See disclaimers and thankyou's in prologue.

Who's Laughing Now?

Part 2

**

"The art of clowning has existed for thousands of years. A pygmy clown performed as a jester in the court of Pharaoh Dadkeri-Assi during Egypt's Fifth Dynasty about 2500 B.C. Court jesters have performed in China since 1818 B.C.

"Throughout history most cultures have had clowns. When Cortez conquered the Aztec Nation in 1520 A.D. he discovered Montezuma's court included jesters similar to those in Europe. Aztec fools, dwarf clowns, and hunchbacked buffoons were among the treasures Cortez took back to Pope Clement VII. Most Native American tribes had some type of clown character. These clowns played an important role in the social and religious life of the tribe, and in some cases were believed to be able to cure certain diseases." --COAI

~*~



It was two in the afternoon when Dick Grayson woke on the ancient, threadbare couch of his Bludhaven apartment. He couldn't remember why he didn't crawl into bed, or where his clothes were. Squinting in the light streaming in through opened blinds, he rolled off the scratchy yellow and orange material and dragged his stiff body to a standing position and readjusted his boxers, feeling the imprint of the ancient sofa material on his back.

Rubbing one eye, he contemplated the pile of dirty dishes in the sink of his woefully-retro, over-painted kitchenette. He could do them today. He SHOULD do them today. But he probably wouldn't. Like the rest of the mess, it would probably sit there until Alfred snuck in one afternoon and cleaned it. He'd feel bad when that happened, but this was a vicious cycle. His perpetual laziness followed by Alfred's perpetual need to make sure his charges weren't overtaken by garbage. There were some things in the universe that were as they should be.

Pushing fast food containers away from his laptop, he turned it on to see if anything had happened while he'd been sleeping. He only had one day off this week, and he really needed to maximize it.

He could leisurely get dressed and be out the door by four, he theorized. He was due to pick the brat up at five, and then they were going to party and patrol. He wasn't a brat… persay. Dick did enjoy spending time with Tim Drake. The kid could just be a serious drain sometimes.

Were the situation different, he'd probably sleep until seven, then go on patrol, or stop in and visit his psudo-girlfriend, piss her off, then hit the rooftops. Right now, he was seeing Timmy five days a week, and he longed a little for 'grownup' company.

But he agreed with Bruce.

Until they found out HOW the Joker was getting out of Arkham, and if it was, in fact, the Joker who'd been making his presence known these last two weeks, Tim was under lock and key.

"Got any news for me?" Dick grumbled at the floating head on his computer screen.

"The whole universe came to an end while you were sleeping," Oracle informed him.

Dick frowned. "Got anything that isn't news?" Briefly, he wonder what the half-life of French-fries were. There were some in the bottom of this bag…

"Nope. Couple of murders near the docks you can probably check out tonight. Gotham's been same-old-same-old. Mayor has decided to give property tax breaks to any new businesses that want to come into the suicide slum section. Not that that's going to help the area. My dad's coming back from Florida tomorrow, and Ted Kord and I had passionate monkey-sex on the roof of Bruce's--"

She was pleased when Dick's head shot up out of the greasy paper bag he'd been investing himself in. "WHAT?"

"Gotcha. Like I said, nothing's really been happening. Dad and I are going out to dinner when he comes back into town, why don't you come with?"

Dick opened his mouth to speak, but didn't say anything. He'd been DYING for confirmation that they were 'official,' but this was SUCH a bad time. "Hey, I'm trying to keep my schedule a little free. How's about I tentatively say YES, unless something comes up?"

On the other side, Barbara eyed his image skeptically. "There's something up with you and Bruce. It's nice to see you getting along, but not when I'm left out of the loop."

Dick shrugged innocently. "Aww, babe, its just weird male bonding rituals."

"Dick, keep an eye on him, ok? He's getting really weird about the Joker." That was to say the least. He'd ordered her to start feeding Arkham security videos directly into his office computer, and both of his cars until further notice.

