. He'd always been fond of television, of radio—it had been how he first announced himself to the world as Joker, and it was how he would build his reputation as Jack Napier as well. And now, curling its way through the airwaves, his lies took flight, too plausible, too terrible to be doubted. The truth they hid was a different one, but hidden they had been, and the people of Gotham would grab onto the first possible conspiracy to explain it all, and look no further, search for no harder truth—the coward curse of the masses.
"—hundreds of people injured by Batman. Who pays their medical costs once the smoke clears? Who pays to fix their houses? Or the roads, bridges and playgrounds surrounding them?"
Batman. Bruce Wayne. He might be demented in his own right, but let no one say he doesn't have a sense of fairness; of crippling guilt.
"Batman diverted the battle… to protect the rich… destroying the library…" He made the speech in front of the rubble, clouds of smoke behind him, the library he had taken great pains to design to the utmost of every safety specification, knowing that nothing would stand against the combined forces of Croc and Bane. His tie was bright orange with a few stripes of black across it; Batman's own colors turned against him; a wish to help, a zeal for justice; it filled the air in front of him, heady.
"I know many of you don't trust me. That no matter what I say, I'll always be the Joker. But I'm also your best bet in holding Batman accountable. No one knew Batman like the Joker—let me help this city by using the insights he has given me. Let's turn the Joker's abilities into Gotham's advantage, and stand up against the plague Batman has brought us."
"That was inspired," Harleen said, after. She smirked at him. "I think we came off pretty well, didn't we? Even Gotham can't resist a loving couple." She hooked her hand into his, swinging it, though she kept her steps sedate.
"If half of it is you?" he asked, smiling slightly. "Baby, we're unstoppable."
"And don't you forget it!" Harleen said, raising their arms into a cheer. Beyond the span of the reporters, the police, the watching crowd, in the sectioned-off lot they'd parked their car, she twirled on her toes, squealing with delight as she came to rest in his arms.
/
He tossed and turned at night. Somehow, Joker had forgotten how to sleep with Harleen: perhaps it was that Harleen was too clingy, or snored the wrong way; or maybe it was the fault of the steroids in the pills she'd given him; he couldn't curl himself into a ball comfortably any more, arms and legs all pressed against his chest. He felt a kind of weary ache deep in his bones that made him want to weep, and Hatter's rhyme kept playing in his head.
"I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men—
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes—"
The plan was proceeding just as he wanted, but somehow even that fact couldn't cheer him. Imagination, that was the answer to the riddle, but he couldn't figure out what it was supposed to mean. Tomorrow, he and Harleen were meeting with Duke Thomas to give a speech in Backport, one that hopefully, Batman would crash.
Was it a warning? Was he making a den of mazes to lose himself in? It felt like every morning when he looked in the mirror, he recognized himself less. His eyes had a jaded look to them. Even with the brown the change was clear.
Joker paced back and forth in the front of the apartment, Bud and Lou's tawny heads following his motion at every turn, though they sat curled up in the corner, seemingly content. In the corner of the room, the radio crackled, some Frank Sinatra song he could barely hear over the noise. Harleen was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup. He'd already finished getting ready, something that still surprised him, dully, though it had been so long since this all began.
"What now my love, now that you've left me
How can I live through another day
Watching my dreams turn to ashes
And my hopes turn to bits of clay?"
He was wearing his new usual: plain, simple, utterly boring. No tie for even a splash of color, no coat: he was being a man's man, today. Harleen turned on the sink and the sound seemed to shriek its way through his pounding head. He went to the single small window and wrenched up the glass, climbing out onto the fire escape. That's where Harleen found him, when she finally left the bathroom.
"Jack?" she said, warily.
He grunted. He had his head down between his knees, his hands clutched in his hair, mussing the job he'd done of combing and slicking it down.
"Are you okay?"
"It was too close in there," Joker said flatly. Everything he said sounded flat these days; flat and lifeless, like a washed-out rag.
Harleen hesitated. "We have to go if we want to get to the rally," she said at last, cautiously.
"Yeah," Joker said. "Yeah, I know." He pasted on a smile, hidden where she couldn't see, and breathed until he could imagine getting up, moving at all. Then he wiped the smile off his face and stood up, climbing awkwardly through the window and brushing the dust off his pants.
"You sure you don't want to change?" Harleen said.
Joker waved a hand at her dismissively. "I'm fine," he snapped. "Let's just get this over with."
He let her fix his hair in the back of the car; Harleen, in her trousers and shirt to match with his, and her red trenchcoat. What a pair they made. He almost laughed, and bit his cheek instead.
"Something happen?"
"Hair in my eye," he lied, pushing hers back behind her ear. "You're doing fine."
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, thinly, without teeth.
/
Batman did come, of course; he did all the work of digging his own grave. Joker just threw the dirt in after him, speaking with James Gordon, coming up with an idea to enlist the superheroes and the GCPD under one banner. He was doing it to split the Batfamily apart, and Harleen thought he was a hero. Of all things.
Puddin', she said. Take me out tonight.
He should have been able to come up with an excuse, but after Duke's jesting taunt, there was no way he could brush her off without making her feel jilted.
