Scorch
"I drag my extinction in search of you."
—Li-Young Lee
He hears her before he sees her, the sound of the car door slamming, stopping him in his tracks, and for some reason he knows it's her, even without having to turn around. His mouth sets in a rigid line, his jaw suddenly taut, and he thinks, son of a bitch.
He's going to fucking kill her.
He drags her away from the car, into the crack of shaded darkness that two buildings slapped together side by side have created. He grabs a fistful of her hair, has her up against a wall before she even has a chance to explain. He doesn't want to hear her talk. The concrete slab of building scrapes against her lower back, where her shirt has ridden up. He has both hands curled tight around her throat, and his blood runs hot at the raw familiarity of it. Her pulse jumping desperately beneath his fingertips, her eyes bugged out, face blotchy and red.
"Please," she chokes. Her fingernails scrape against his hands, clawing at him, but he can't stop.
He can't stop.
The tips of her toes scrabble desperately for purchase, for ground, but he holds her just high enough that she can't have it. He watches her go from pink to pale, the rapid fluttering of her eyelids, like the mad flurry of hummingbird wings, and he takes a long moment to study the pale, blue veins pressed against the backs of her lids, skin that is milky and thin. He imagines if he squeezed with enough force, those veins might burst, and she'd weep blood that is cool, cornflower blue. He'd touch it with his fingers and smear it over her cheeks—reverent—like a burial ritual, and the last person to touch her, to leave a mark on her, would be him.
He feels her weakening beneath his grip, consciousness fading, and only when he is on the verge of losing her does he finally let go.
She sinks to the concrete on hands and knees, gasping for air, sucking it in in that desperate, choking way that isn't pretty. She can't say anything, can't do anything but try to fill her lungs with air, and he thinks, good. Lie there. Know that only I get to decide whether you live or die.
He circles her, mouth pulled into a deep frown. Disgusted. "I should put you down," he tells her, "for that stunt you pulled. You do that again and I will put you down." He grabs her by the back of her neck, bending down to snarl in her ear. "I will take you out back and shoot you." He means it as an insult. Guns are impersonal. Too quick. He shoots people he doesn't care about, people that don't deserve a narrative in his story. He will finish her off as if she meant nothing to him. A bullet will rip through her skull and then he'll leave her out to rot, let her body decompose where it lies, let the animals drag it off, rip her open to the bone, until eventually those are chewed up and devoured, too. Nobody will miss her. Nobody will care.
"Mr. J," she croaks. He likes the sound of her voice like that. Broken and cracked, a little guttural. Likes knowing he made her that way, knowing that her neck will blossom with color, singing of his cruelty, a tight collar of purpling bruises.
"I just—I just wanted to see," she gasps, still breathless.
"You don't get to see," he snarls. "I told you to stay." He circles around to her other side as she starts to get up, and his mouth twitches, frown deepening, and he forces her back down to the concrete with his heel on her back, pushing hard. She collapses under the sudden weight, forced onto her belly with a sharp exhale. "You have been a very bad girl."
"I'm sorry." She is really crying now—snot, tears, choked whimpering—the works. He runs his tongue along his lower rows of his teeth, tracing at the Y-shaped scar on his lower lip from the inside. He looks at her.
"Are you? Are you really sorry?" He digs his heel into her lower back and watches her flinch, try to twist away. "How sorry are you?"
"I'll never do it again," she sobs. "Please, I'll never do it again. I promise."
The Joker hums, unconvinced. He keeps the weight of his foot on her as he reaches into slacks, checks his pocket watch for the time. He's disappointed to have to end this now, not when her compliancy is something he tastes on his tongue, both rotten and sweet. He is practically frothing at the mouth, in ravenous want of her subjugation, but if he doesn't stop now, he's going to be late.
"Listen to me carefully." He pauses when she doesn't say anything, and then he leans down to grab her by the back of the neck again. He's always liked the feel of her spine cradled in his palm. "Do I have your attention?" She nods quickly, unable to speak. He murmurs directly into the shell of her ear, watching the delicious ripple of goose bumps explode across her skin from just his breath on her ear. The power of his voice. "You're going to go back to the car. You're going to get in the backseat. You're going to lock the doors. You're going to buckle your seatbelt like a good girl, and then you're going to sit there and wait until I'm done. You're not going to move an inch until I say you can." He pauses, just to take a moment to image it. "Are we crystal clear?"
She nods again, and after a moment, he lets her up. She pulls herself up onto her knees first, and then she stands, barely able to hold her own weight, using the wall to support herself. She doesn't look at him for a long moment, too embarrassed—ashamed—and it's only when he reaches for her chin, forcing her head up, only then does she look at him, her cheeks wet and ruddy. A tear streaks down her face, catches on his thumb.
"You know it hurts me more than it hurts you when I have to do this, don't you?"
She nods pitifully, closing her eyes, crying harder.
"I'm sorry," she rasps.
He can tell by the pained, wounded look in her eyes that she wants to reach out for him, seek out the solace she knows she can find only in his arms, needy for the comfort and reassurance of a hug, but he will not give that to her, and she knows it.
He lets go of her chin, and she sniffles, lowering her eyes. He waits to go inside, watches her hobble to the car instead, like an animal with its tail tucked between its legs. She gets into the backseat, closes the door. He can see through the window that she buckles her seatbelt.
Good. Good girl.
He straightens his tie, rolls his shoulders back. Cracks his neck.
Play time.
Taylor sits in the back of the car, arms folded across her abdomen, and cries.
Deep, cavernous sobs, ones that feel like they've been dredged up from beneath layers and layers of soil, the kind of sobs that are born in the soft underbelly of rotten earth, where living things go to die.
She had only wanted to see where he was going, see what he was going to do. So much of his life he keeps shrouded in mystery from her, so many secrets, she had only wanted to know. She had only wanted to see.
He had been more energetic than usual that morning—excited in a way she rarely saw, the kind of excitement he usually reserved for special occasions—excitement she is used to having directed only at her. Maybe she was a little jealous, she thinks. She remembers biting her lip, lingering in the bathroom doorway, watching as he leaned over the bowl of the sink to bring his face as close to the mirror as possible.
He always left the bathroom door open. It didn't matter what he was doing, it was like he forgot she was there or something. He'd shower or piss with the door wide open, his back to her, but she still had to go somewhere else until he was finished.
He was wearing his purple slacks and a white wife beater. She remembers his suspenders dangling around his thighs, remembers wanting to reach out and curl one around her finger. Wind herself closer to him. He is using a straight razor to shave, and she watches as he slides it delicately over the line of his jaw, down his neck, over the slant of his throat, where he holds his Adam's apple very still.
She feels transfixed, watching him, like she is privy to some intricate ritual, something sacred not meant for her eyes. She watches the way he studies himself in the mirror, the way the razor edge skates around his scars, the look in his eyes almost something like defiance. She wonders about that, wonders about the glide of the razor, all that gnarled scar tissue, and her brows pull together.
"Do they hurt?" she blurts.
He stills. His eyes slide way down, finding hers in the mirror, his neck arched, looking at her from over the slope of his nose. He is slow to remove the razor. Set it down on the counter. He wipes off his hands with a towel, keeping his gaze on her the whole time. He doesn't say anything, just turns around to look at her in the doorway.
She swallows as he approaches, crossing the short distance between them, tall and lumbering, and somehow even just his shadow over her feels heavy. Too hot. She feels the shudder of her lungs inside her. His burning eyes. She draws her shoulders up to her ears, anxious, tense, but then he is crouching a little, bent at the waist, so that his face is level with hers, and there's nowhere to go, not with the wooden frame of the door digging into her back.
"Why don't you touch them and see?" he says.
She swallows again—afraid—not sure that she should. Some of Mr. J's invitations are not supposed to be accepted.