Running a hand through his hair, he tried to explain in some fashion that wouldn't alarm Little Miss Paranoia. "It's like a month until the anniversary of Jason's death. He's gonna get a little weird, OK?"

"What's your excuse?" Barbara asked skeptically.

He loved her, but this wasn't helping right now. "I'm just in conspiracy with him to drive you nuts. Look, I gotta go pick up the Gipper from Brentwood. I'll see you then, and we can duke this out all proper-like."

"You stopping in here?" Barbara asked, a touch of hopefulness in her voice.

He could have kicked himself. He'd been waiting for that kind of anxious tone from her for like a year. Who'd have known all he had to do was play hard to get. "Keep a window opened for me." He hated lying to her like that—he had no intention of stopping in. That was something else he agreed with Bruce on—they needed to cut down on their association with other folks, especially Barbara. Of all the people who did NOT need to be dragged into this problem, it was Barbara.

She was someone who'd also lost enough to the Joker and didn't need any further provocation, nor did she need attention drawn to her, and her connection to their family. It still killed him that the Joker knew. He'd spent a lot of time worrying over the last few weeks over what was coming, and what they could do to stop it.

"Anyways," Dick added. "Gotta take a bath. As you can see, my clothes got sick of me and walked away. Haveta get the mail too. I'll log back on when I'm done with that, ok?"

Behind the veneer of Oracle's spinning head, Barbara smiled. He was such a pest, but he was HER pest. "Get going, Grayson. I can smell you from here." She saved him the burden of protracted goodbyes and hung up on him. It was the only way she could get him offline sometimes.

Taking his time in the shower, Dick found something relatively clean, and then headed down to the mailroom. He wondered how Tim would feel about spending quality time at the Laundromat tonight. It'd be good for the kid to catch the other side of humanity—some folks didn't have Alfred staying at Brentwood, doing the washing and ironing.

Barely remembering to grab his key as he flew out of the apartment, a bare- footed Dick Grayson shot down the hall and practically leapt down the steps. He was expecting a CD in the mail. He did realize how pathetic getting that excited was, but three floors later, he still dashed across the lobby and into the mail room.

Contents of mail box: two bills, one piece of junk mail, and a nondescript yellow envelope from Gotham. It was probably something stupid from Bruce's lawyers about God knew what. He couldn't keep up with that stuff.

The phone was due the fifteenth, the cable was due the twenty-second, he'd take care of those later. He tore up the post card about free contacts without reading it. Dick didn't have much, just his eyesight, and his teeth. He wasn't anxious to contemplate losing either.

Walking up the steps, he tore opened the yellow envelope. He'd have to call those lawyer guys later. You'd think the paperwork would stop with the adoption. They always kept thinking up something else to bug him about.

Pulling the single sheet out, he knew it wasn't lawyer stuff.

Stopping on the landing of the third floor, he unfolded the white Arkham cardstock.

The handwriting was in pencil—a jagged scrawl he was familiar with.

Leaning against the cinderblock wall of the stairwell, Dick held his breath as he read.

How's my favorite Robin doing? It began without preamble. Dick wiped one sweaty palm on his pants. Changing hands with the paper, he grabbed it between just two fingers and wiped the other palm before continuing.

I'm sure Unkie Joker's the last person you thought you'd hear from. Oh wait, never mind, you and the Bat Freak talk. Anyways, just because you killed me doesn't mean we can't still talk. I've been meaning to ask, how'd it feel to kill? I know you Bat-folks're all hung up on that. But it was nice, wasn't it? Got a rush off it, didn't you? There's always a rush when you do it with you bare hands. Now you know how I felt when I killed Jason.

There was more, but Dick had to stop reading. His eyes filled with tears, and his head slammed against the grey bricks. Composing himself, he took the steps two at a time back to his apartment, slammed the key in the lock and wrenched the door opened.

Wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve, he found his shoes and dashed back out with them cradled in his arm like a football.



Continued in Part Three



"We must not force artificial constrictions on the development and advancement of clowning simply in the name of tradition." –Clown Creed