Disclaimers in prologue. Thanks for John for looking this chapter over and finding my typing oopsies. Yer a pal.

Who's Laughing Now?

Chapter Five

**

Classic European Whiteface—

Character: Also commonly called the Pierott clown. An elegant clown, artistic, colorful, bright and cheery. Its performance is highly artistic and skillful, but done with a comedic or dramatic flair.

~*~

Robin stared at the blinking prompt on the command line. It flashed green, waiting for him. And he was waiting for Batman and Nightwing to be in place. He didn't know how Barbara could stand this.

"We're outside the maximum security wing," Batman informed him. The gruff voice echoed through the cave.

Robin switched to headset, so he could hear more clearly, and then began typing commands as accurately and as quickly as his ungloved fingers could manage.

"Ok, the security behind the walls has been set on a loop feed. Nightwing has seven minutes and forty-eight seconds. Starting… now." Two typos and eight commands later and the security camera in the Joker's cell was feeding last week's information. "And Batman's good to go. You have nine minutes and fifteen seconds. Starting now." He'd fed seventeen false commands into Barbara's network, and she hadn't found his port, or his bots. Perhaps he could get through this. "Like you have a choice," he muttered to himself.

"Robin?" Batman asked cautiously.

"Nothing. Talking to myself."

Batman didn't respond. In light of that, Robin gave himself the lecture he was sure he would have gotten—about keeping channels opened, and not filling the air waves with things that're going to alarm people. It's basically the same lecture he'd have given Young Justice if they'd have done that. Keep your head in the game, Drake, he told himself. You officially can't afford to screw up.

* * *

A blue and black clad figure stopped in the security enclave outside the maximum-security wing. Nightwing hit the central circuit box behind the security guard's booth. Unfortunately, he'd had to temporarily neutralize the guy. He felt bad—but just a little.

Picking the manual lock and overriding the electrical key pad, he pulled open the panel and took a look at part of the computer that controlled access to cells in the maximum security block. All of the boards were original to the unit's installation last summer, none of the wires or cabling had been tampered with. Closing the box, he made sure the guard was still unconscious.

Checking his time, he moved on to all of the security measures that had been implemented in the ceiling and walls of the Joker's quarters. The space between the ceiling and the next floor was tight, and he was running out of time. Without hesitation, he lifted himself into the space above the Joker's cell. Just before he passed from sight, he saw Batman crossing the threshold.

* * *

Batman made no move to wake the Joker. He stood in front of the straight- jacketed creature lying on the transparent mattress. He didn't make a sound, he didn't shift or stir the air. He simply existed.

As if on cue, the white figure on the floor rolled over, and looked up at the Bat.

Batman continued to exist. Two feet from the Joker's red and green head.

"Can I help you?" The Joker asked, mimicking Bruce Wayne's tone at the meeting that had precipitated this current situation. The Bat stared at him, completely unresponsive. "So… what did it? The letter, or the phone call to the Brat?" Briefly, the Joker wondered if he was about to get pounded. He was ok with that. He just didn't' think the Bat would break so easily.

* * *



164.228.87.15 says: Hey, Boy Wonder, turn on your audio.

164.228.32.10 says: Can't. Busy.

164.228.87.15 says: Oooh. Using Bat-resources for surfing porn?

164.228.32.10 says: Shutup, Babs.



Every time her message appeared in his terminal window, the knots in Tim's stomach twisted another turn. He was now wound tight enough to snap. He was having trouble feeding her machine commands in a timely manner with her one- liners popping up every three seconds. Just incase, he started deleting some of the more obvious files.

rem hwblock12.pmx

164.228.87.15 says: what's you're deal? You're all acting weird.

rem hwblock13.pmx

Tim licked his lips anxiously; he knew he was trying to kid a kidder. He looked at the time, and then made a decision.

"Batman," Tim said into the speaker. He counted to three, didn't hear anything, and said it again. "Batman?" With his tongue, he could feel a dried crack forming on his lower lip. Licking it again would only make it worse, he knew, but he did it anyway, but he didn't know what else to do—he was trying really hard not to become a nervous wreck. "Batman, I have to put Oracle on audio. I can't type while she's talking to me."

Garnering no response from the Dark Knight, Robin opened the connection. "Barbara, we have to make this short," Tim told her anxiously.

* * *

Batman continued to glare at the Joker, who had taken up a new tactic: for the time being, he simply glared back.

Above, Nightwing continued to wade through cabling and security precautions, not getting any answers. He pulled himself along the shallow enclave that housed the tightly locked down air regeneration system, and the perimeter alarms. Readjusting his light, and looking at the time, sighed to himself, wondering… if not the Joker, then who?