She bites her lip, unsure, but she hesitates too long. She has no choice when he reaches for her hands. She exhales sharply through her nose as he guides them to either side of his face, and then suddenly her open palms are pressed there, slotted against cool scar tissue, surprisingly soft, more delicate than she had imagined, more tender than the greasepaint makes them look. He uses his hands to guide hers, makes her slide her palms up and down over his scars, slowly. Reverently.
He looks at her as he does it, and it feels too intimate. Too wrong. She squirms underneath his attention, but when he finally releases her hands, she realizes that she can't stop. She lowers her hands some, letting the pads of her fingers trace over the tissue instead. Mr. J closes his eyes when she does it, and she is mesmerized. Spellbound. She never wants to stop touching him here. She skates across his ruined flesh with each of her fingers, her index finger and ring finger and then her thumb, fascinated by the feel of rippled tissue, by the way he seems to melt into her touch, eyes closed, looking like he's somewhere else entirely.
He makes a noise then, going to one knee as he does, so Taylor is looking down at him. The sound is something pulled up and out of him, something guttural, something usually tucked very far away. Goose bumps prickle over her skin, and something hot squirms in her lower belly, something alive, something she's only felt once before, when he had pried open her mouth and kissed her.
She wants him to make that noise again. And she wants to know what his scars would feel like on her tongue. What they would taste like.
Her mouth dry. She has to wet her lips, her vision hazy.
She breathes a little heavier, lost in the headiness of the moment. She pulls one of her hands away and is surprised when he chases after her touch, nuzzling his cheek into her palm like a dog who wants to keep being petted.
She swallows, and her voice comes out a little hoarse. "Does it feel good?"
He opens his eyes. Blinks up at her owlishly, where his eyes are liquid black. "Feels good."
Then his hungry eyes are on her mouth, just for a fleeting second, just brief enough for her to wonder whether or not it actually happened, and then he is rising, back to his full height again, the moment lost or forgotten, and Taylor backs away from him, retreats to her bedroom and closes the door. She stands with her back against it for a long time, has to work to catch her breath. She braces the flat of her palms against the door, can almost taste the insistent thud thud thud of her heartbeat slamming against her ribcage, something that tastes like war, like a call to arms.
Get out, she thinks to her heart. Get out. She doesn't want it anymore. Not if it feels like this all the time.
Or maybe she just needs to take it out and hold it, soothe it—cradle it like a lover would.
Or maybe give it to Mr. J, let him carry it in his pocket, so they can be together all the time. He could return it to her later, at the end of the day, lay her down at nightfall and sew it back into her chest. She takes a moment to imagine it, what her skin might look like after years and years of scar tissue have formed, the skin so mutilated and deformed there is no sewing it back together. Her chest cavity hollowed out. Open and raw. Nothing can be done. Maybe then the only place to put her heart is right alongside his, where he could keep it warm next to his own. The two muscles beating feverishly together until eventually they merge into one.
Whatever has just transpired between them, whatever just took place—she wants more of it. Needs more of it.
She looks down at where the hairs on her arm all stand on end, like they've been switched on by some electric current.
A little while later, she watches him lace up his shoes. He says he's going out, and when she perks up, asking, "Can I come, too?" he responds with a hard, decisive No and then doesn't elaborate further.
Her mood crumbles instantly. She sulks against the back of the couch with her arms folded across her chest. "Why not?"
"Because I said so."
She narrows her eyes and goes to her room. Locks the door. She paces at the foot of her bed for a couple of seconds. And then she slips out the window.
Hiding in the trunk had been the easy part. She hears him slide into the driver's seat a little while later. Start the car. He drives for a long time, taking enough turns so that she no longer knows where they are, where they're going. But she keeps very still; she's very good at keeping still.
When he parks the car and gets out, she waits for a few more moments before she uses the lever on the ceiling of the trunk to flip down the back row of seats. Her mistake is her eagerness—crawling out of the trunk and into the backseat too quickly. She knows she slams the door too loudly when she gets out, undone with impatience, afraid of losing sight of him.
And then he had rounded on her immediately, like he could smell her. She stood, paralyzed, as he moved towards her, and she could tell from the hunch in his shoulders, the purposefulness of his gait, that she was in trouble. She was going to be punished. Then he was dragging her into a dark alley, and she was on the concrete, pinned down with his foot on her back, and she felt so stupid, thinking she could follow him without being seen. What was she thinking?
Now, in the backseat, she gently trails her fingers along the column of her throat where the skin burns, still hot to the touch from the heat and intensity of his fingertips. When she swallows, she feels it.
She lays her head back against the seat and waits. She's good at that, too.
The Joker steps inside the elevator. Watches the doors slide closed. He lifts his chin to tighten his tie, catches sight of his warped reflection in the silver doors. He's more impatient than usual for this particular little get-together. Oswald had promised this was going to be well worth his while.
And the fat sonofbitch had better plan on making good on his promise, otherwise the Joker is going to bludgeon him to death with his own umbrella and then feed the blubbery remains to his fucking penguins.
What is it with supervillains and their weird fetishes? It isn't like the Joker's got a hard-on for clowns, after all. They're just funny. He's not illegally importing a colony of them from the Arctic or anything.
He straightens his jacket when the elevator bell chimes. The doors open up into a large, spacious penthouse. Floor to ceiling windows. Sleek, black marble floors. Faux-gold lighting fixtures and curvaceous lounge furniture, the hard, slippery kind that make it impossible to sit up straight. It's luxurious. Sterile in a way that conveys to the Joker that this is only penthouse one of five. He also knows there are no other tenants in the building. He knows, too, that Oswald's listed the building as a 1031 exchange on his tax receipts, even though the structure is clearly not a rental or investment property. But that's neither here nor there. He just likes to know what he's walking into before he walks in. Just like he knows Oswald's got men patrolling every floor. Just like he knows his guy's got a clean shot through the upper east window if this all turns to shit.
Just a little insurance policy, that's all.
He hopes it won't have to come to that. It'd be a shame with all this white furniture and all.
He picks up a weird, marble paperweight from some ugly end table with skinny legs as he strolls in. It's heavy. Sharp-cornered. He's never had a taste for such arrogant opulence. What the fuck do you do with something like this? He tosses it back and forth between his hands like it's a baseball.
"Ah, you made it," Oswald says as he approaches, crossing the long expanse of tiled floor. "In your usual dilatory fashion, I see. Punctuality clearly does not bear the importance for you as it does the rest of us."
"Punc-tu-ality," the Joker enunciates. "Huh." He looks at the paperweight in his hands, and then hurls it into the massive, moon-faced clock directly above Oswald's head. "There." He says, after the glass has finished showering onto the floor. "Now everybody's on time."
"Jesus," Oswald says, looking unruffled for not the first time. He recovers from his shriveled posture, but thankfully none of the glass landed on him. "That clock costs more than it would take to repair your face."
The Joker barks with laughter. "I like that," he says, grinning. He comes closer to Oswald's desk. Mahogany. Shiny. "I'm sure it's nothing you can't afford," he says, moving closer still. Close enough to rest the flat of his palms along the edges of the desk, leaning down. Low. "And I'm sure you didn't mean to offend me by telling me I'm late. Whole gang's here, looks like. Why aren't you talking?" Oswald opens his mouth to retort, but the Joker cuts him off before he can. "And what the fuck is he doing here?"
They both turn to look at the man that the Joker had glanced at only in his peripheral upon first entering.
What an ugly sonofabitch.
Jervis Tetch is one-hundred and fifty pounds and stands at 5'3'' on a good day. It's embarrassing. Doesn't help that he insists on wearing fucking breeches like this is the goddamn 1700s, or the putrid green tailcoat with the high collar. And don't get him started on the top hat.
"Now, now," Oswald says, leaning back in his chair. Grimacing. He steeples his fingers together like he's the evil villain from some terrible Bond movie. "Play nice," he intones.