They went to a jazz club and danced until his polite smile pained him, to an ice cream parlor where her jokes made him chuckle until he had to turn away, for fear of laughing. They played billiards—Harleen showing herself to her advantage, and Joker feeling a kind of fondness in his chest like nostalgia. He had loved her, once.
They ate and drank at a restaurant, while Harleen teased him with her bare feet dragging up his leg; tolerable if only for the fact that she'd learned subtlety, and ended the night at a bar, after closing time, when he couldn't put off copulation any longer. She was drunk, and so she'd paint the act in a rosy light, come dawn.
He had loved her, once—he knew he had. He just wasn't sure he did anymore.
Early in the morning, lying in bed, she sprung it on him, the question he'd barely feared to dread; dangling that ring in front of his eyes again.
"Marry me, Jack," she said, sliding the ring onto his finger; with a hopeful, beautiful smile, something as shining as stars gracing Gotham through the dark.
And he couldn't say no.
/
He had a dream that night; wandering through the twisted remains of buildings, of calculated destruction. The law offices yawned empty, its broken-down stone washed the same silt-brown as the dust, the color of the air at noon. He climbed up the broken steps, needing to find the secret that would destroy Batman once and for all; but inside, the offices was only the skeleton of the library he'd started to build, rubble spilling over the standing beams; sunlight slanting through the cracks. The walls were full of mirrors; full-length mirrors standing in the hall, some with gilt frames, some with cheap aluminum, some painted wood. He didn't step foot inside, but watched, for someone was already there.
He saw himself in each mirrored reflection, green hair curled or straight, long or short; cherry suits and black suits and lavender and lemon. Some were laughing, facing him, others turned away; soft with leaf-bright eyes, or hard with a yellow glow; pinpricks of red in the darkness; or his own ordinary brown. Male and female, young and old, in every place and time known to man. In the middle he saw himself, with two-colored eyes, one purple one green, singing softly, dancing through each reflection, pulling it behind him as he went, until there was only one left; swaying on his feet in his unlaced sneakers, dancing as though with an invisible partner. His green fishnets climbed up his skinny ankles under too-short suit pants held up by suspenders, and a purple Batman t-shirt, soft and ragged and worn. He waved his arm as though directing an orchestra, twirled around and bowed in his own direction.
"Jack! How good of you to join us."
There was something unsettlingly knowing in the Joker's eyes, Joker thought. That stripe of black tracing its way down his face was like a gash, as though the face itself might fall off, be itself only a mask stapled over an endless darkness.
Joker smiled in return, but warily; when he stepped into the room the boards beneath him popped and buckled, as though about to give way.
"How's normal life treating you?"
Joker only shook his head.
"It's a burden, isn't it?" Joker said, cannily. He circled Joker until the back of his neck prickled; and he laughed, once, in answer; but tiredly.
"I'm fine," Joker said, putting his hands in his pocket; his ring caught on the edge and he had to shove it in deeply; he could see Joker following the motion, noticing the glint of white and gold.
"Are you," Joker said. "Be careful, when you knock down the building you're standing in, that you don't get the emergency exit with it."
"I don't know what you…" Joker started, then saw the line of others leaving, out the metal door with the blaring sign above. "Where are you going?"
One Joker tipped his hat at him as he passed; most did not even acknowledge him. A few laughed, brightly, the sounds echoing even past the ring of the door falling shut with a slam. Then he lost his footing, in the rumbling of falling stones and bricks; the walls caved in at all angles, a shower of glass.
/
Calling out the gatekeepers on social media felt fun. Felt a bit like his early Joker crimes; the ones where bystanders might be hit with a fit of laughter that brightened their day and would wear off by the time he got away with the loot. In, out, a few well placed puns, and he was free.
He'd forgotten what that felt like: that feeling of buoyancy; that the world was open to him; that he could do anything, if he really tried. When had it faded? When had the world become so caught in lockstep, when had his acts become so meticulously planned, down to the letter, that there was no more room for improvisation? For humor, and silly gags?
That power! It was intoxicating.
"What are you grinning about?" Harleen said, slipping an arm around his neck. He was sitting on a kitchen stool, legs crossed, leaning against it, and she had hopped up behind him; his fingers stopped moving on his phone for one moment, and he turned to her, eyes shining. "Just having a laugh…"
Harleen peered down at the screen, a smile tugging its way along the corner of her mouth. "It's good to see you happy, Jack. It's good to see you inspired again… using your brilliance for something other than taunting Batman."
"Instead, I'll just taunt the mayor," Joker said, pressing post. "And everyone dumb enough to fall for his rhetoric."
A few of Gotham's top socialites had waded into the fray, onto to retreat, licking their wounds, from his cuttingly humorous remarks. He'd hoped—he admitted it to himself—that perhaps Bruce Wayne might find it in him to join the fight; but the Bat was silent. Had been for almost two months now.
It was only from a meme posted by Batgirl's civilian identity, tagging Nightwing: 'Al would have loved this.' '... Yeah. He would have.' —that Joker finally put it together. Searched the back issues of the Gotham Times a few weeks to find the small obituary for Alfred Pennyworth.
.
.
.