The Joker had killed Robin, in a warehouse in a foreign country, and Bruce Wayne's adopted son turns up dead in the explosion? Even before the Joker revealed to Nightwing that he knew the previous Robin's name, they'd been on their guard.

Double-checking the equipment, he could find no signs of tampering. He was running out of time, and he needed to get out. Even with a lack of physical evidence, Nightwing knew it was the Joker. He just didn't know how—or WHY NOW.

* * *

Robin tried to type and talk at the same time, and it wasn't working too well, so he opted just for typing, for a moment. This was a lot more complicated than it was supposed to be.

"Young Justice is right," she said quizzically. "You're turning into a spaz like your mentor. Loosen up a little. And tell me what's going on."

rem hwblock19.pmx

"TIIIIM," Barbara demanded. "Come on. If you don't fess up, I'm going to start digging. And I WILL find something."

Was that a threat or a promise?

rem hwblock32.pmx

"Babs, things're just weird here. You know Bruce. Dick and I never even got out of Gotham tonight. Bruce got all weird and 'bonding' and he hasn't let us out of his sight since like four."

"Ok, whatever. But you better tell Dick to return all the stuff he's stolen off of me."

"Stolen?"

"Uh huh. It's either him or Dinah who's walking off with all my toys. I'd say it's Bruce, but this is official Dick-Weird."

For a few moments, Tim didn't respond. He continued typing, removing the last file that he could safely get rid of. "I'll tell him. Betcha he was saving up for a practical joke or something," the Boy Wonder said with an uneasy laugh. "April Fools is like… ten months off."

He winced, looking at the time. "Hey, I gotta do something. Can I put you on hold for like a minute? And I'll give you the skinny on Bruce's madness." Sorry, Batman, Tim thought to himself. He was sure the Bat wouldn't appreciate Tim pinning all of this on him, but he was an easy target. Anyone within the group would believe Bruce had done just about ANYTHING, if they could someone take a pondering guess at his motivation.

"Sure kid. Just tell Nightwing to gimme my toys back."

Tim found himself licking the cut on his lip again. He had a REALLY bad feeling about a LOT of things right now. "Ok, Batman, I'm back on. Do you need a second feed of the security loop?"

It was still too damned quiet on the other end. He prayed that everything was OK.

* * *

The Joker began shifting slightly in his straight jackets, making an obvious attempt at escape, but still the Batman did not move. "Ok, NOW you're just getting annoying!" The Joker hollered angrily. "I mean, who the hell do you think you are, anyways? DO something!" For fuck's sake. What the hell did he have to do to get a reaction out of the Bat?

He ALMOST had Grim and Creepy back in "Stately Wayne Manor," and it had been the best time he'd had since ol' Wing-nut sent him to the here-after. Now Bats was going all 'anti-emotion' on him? It wasn't FAIR!

"Okie. Fine. I got something that'll ruffle your feathers. Or hairy little wings. Or Whatever." His hands shot out of the bottom of the straight- jacket, holding a stuffed Robin doll. Or at least it used to be stuffed. It was just the outer fabric skin of the doll. "Hehe. I heard this story on the Discovery Channel. See, these ancient South American folks would skin their kids when they died and make little dolls out of 'em. How do you think I'd look, wearing a Robin-skin coat?"

The Joker never knew what hit him. The Batman's fist had connected with his face with lightening speed. When he withdrew from the cell, the Joker's broken face oozed blood onto the straight-jacket and mattress, but what was left of the stuffing-less doll was gone.

* * *

In the Bat Cave, Robin felt a chill run through him. "Barb?" Tim asked, his voice cracking. Catching himself, he deleted what was almost a misspelled command and retyped. He looked over his shoulder at the magenta and pumpkin colored jack-in-the-box on the evidence table. "You wouldn't happen to be missing your Nightwing and Robin dolls, would you?"

"You found 'em?" she asked hopefully.

"Uh huh," he said in a high-pitched voice that was unbecoming of a young man who's voice had already changed.

"And while I'm thinking about it," she responded, stern anger suddenly evident in her tone, "quit hacking my network. It isn't funny. I'm killing all of your bots."

"I don't think it's funny either," Robin chirped in nervous response.



Continued in part 6

One of the most famous of the European court jesters was Nasir Ed Din. One day the king glimpsed himself and a mirror, and saddened at how old he looked, started crying. The other members of the court decided they better cry as well. When the king stopped crying, everyone else stopped crying as well, except Nasir Ed Din. When the king asked Nasir why he was still crying, he replied, "Sire, you looked at yourself in the mirror but for a moment and you cried. I have to look at you all the time."