Cobblepot is clearly enjoying this, having the two of them here like this. He knows they can't stand each other, and why should the Joker give this campy, Alice-in-Wonderland-obsessed freak the time of day?
It's his methods he doesn't agree with. Mind control? Who needs to create a gadget for that when you can do it psychologically—the fun way. Not to mention he's spoiled so many of the Joker's playdates with Batman the Joker just wants to take him out right here. His fingers itch with needy desire. He'd love to go for the jugular, wants to see him bleed out all over that idiotic, paisley vest. For some reason he imagines Jervis's blood would be black. Slimy. Like an oil spill.
He would've done it already if he could, but the bitch is more slippery than a goddamn eel, and the Joker doesn't have the patience to chase him around the block, not when he knows Jervis would enjoy it so much, like it's a game of tag.
The top hat compensates for the set of balls this manchild playing dress-up clearly lacks.
The Joker supposes it also compensates for his receding hairline. Killing two birds with one stone, that one.
"Hello, Joker."
He even hates the sound of his voice. Tinny and excited. A little croaky. Like he never really finished hitting puberty all the way through but then somehow managed to get stuck there.
There's something gelatinous about him, like if you were to get close enough to poke him with a stick, he'd liquefy into a carcass of wet, shivering meat. Maybe it has to do with the weird pallor to his skin, sallow and pancreatic. Or how his face is crisscrossed with deep-set wrinkles, yet is strangely smooth, too. And his eyes, set too deeply into his skull, punctuated by the bulbous bags he carries beneath them, forever evaded by sleep.
"Last time I saw you…" he's sitting on the very edge of the couch, hands on his knees, excited. His eyes are lit up. Yellow. Almost reptilian. "You were down on your knees. In front of me. Do you remember?"
Batman tells him that Jervis had used one of his mind control devices on him, that Jervis had ordered the Joker to kill Batman. Batman tells the Joker he had almost succeeded.
The Joker has no recollection of this. He only remembers afterwards, when he had come for Jervis with a tire iron. Jervis would be dead now, if it weren't for Batman.
He pretends to think. "Hm," he says, "Doesn't ring any bells. Maybe you remember lying belly up on the pavement, taking the beating of your life?"
"I remember," he says, giddy—smug, for some reason.
The Joker's mouth thins into a straight line, and he exhales through his nose. It's like talking to a child.
He returns his gaze back to Oswald. If he looks at this nursery rhyme freak for one second longer he's going to snap like a bungee cord.
"The reason you both are here," Oswald says, redirecting the conversation, "is because we aim to accomplish the same goal."
The Joker stares. "And what goal is that?"
"We all know Batman's new little toy has been a bit of a… problem."
"Robin? The 'Boy Wonder'?" the Joker asks incredulously.
"Nightwing," Jervis interjects.
The Joker slowly cranes his neck to look at him. Annoyed. "Different name. Same kid."
'Boy Wonder' was the name christened to him by all the least reputable tabloids. 'Robin' is what he had wanted to be called—or perhaps that was just the name Batman had chosen for him—but he supposed that all changed when the kid got his ass handed to him by Two-Face. Time to man up after that. Recreate his identity. Solicit himself as something better. Stronger. Something that could be taken seriously. He reemerged with a new name and a new suit.
He turns back to Oswald, works his mouth. "I don't see the problem."
Oswald smirks a little. "You wouldn't, would you? Since you're so busy chasing after Batman."
"Then enlighten me," he growls. "Nightwing is a distraction. He's the hors d'oeuvre before the main course. He doesn't matter."
"Nightwing is more of a threat than you think. He has infiltrated several of our operations along various fronts. He's crippled us from even attempting to make another move. He's been… very, very bad for business."
The Joker's eyes glimmer dangerously. "Then do, pray tell, edify me on what your big bad plan is. And you better explain it to me in under ten seconds because I'm already bored." He shifts closer, cocking his head at an angle that should be unnatural. "You won't like me when I'm bored."
"That's where I come in," Jervis says, still perched on the edge of the couch, sitting up a little straighter, as if he's been waiting for this exact moment to hatch his evil master plan. Both men turn to look at him. "Mind control," he says, grinning. "If we can't kill him, we control him. I get the little bird off my back, and you get to hit Batman where it hurts."
The Joker rolls his eyes skyward, squinting. The cogs are turning now. "You want me to kill him."
Jervis narrows his eyes. "We want you to immobilize him."
He sees it now, his purpose in all of this. But not all of his questions have been answered.
"What's in it for you?" He looks at Oswald. He feels like he already knows.
He sees Jervis out of the corner of his eyes, folding in on himself a little, looking sheepish all the sudden.
Oswald clears his throat to redirect the Joker's attention. "Just consider me a liaison between two warring parties," he says, smiling thinly. The Joker glares at him, smells the lie right through his sharp, thin little teeth. There's sweat beading along his bald forehead. Oswald caves slightly, attempting to amend his earlier statement. "Let's just say Mr. Tetch and I share a common interest."
"And what interest is that?"
Oswald and Jervis share a look. "Mr. Tetch here supplies me with… clients."
"Oh," the Joker brightens, understanding now. "Aaaall the little girls and boys. That is naughty," he says.
"I've been testing my technology at Gotham Heights. It's nearly ready," Jervis says.
The Joker spins on him all the sudden. Very interested now. His jacket flaring around him, a flash of salmon pink silk. "How do you do it?"
Jervis stutters only for a moment at the sudden intensity, taken aback. "Do what?"
"Mind control." The Joker holds up his hands and fans out his fingers, as if to say, magic.
"Headbands. They emit the necessary gamma rays for as long as the victim is wearing it. And she won't want to take it off."
"Well," he says, knowingly, "that does narrow down the clientele a little bit, doesn't it?"
"Just giving the people what they want," Oswald interjects, leaning back with a pinched, sour little grin.
It's filthy, what they're doing. He's not particularly into the seedier components of these underground schemes—and it doesn't thrill him to be working along Tetch.
But the opportunity to take down Robin—Nightwing—play with Batman's little blue bird for a few hours, ruffle his feathers, or pluck them entirely, send him back home to Batman as a mere shell of the person he was before. It's too delicious to pass up.
He'll strip off his wings. Hollow him out.
Batman will come for him, then. He won't be able to stand it.
"I'm so glad we had this talk," he says. He steps away from Oswald's desk, has his back turned towards them as he stands in front of the window, his plan beautiful, even now, already beginning to take shape.
"It's important that you don't kill him," Jervis warns. "He's vital to the operation. He'll keep us on the inside, once I have him controlled. All you have to do is capture him."
The Joker doesn't say anything.
"You know," Jervis continues on, and the Joker can tell he's about to say something smug. Something he is going to regret. "You may have seen some of my technologies already in use... I've been told you're in the vicinity of Gotham Heights quite a bit these days."
The Joker's shoulders tense, spine going rigid, but it's imperceptible to the naked eye. He turns slowly on his heel to face the room. He looks at Oswald first, who is trying to convey something to Jervis with subtle dilations of his pupils, perhaps a warning. Perhaps don't. And then the Joker turns his attention to Jervis, who is watching him closely, a deviant little smirk playing at the one corner of his mouth. The Joker wants to split his shit-eating grin all the way up to his ears.
"Don't know about that," he says, casual. He works his mouth a bit as he takes his time crossing the room, ambling behind the couch where Jervis sits, straight-backed and proper. When he's directly behind him, he rests his forearms against the back of the couch, leans down low to speak into Jervis's ear. Jervis turns his head just slight, just enough to have the Joker in his peripheral. "But y'know… think I do remember being on my knees… though, as I recall, it was still you who were looking up at me."
Jervis does the smartest thing he's done since the Joker got there, which is to keep his mouth shut. He holds the moment just a little longer, just enough to make Jervis really uncomfortable, and then he straightens to his full height.
Oswald studies him closely.
"Gent-tel-men," the Joker says, "I don't know about you—but I'm suddenly in the mood for scrambled eggs."
Taylor jolts awake sometime later, gasping. When she lifts her head from the seat, she whines at the sharp pain, the crick in her neck. The seatbelt has been digging a hard line into her cheek, and she reaches up to touch the indentation it left behind with the pads of her fingers.
Dusk, now, the sky gray blue, dusted with a thin blanket of wispy clouds. It's April, so it still gets a little cold at night, now that the sun is gone; only a cool, yellow sliver of it remains, stretched out along the edge of the horizon. She rubs her eyes with her fists and yawns, feeling the tight stretch of her throat, the skin tender and even more inflamed than before. She sits up in her seat a little, and that's when she feels it, something sticky and wet between her thighs.
She frowns, confused, and when she looks down, she is horrified to find that the seat beneath her is soaked with blood. Her jeans are saturated with it, and she gasps, trying to lift up some, but the seatbelt holds her back. For a second, she moves to unbuckle it, but then she remembers what Mr. J had said. She twists around in her seat instead, looking for him, wondering how many hours have passed.
She whines and reaches out for the door for support when a painful cramp tears through her lower belly. She bites down on her lip and nearly folds in half at the sensation.
Hadn't she overhead Shelby Harris talking about something like this in PE once, in the locker room after dodgeball? The cramping, the bleeding from her vagina, how that meant she was a "woman" now? Or all of Meredith's pads and tampons she kept hidden beneath the bathroom sink? That's what those were for, right?
She doesn't know what to do. They haven't covered this chapter in her health class yet. No one's ever explained this to her before. How long is it supposed to last? When does the blood stop? Does it always hurt this bad? Should she go to the hospital?
Waiting for Mr. J to return is agony. The cramps are getting worse. She thinks maybe lying on her belly might help, but she doesn't dare unbuckle her seatbelt to test that theory.
She tries not to panic, but the blood is so sticky and warm, and it just keeps coming. She knows she's ruined his seats. Her jeans. She's terrified of how Mr. J will respond.
It's dark now. She really has to pee, the pressure in her bladder starting to make her squirm. Did Mr. J forget about her? What could he possibly be doing that is taking so long? What if—
The driver's side door rips open suddenly. She swallows as the light comes on, too bright, and then not Mr. J—the Joker—coming into view, the shock of his painted face as he dips his head low to look at her in the backseat, his hands braced against the top of the car as he stares at her.
She squirms, her thighs rubbing together where they're tacky with hours-worth of dried blood. She awkwardly folds her hands over her lap, but there is no hiding the shame of crimson that has bloomed around her.
"Mr. J," she whimpers, starting on an apology that never actually comes.
"My, my," he says. Her face heats up when his gaze slides to her crotch and stays there. "What a mess you've made."
He finally looks at her, and she bites her lip and sniffles, trying not to cry.
"I'm sorry," she blurts. "I didn't—I don't—" She watches him slide into the driver's seat. Close the door. He's still looking at her. "I want to go home," she whines. She's never been so embarrassed in her whole life. She folds her arms across her stomach and hugs herself. "I didn't mean to," she finishes.
He starts the car. Turns around to look down into her lap again. She watches the way he tongues at his lower lip for a moment, like he's deep in thought—and then his eyes are back over the dashboard.
"I know you didn't, sweetheart."
There's no tenderness to it, just a frenzied, distracted lilt to his voice, like he's on the edge of some other thought entirely. She doesn't know whether or not she should be relieved.
The drive home is quiet. She wonders what he's thinking about. If he's forgotten about her disobeying him. Her punishment.
They pull in. He turns off the car, and the overhead light falls away after a moment, and they're submerged in darkness. Taylor stills. She doesn't know if it's okay to unbuckle her seatbelt or not. She waits for some sort of sign. An indication. Then he's opening the door and getting out, and before she knows it, he's yanking open hers, holding it open with a flourish, as if to say, after you. It's so dark, she can barely see him. He waits for her to step out and then closes the door behind her.
Her legs cramp painfully after having sat in the same position for so many hours. Her thighs and lower back ache. The pain in her lower belly stubbornly persists.
She's glad it's so dark. Hopefully he can't see the evidence of her shame. She waits for him to unlock the door, and as soon as it's open, she's running to the bathroom before the lights are even on. Slams the door behind her. Locks it. Kicks off her shoes, peels down her jeans. Her underwear is completely soaked. She stuffs it in the trash beneath the sink along with her jeans. They're of no use to her now.
She climbs into the shower before it's even hot and furiously scrubs all the blood from in between her thighs, even as clumpy, maroon globs of it slip out of her as the water rains down from overhead. She watches it slide down the yellowed floor of the tub and into the drain.
She gets out. Wraps herself in a towel, tucking it beneath her armpits. Steam pours out of the bathroom when she opens the door, but everything is dark. The door to Mr. J's bedroom is closed. There is no light peeking out from beneath the door.
She puts on a fresh pair of underwear, stuffs a carefully folded wad of toilet paper in the seat of her underwear. Hopefully that'll be enough.
In her room, she sees a glass of water. Can't remember if it was from the night before or not. It tastes stale, but she drinks it down. Turns off the light and lies down. Tries to sleep, but it won't come. Her cramps feel worse now that it's dark and there's nothing to distract her from them. She stares into the empty blackness of her room as another wave of pain pulses through her belly. She curls in on herself and tries not to cry.
It's too much. She slips out of bed and pads to Mr. J's room. She pushes open his door and it slowly creaks open, a familiar cry. A streetlamp shines through one of the windows in the living room, and it paints a white path for her along the carpet as she goes to him, slipping into the empty space beside him, on top of the covers.
She doesn't usually wake him. She wouldn't dare exercise the risk of spoiling the moment—the special privilege of being this close to him, existing in this shared space, breaking the spell that this moment always casts, the illusion of intimacy.
But this time she does wake him, touching his back, and then grabbing his shoulder and shaking him a little when he doesn't respond. He stirs then, and she wets her lips, suddenly finding it hard to speak.
"Mr. J, it hurts," she whines. She keeps her voice low, just a whisper. "Is it supposed to hurt this much?"
He surprises her by rolling towards her, pushing her onto her other side so that she is facing away from him. For a moment, she is terrified, thinking he's going to put a pillow over her face and suffocate her, or squeeze her until her ribs crack one by one, punching sharp holes into her soft lungs. But then he is pulling her back against him, his arm reaching over her waist, and she feels him press a big, warm hand over her belly, splaying it out, and the pressure is nice. Comforting. It ebbs the pain.
"Go to sleep," he murmurs. He nuzzles into her neck with his nose, releasing a heavy exhale, all wet, warm breath, and Taylor hardly dares to breathe. This can't be real, can it?
The pressure of his hand splayed against her abdomen doesn't let up, and it takes a long time, but eventually she does relax against him, going boneless, allowing all the tension of the day that had coiled up so tight inside her to finally unwind. Her head feels so heavy on the pillow, and her eyelids begin to flutter. Mr. J is warm and solid behind her, where she feels every part of him; she almost thinks she can feel his heartbeat against her back, but maybe she imagines it.
She wakes to an empty bed—as she usually does. She sits up and yawns, open-mouthed, stretching her arms over head. From the double window above the bed, sunlight streams in through the open slats in the blinds, pale and warm, and the rays catch on all the lingering dust particles floating in the air. She hasn't slept that well in a long time, she thinks. Maybe it was the stress of the day, or her period—but she thinks it's Mr. J and the warm hand he had pressed against her belly, the way he had curled himself around her, fit their bodies together—something that, before, she had only ever dreamed about.
At some point during the night, she must have crawled under the covers. She pushes them off her now, and is horrified to discover the dried pool of red soaked into the white sheets. Her pajama shorts are ruined, too. She swallows—embarrassed, afraid—wondering if Mr. J had noticed, if he'll be mad to know that she's ruined not only the backseat of his car, but now his mattress.
She starts to swing her legs over the side of the bed, scooting towards the edge of the mattress, but is suddenly drawn to a pause.
There are bloody fingerprints dotted all along Mr. J's side of the bed.
She frowns, confused. She looks down at her own hands, flipping them over in her lap, where her fingertips are pale and clean.
Had he accidentally pressed his hands into the bloody pool that had bloomed around her? Maybe when he was getting up? That had to be it… right?
She swallows, looking up, craning her neck a little, trying to see through the open crack in the doorway, knowing he'll be out there. Waiting for her.
She looks down at the fingerprints again, touches them—slowly—trails over the bloodied marks with the tips her own fingers.
She doesn't wonder about the other possibility.
He didn't.
He wouldn't.
The blood reminds her of Nathan. The killing. It reminds her of being raped in the back of his car. All that blood, sliding down her thighs, sticky and then caked there at the end of it. How she had to scrub and scrub to get it all off her. And then after, the dawning realization that Mr. J had known. That he had planned it. That he had wanted it. It still sickens her. She'd be lying if she said it didn't. But she trusts him. She trusts him.
Doesn't she?
The rapid rise and fall of her chest hurts, suddenly.
She gets up. Strips off the sheets with a bit more force than necessary, like it's a race, like she has to destroy the evidence of what might have been. When she turns around, blankets and sheets bunched in her arms, he is there, in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his legs crossed at the ankles. Arms folded against his chest. Watching her.
"Morning," he drawls, nice and slow. Taylor avoids his dark, penetrating gaze.
She mumbles a hurried 'good morning' back to him, and then hopes he doesn't see that her hands are shaking as she squeezes past him in the doorway.
She knows he cranes his head to look at her from over his shoulder. She can feel the scalding heat of his eyes on her back. But she doesn't catch his dangerous smirk.
"You know, for a clown, you aren't very funny."
It's a couple of weeks later. The night is warm. They're on a rooftop somewhere, stars blotted out by smog and thick clouds, and Nightwing is perched high up, some ten or fifteen feet above him on an elevated fire escape. The Joker is about to detonate a bomb—or is at least pretending to.
He grins.
"Shouldn't you be, uh, heading on home now, little bird? Isn't it past your bedtime?"
"I know you're working with Mad Hatter," he says.
Ah. Straight to the point then. Just like Batman. He can play that game, too.
"Do you?" the Joker challenges, dangerously. "And does daddy know you're out here so late, all by yourself?"
He can tell from the boy's delayed response that Batman doesn't know, and that Nightwing snuck out here all by his lonesome. His plot to draw him out had worked. Everything is all going according to plan—and Cobblepot will keep the big bad Bat away as previously discussed.
"He won't come, you know," Nightwing says. "He knows I can handle myself."
No. He won't come—but not for that reason.
"Can you?"
Nightwing narrows his eyes. "He hates you. He said you you're delusional, that you think he needs you. He doesn't."
The jealousy radiating off him is delicious, he can almost taste it. This is even better than he had planned. He tongues at his lower lip, leans in a bit, looking up at him, eyes glimmering even in the darkness.
"I bet he makes you feel needed though, doesn't he? Lined you up, picked you out of the pack himself. Made you feel special. Batman's good at making you feel special. Wanted. But you're nobody to him. When you die—and you will die—he'll move on to finding the next Boy Wonder! It'll be like you were never even here. You're replaceable." He stands back a bit. "How does that make you feel?"
Nightwing flips down from the fire escape, landing on the concrete with a smooth somersault. The Joker smiles at this display of athleticism. Even Batman isn't this graceful and smooth. This is someone with extensive training—perhaps from birth. Nightwing rests on his haunches several feet away. Always ready to move quickly. The boy's smart enough to know he should keep his distance, the Joker will give him that.
"Do you always run your mouth like that when you talk to strangers?"
The Joker smiles. Advancing on him. "Now, I'd hardly call us strangers, little bird. Mommy and daddy have been playing together for a long, long time."
"Ugh. Does that make you my mother?"
The Joker stops. "If I were your mother I'd be sending a brat like you off to boarding school before you could even blink."
Nightwing chuckles. "Okay, so you're a little funny," he amends.
"I'm can be downright hilarious once you get to know me. Why don't you come a little closer? I'll show you."
"I'm good from here, thanks," Nightwing says. He shifts a little, watching the Joker carefully. There's still plenty of distance between them. The Joker just needs him a little bit closer. "You're wrong about him, you know. He's not—using me."
The Joker cocks his head. "Maybe. But you're only as useful as he allows you to be. He keeps you on a tight leash, doesn't he? Must be hard for you. You're a big strong boy, but he has a hard time letting you out of the cage at night, huh?" He tsks. "He must not trust you enough."
"Batman does trust me."
The Joker shrugs. He starts a slow circle around him. "You lied about being here tonight, didn't you? You're certainly not gaining any points with him that way…."
Nightwing shifts so his back isn't to him. "What are you trying to say?"
"Maybe Batman does trust you—but just not enough. Maybe he's still testing the waters. But you'll do something to break his trust before he can award it to you fully. You'll crush him. Aaaaand…."
Nightwing shakes his head as if to say, "Yeah, and?"
"You'll be nobody after that. Stripped of your purpose, your wings. Batman always throws out his old toys," he grins. "Y'know…" he circles a little closer, "when I killed your brother—Jason—Batman wouldn't even avenge him. He did nothing. Nothing to me."
Nightwing stands, drawn to his full height at the Joker's provocation. He looks unsettled, unsure for the first time.
There we go.
"What are you talking about? I don't have a brother."
"Oh, you don't know about that timeline yet, do you? That's okay," he smirks. Eyes dark. "You will."
Nightwing stares at him like he's grown a second head. He swallows, some of his earlier bravado gone now. "You're even crazier than I thought. Just like he said."
There's a moving billboard behind him, and it bathes them both in red for a moment. "Batman knows I'm not crazy. That's why he can't put me down!" He's closer now. He stops in front of him. "Can you put me down?" he probes, cocking his head. "Will you? You'll wonder about it if you don't, when I kill Jason. You'll punish yourself, if I only I had killed the Joker when I had the chance. It'll plague you for the rest of your life." The billboard flashes dark blue behind him. The wind picks up, too, tousling Nightwing's jet black hair. "You'd be doing Batman a favor. You could do what Batman can't."
"Won't," Nightwing corrects. "What Batman won't." The Joker shrugs in lieu of a reply. "I'm not going to kill you," Nightwing says. But he's reaching for escrima sticks. Conversation over with. He finally steps closer, full of intent, purpose behind his eyes, in his gate, and the Joker grins.
Finally.
"No—but I'm going to kill you."
One week later…
Taylor gets out of school at half past two.
It's a half day for them, and she's glad to be out early. It's a bright, clear day. The sky is eggshell blue, unmarred by clouds. It's a little cool, but the sun is warm. Some of the trees are starting to bud, too. The dogwoods along the edges of the baseball field are already in full bloom. The white flowers are pretty, but they stink, and the smell is easily carried by the wind, eye-watering and potent, like fresh dog crap. She always tries to hold her breath when she catches a whiff of them.
Before long, it'll be summer. She wonders what she and Mr. J will do together during summer break. Maybe they can go somewhere fun, like a waterpark or something. There's one in Sparta she's heard everyone talking about, Splash Zone or something. She wonders if he'd take her there. Or maybe the zoo. She's never been to the zoo before.
There are massive stone steps leading up to the front of the school, and she skips down them, feeling happy. It's the weekend. She can sleep in tomorrow. And she's going to cook dinner for Mr. J tonight. She can't wait to go home and get started. She bought pancake mix—the name brand kind that comes in the big yellow box—and milk and eggs and butter. She's been saving up her allowance for a long time, carefully counting all the bills that Mr. J gives her, keeping them tucked safely beneath the mattress—not that she thinks he'd take them from her, but old habits and all that.
She yawns at the bottom of the stairs, where the staircase fans out and becomes wider at the bottom. Maybe a nap first, though. The spring time weather makes her tired, and all the pollen makes her throat and eyes itch. She might have the beginnings of a cold. She sets her backpack on the ground and sits on the steps while she waits for the bus, rubs her eyes with both fists. When the black fuzzy dots have evaporated, she opens her eyes and is surprised to find a butterfly there, a beautiful one, a black swallowtail with dustings of yellow along the bottom line of its wings.
"Hey, little fella," she whispers. She holds out her index finger for him, offering a place of rest, and it does a curious thing then—it lands there.
Taylor's eyes widen in surprise.
She notices, then, that there is another one floating close by, above her head. And another one. And another one by the small trees lining the edge of the sidewalk. She looks around to see if anyone notices, but no one does.
The butterfly on her finger flutters away. Taylor slings her backpack over her shoulder and gets up to follow them, more and more butterflies coming into view. She wonders where they've all come from.
She follows them into the expanse of grass nearby, through the stoic, wrought-iron gates of Wayne Park, a massive grounds allocated to "rehabilitating the underprivileged youths". The idea for the park was that it would provide an alternative activity to crime, that it would cut down on gang membership and other sordid proclivities. There was a skate ramp and a playground and a pond with ducks, lots of little bridges and scenic walking paths.
Now kids mostly just meet there after school to sell drugs. Sometimes they fuck over in the East Side, beneath the dark, moist underbelly of the cobblestone bridge. And last summer they pulled up a body from the shaded depths of the pond, bloated and striped with algae. She was young. Pretty. She had been missing for half a year. They'd found her with barbed wire around her throat. Eyes gouged out.
Taylor follows the butterflies deeper into the park, winding along the natural curve of the path, where they guide her to a weeping willow, already well into bloom, a gorgeous cascade of green, like a soft waterfall. She dips her head underneath the leaves, steps into the shadows of the massive tree, and she sees there's a square, metal cage with netting along the inside, housing even more butterflies. Further still, a man sitting on a bench, tending to the butterflies who dance around him, and it's as if he controls them, some kind of master marionettist, only the strings are invisible. Taylor is entranced.
He looks up as if he had been expecting her. Smiles.
"Hello there."
Taylor balks a little. Shy. She's unsure if she should say something back, but she supposes it would be rude not to.
"Hello," she says, tentative.
"You can come closer," the man says. He's still smiling. "I won't bite."
Only people who bite ever say that, but she comes closer anyway.
She snags her bottom lip into her mouth with her teeth. She crosses her arms at first and then thinks that might make her look too scared, so she holds her hands in front of her instead, over her belly.
"Are those your butterflies?" she asks.
"Yes," the man says. He sounds excited. "Come see."
She does. She can't help it. It's as if she's being pulled to them on a string. She steps further inside the cocoon of the tree, where the butterflies dance and flutter all around her, playing in the drooping tree branches, so bright, even in the cool shadow the oversized tree casts. She cranes her neck to look up into the maze of gnarled branches above her, so thick she can barely see the sky. A finger of sunlight finds its way through, and the butterflies must like to feel its warmth on the backs of their wings because they keep floating around that solitary strip of it. Wings so thin and delicate they are nearly transparent. Taylor smiles.
When she lowers her gaze, the man is still looking at her. His smile has receded into a placid grin. Something coils in her lower belly, a slimy tendril of fear.
She sees him up close the first time now, and she is startled by his yellow eyes, the weird, bilious pallor of his skin. She frowns at his formal attire, his vest and plaid brown pants. His oversized trench shields the more particular details of his attire, the coat the color of old pond water—green, but almost brown—with lots of buckles and straps. His vest underneath is muddy green, and underneath that she thinks his shirt is dotted faintly with little flowers. It reminds her of the patterns seen on tea cups.
"What's your name?" he asks. He is sitting straight-backed on the edge of the bench. He has very good posture.
"Taylor."
"My, that is a pretty name. A pretty name for a pretty girl."
She shouldn't, but she flushes from the praise, her cheeks hot. She bites her lip and looks away. She should probably go.
"You know," the man says. "You look just like Alice, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Have you read it?"
She has read it. It was on her required reading list when she was in middle school. She didn't really like it though. It kind of scared her.
She nods, slowly. The man scoots slightly closer. He has short, stubby little hands tucked inside fingerless gloves, and there are several deep lines etched around his mouth when he smiles. His eyebrows are bushy and unkempt. Curly tufts of sand-colored hair poke out from beneath the rim of his hat.
"You know, if you had a blue dress, and a black headband, you'd look exactly like her."
"I would?"
"Well, you don't have Alice's blue eyes. But that can easily be fixed. You are delightful, after all."
"Oh… okay." She swallows. She doesn't like the way he is looking at her. "Well," she says, unsure why her hands feel so clammy all the sudden, "I should probably go home."
The man cocks his head at her. Frowns. "So soon?"
"My—my uncle will be angry with me if I'm not home in time—in time for dinner." She hates the way her tongue fumbles all over the words, like it can't find its footing. She averts her gaze, looking outside the dome of hanging branches—which suddenly feel suffocating—and searches for a familiar face, someone who she might call out to, someone who could rescue her.
There is no one.
"Oh, that is a shame. It's such a lovely day… I was going to invite you to my tea party."
A butterfly lands on Taylor's shoulder. She turns her neck to look at it, but it flutters away a second later.
"Your tea party?"
"Yes, I have one every spring, on a day just like this." She watches as he pulls a large pocket watch on a gold chain from the inside of his trousers. It's much larger than Mr. J's. It's gaudy. He doesn't look at it though, just dangles it in front of his face. Back and forth, back and forth it swings on the chain, like a pendulum. "Oh, and lots of people come," he goes on. "Why, you've never been to a party like it!" The man stands, and Taylor's eyebrows raise in surprise. They're almost the same height. "There are cookies and cakes and candies, all the sweets you could possibly desire."
Taylor shakes her head. She starts to back away. "I really should go."
He is advancing on her, slowly, like he has all the time in the world. Taylor feels the tickle of the willow leaves along the back of her thighs, brushing up against her backpack.
"Why don't you come? It's not far."
Looking at the pocket watch makes her feel funny, so she tries not to. But then suddenly she can't look away.
She shakes her head again, her forehead creased in panic. "Please, I—I can't," she whispers. She doesn't understand why she can't move all the sudden.
"Surely you can," the man says. He's reaching a hand into his trench coat as he comes closer, the pocket watch gone, and Taylor's heart thuds inside her ears. He pulls out something thin and black. U-shaped. "I just... want to see," he says. He stands in front of her now, and Taylor can't move. She tastes the sharp bite of sulfur on her tongue, the stench of frayed electrical wires emanating from his trench coat. She watches him with wide eyes, helpless, as he reaches up and places the headband on her. "There," he says, pleased. And then, in a lower voice, "My, you do look like Alice."
Something happens to her when he puts the headband on her. Her eyes flutter rapidly for a moment, and the world tilts, as if someone has taken it off its axis and rolled it onto its side. She feels heavy and light all at once. A giggle bubbles up insider her throat. Is this what it feels like to be drunk?
"I—I want to come to your tea party," she hears herself saying. She doesn't know where the thought comes from, or why she sounds so far away, like she's underwater. But she wants to go to the tea party. She wants it. She wants it.
"Well, of course you do!" the man says jovially. "And we better hurry. We don't want to be late!"
He goes. The butterflies forgotten.
She follows.
He tells her she's not dressed for a tea party. Of course she's not. She can't go to a tea party in jeans and a t-shirt. That'd be preposterous.
He urges her to lie down on the hard floor. It's dark and cold. A little musty. They are in a basement of some kind. She doesn't mind though. Mr. Hatter is cutting open her shirt. He tugs her jeans off. That's okay. She won't need those. She looks up at him as his calloused palms slide over her kneecaps.
"Doesn't that feel nice?" he asks.
Her lips part. "Yes."
He slides white stockings up each leg, and yes, that feels better. Black shoes next—Mary Janes—which he takes great care in buckling.
He slips something over her head. Helps her pull her arms through the sleeves. It's a blue dress with puff sleeves and a white apron. She giggles. Happy. He helps her onto her knees and then stands behind her, bending a little to button up the back for her. His sour breath curls over her spine. She doesn't mind. She doesn't mind.
"Now you're dressed for our tea party, Alice."
He grins, and she smiles back. She lets him lead her to a long, rectangular table covered in white linen. There are chairs neatly pushed in on both sides of the table. Every place setting is perfectly arranged. Tea cups and saucers and folded napkins at every setting. Steam wafts from the mouth of a floral tea pot. She sits at the head of the table, in a large cushioned chair that is different from all the rest. Mr. Hatter sits next to her on her left side, too close, but she doesn't mind. She doesn't mind.
"Would you like some tea, my dear Alice?"
"Yes. Yes, please."
He pours some in her tea cup. It doesn't smell like any tea she's ever had before. She hazards a small sip just to check the temperature. Burns her tongue. She winces, and the cup slips out of her hand in her shock. It shatters to the hard floor.
She jumps at the sound. For a second, she doesn't know where she is, or how she got there, but then Mr. Hatter is up and out of his chair, fretting over her spilled tea. She's gotten some on her dress.
"Sh, sh, that's quite alright," he says. He pats down her dress. Uses a napkin from the table to dab at the wet spot. Tenderly smooths out the wrinkles. His hands feel heavy on her thighs.
"I'm… I'm so clumsy," she says in lieu of an apology.
"Our dear Alice just needs a little help is all, isn't that right?"
"Yes."
She looks up to find Mr. Hatter's eyes on hers. He pours her another cup of tea and blows on it first to cool it. He brings the cup to her lips and helps her take a sip. And then another. And another. She feels the fingers of his free hand trailing along her throat as she swallows, as if he wants to follow the liquid all the way down her throat, into her belly.
"Let's feast now, shall we?"
They're outside now, in a grassy spot in the woods, surrounded by trees and wildflowers, a shower of green vines. The grass has grown up around the legs of the table, as if helping to root it in its place. The sky is the same blue as her dress. She looks up at the spotlight fixed on her—no, the sun—and basks in its warmth. She's still in her plush chair at the head of the table, which stretches on for as long as she can see. There is no end to it. The air smells sweet and thick. She closes her eyes and breathes it in.
When her eyes blink open, she gasps. There are sweets of every kind. Iced buttercream cookies, red velvet cupcakes shaped like mushrooms, little flags staked in the icing, crying, EAT ME!, EAT ME!, a colorful array of jelly beans spilled inside miniature teacups, and shortbread cookies shaped like playing cards, an eight of hearts, a queen of diamonds. So many jellies to choose from—orange, grape, and raspberry delight—she uses the corner of her cookie to scoop up some orange jam and takes a bite. The flavors burst over her tongue like an explosion of fireworks. Bowls of cherry-colored Jell-O, each topped with pretty whorls of whipped cream and a cherry with the stem sticking up. She plucks off a cherry and the gelatin wobbles, which makes her giggle. Strawberries coated in dark chocolate, dipped in sprinkles, arranged on sticks in a little vase like a bouquet of flowers. Frazzleberry lemonade that is fizzy and blue, like the color of the ocean at a tropical resort. Ropes of licorice that are pink and yellow and green. Chocolate coins coated in sprinkles. Hot fudge striped over caramel brownies. She's never seen so much decadence.
A cake with a clock's face that spills yellow cream when Mr. Hatter slices it open. She wants it.
"That one!" she points.
"Now, now, don't be greedy, Alice."
He scoops a slice onto a plate for her. When she goes to reach for it, he bats her hand away.
"I'll take care of that now," he says. He breaks off a chunk of the cake and feeds it to her, and then goes back to swipe two fingers through the yellow cream, offers them to her. She leans forward and eagerly sucks his fingers into her mouth.
"Do you like it, Alice?"
"Mm," she mumbles. He withdraws his fingers. "I do. I do."
"Yes, you do," he purrs. "You'd like to stay here forever, wouldn't you? Be a good Alice."
"Yes."
Something wet between her thighs now, his two fingers from before, pressing against the crotch of her underwear. She spreads her legs a little wider without even really meaning to. A sound escapes from her throat.
"Why are you—why are you doing that?" she asks.
"Because it feels nice. It does feel nice, doesn't it?"
She nods, but she is still unsure. The pressure increases, and she tilts her hips up to meet it.
"My dear Alice… why is a raven like a writing desk?"
"I—" He's still moving his fingers, just rubbing her, up and down with his middle finger. It's maddeningly slow. "I—I don't know."
"Of course you don't," he giggles. "Nobody does!"
She wants him to take off her underwear—but she doesn't know where that thought comes from. Or why. She whines, chasing after some dormant sensation she's never felt before.
"You are lovely," he sighs, shifting closer, using his other hand to thumb at her chin, then tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
She meets his eyes, says, please, but doesn't know what she's asking for.
"My, oh my," a voice says—not Mr. Hatter's—that cuts sharply through the fog. She opens her eyes and the basement flashes along her peripheral, blurry and dark, and then she's in the woods again, but it doesn't feel right. The sun is gone, and the sky is grey and hard, like cement. "Would you look at this spread."
That's Mr. J's voice. She feels happiness—relief—but it fades just as quickly as it had come, and she realizes she doesn't want him here. She doesn't know why she doesn't, but she knows he doesn't belong here. He isn't supposed to be here.
She watches him saunter closer to their table. She is afraid he is going to eat all of her sweets. These are hers. And Mr. Hatter's. She doesn't want to share. These are for her.
She gasps and shifts, squeezing the arm rests of the chair. Pressure inside her now, a thick finger, her underwear pushed out of the way. It takes her breath away.
Mr. J pauses. "Jervis," he says, dangerous, low, "I am a little tired of you always playing with my toys."
"Oh, but it is a shame not to share. She's just delicious—ripe for the taking. Tight, too." He redirects his attention back to her. She looks up at him helplessly. Squirming. "Does that feel good, Alice?"
"Y—yes," she nods, panting. She doesn't want him to stop. She should be embarrassed, but she isn't.
There are men emerging from the shadows. Her vision flickers back and forth between the basement and the woods. None of it makes sense. How can she be in one place one second and then in another place the next?
Men in clown masks begin to surround the table. Mr. J is advancing, too. The pressure inside her is removed suddenly. Mr. Hatter's hand slips out from beneath her dress. She goes to speak, but a voice in her head tells her not to.
"You always spoil the fun, don't you, Joker?"
"Me?" he says, with exaggerated incredulity. "I'm just here to join the party. Seems my invitation must have gotten lost in the mail."
"Not lost," Jervis replies. "Never sent," he growls. He is shaking with his fury, angry at having been interrupted. He points a thick finger in the Joker's direction. "I told you not to kill him."
The Joker tongues at the corner of his mouth for a moment. Choosing his words carefully. "The little blue bird is alive and well, as I remember—"
"But you tried. And he got away. Now we have nothing," he snarls. His mouth moves rapidly, his nose scrunching and unscrunching, some sort of angry tick, rabbit-like. "You should be glad I got to her first," he says, "the things Oswald had planned for her—"
"Mr. Hatter," Taylor interrupts, tugging on his sleeve. "I want to play, like we were before. I want to go back to Wonderland."
Jervis smiles down at her, affectionate. "I know you do, my dear Alice." He pets her hair, careful not to disrupt the headband.
The Joker narrows his eyes. He can taste the way his blood boils inside him, all hot and nasty. His mouth thins into a straight line, and he stares at her. She's looking at him as if she's afraid of him. As if she doesn't know him.
"You know," Jervis continues, rounds to the back of her chair, so he's standing behind her. "You're already too late. Even without the headband, the compound will have rubbed off onto her hair follicles. It only takes a few hours to go into effect. It will have penetrated her mind. Ruined it. You will have nothing—just like I had nothing." He circles to her other side, bending down to murmur in her ear, "Have I ruined you for him, little Alice?"
Taylor nods quickly. "Yes."
Jervis grins from beside her, and the Joker's lip curls into a snarl. The knife is soaring out of his hand before he even realizes he has reached for it. It connects solidly in the pudgy flesh of Jervis's gut, but it's deep. Hopefully he will have punctured the lower lobe of his left lung. Jervis staggers back just as a rain of gunfire comes down from overhead.
The Joker lunges for Taylor and shoves her to the floor beneath the table, shielding her with his own massive bulk. She squirms underneath him, trying to fight him, even then, belly down on the concrete, and he lifts himself off her just enough to rip off the headband, where he sends it skidding across the floor.
His men meet the gunfire head-on, even if they are at the disadvantage being on the ground. He cranes his neck to watch Jervis stagger away, out of the line of gunfire, escaping down a series of hidden steps. The Joker growls.
He's going to kill him for this. He's going to make him wish he was never born. He's going to skin him alive and then feed his own flesh to him, then he's going to flay the muscle, one thin strip after another, and feed that to him, too. He's going to snap his tendons. Bleed his veins dry. Then he's going to leave his stinking carcass out to rot and gift it to Batman on a fucking platter.
The Joker drags her along with him beneath the table until they reach the end. It's easy enough to slip out amidst the fray, carrying her into the night while the gunfire bleeds on behind them. He forces her into the back of the van, even as she's screaming. She tries to claw at him. Her fingers almost get stuck in the door when he slams it shut.
"I want to go back. I want to go back!" Tears are streaming down her face. She sobs uncontrollably, beating on the window with her fists. He grips the wheel with both hands and tears through dark streets with one purpose in mind.
He gets her inside, kicking and screaming. He's never seen her put up this much of a fight. He crowds her into the bathroom. Locks the door. She's fighting him, sobbing, and he bends her over the lip of the bathtub, forcing her head under the faucet. He slams the nozzle up. The water's ice cold, but it might be better that way. He shoves her head beneath the freezing water, and she rears up, but he forces her down with his weight on her back. His large hand cupping the back of her skull. Holding her down. He works quickly—scrapes his gloved hands through her hair, focusing on her scalp. He scrubs her hair hard. He'll fucking shave it all off if he has to.
She's still crying. "Stop—stop." He can hear her choking on the water, but he doesn't let up. He won't until he's done.
She's shivering uncontrollably by the time he finishes. He shuts off the water. It's quiet, now, save for their breathing, and the drip, drip, drip of her hair. The leaking faucet. They're both soaked. She's still bent over the edge of the tub when he removes his weight. It's like she's paralyzed. She rests her head on the cool floor of the shower, eyes glazed, staring at nothing.
He flicks open his switchblade and cuts open the back of her dress from top to bottom. He doesn't know what chemicals might be on it. Buttons skitter over the bathroom tile in his haste. She whimpers when he peels off the stockings, one leg at a time. The shoes. He strips off her underwear because Jervis had touched it. And then he pauses to look at her, bent over like this, naked and shivering, and thinks about Jervis touching her. The sounds she made. The way her legs were spread for him. Thinks about how long it might have gone on for before he got there. What else Jervis might have done. What other parts of her he might have touched.
His hands clench into fists. His vision is so white with anger he can barely see her.
"I want to go back," she whines.
He cocoons her in a towel. The fight has died out of her, and she's too weak to stand. He should make her vomit the hallucinogen Jervis made her drink, but she'd probably just choke on it on the way back up.
He puts her in his bed. He shouldn't. He pulls a t-shirt over her head, thinks maybe the smell of something familiar will help. He pulls the covers up over her because she's still shivering.
"I want to go back," she says again. He kneels at the side of the bed, where she is turned to face him, but it's like she doesn't really see him, like she's looking right through him. He watches a tear slide slowly down her cheek and sink into the pillow. His jaw clenches, involuntary, and he wants to reach down inside her skull and rip out all the gray matter Jervis infected and burn it.
"No, you don't," he says.
He gets up. Paces at the foot of the bed for a long time. The light from the kitchen pours in through the open door, but he keeps to the darkness, looking up sharply at every heavy exhale, every twitch, every little stir.
He finally sits in the cushioned chair in the corner—she likes to curl up here sometimes and draw.
He thinks that he should get boxes. Pack. They'll have to leave after this. Find someplace else. Jervis will want to get his hands on her again. He'll want to consummate their relationship. Finish her.
He turns his head to look at her, asleep in his bed, and his hatred for her blooms so deeply inside him it's like the roots for it have always been there, like he was born with them, like he was born hating her. Roots buried so deep they existed even before she did, birthed in fetid soil, thriving in the dark earth. Roots that, now, have tethered themselves to all the intrinsic parts of him, the caverns of his heart, his lungs, the interior vessel of his veins, wound around his sockets and joints. Hatred he can't get rid of.
He hates her for following him. Fucking hates her for her flagrant disobedience. Jervis had left their meeting before he had. Had he seen her in the back of the car? Had he made her roll down the window? Had he spoken to her? And then, what Jervis had said earlier, about seeing him in Gotham Heights—the Joker knew in that moment that Jervis had known about her, only he had not realized to what extent.
He hates her, he bleeds repulsion, and yet, there is satisfaction—power—in knowing he touched her first. He put his hands there before Jervis did.
Taylor wakes sometime later, shooting straight up in bed, gasping. It's still dark.
"Mr. J—Mr. J!"
Relief floods through him, an unusual sensation. He gets up and goes to her.
"Where am I?" she pants.
He doesn't turn on a light. Kneels on one knee next to the bed. "You're right here. With me. It was just a bad dream."
"But I—it was—it was just a dream?"
"Just a dream."
She's still panting, trying to catch her breath. "No, no, it felt so real." He can tell she's on the verge of crying, starting to hyperventilate, and he reaches for her at the same time she reaches for him, her hand curling around his wrist, his hand gripping her forearm.
"It wasn't real," he says. It's important he feeds that lie to her, that she understands that this was something concocted by her own mind. She cannot see this as a failure on his part to keep her safe. She'll slip away him, she won't trust him anymore. She'll start looking somewhere else for the things only he can give her.
She shudders out a breath. He can feel the goose bumps prickling over her skin.
"I feel sick," she whimpers. He gets up to get her a glass of water, and she guzzles the whole thing in one go. Afterwards, he takes the cup from her. Gently pushes her back down against the pillows. She stares up at him in the darkness.
"Go to sleep. You won't remember in the morning."
"Mr. J?"
"Hm?"
"Don't let anything bad happen to me," she whispers. "I… I need you."
The painfully honest admission is for night only. He knows this is something she could never voice to him in daylight hours, and he savors this truth, in hearing her verbalize it without his prompting.
He moves closer, rests his hands on either side of her head and leans down over her. Their eyes meet in the darkness. He feels enabled. Revived.
"I know you do."
Author's Notes: Prompt fill for this chapter was "butterfly in a jar"—the butterflies weren't exactly in a jar, but I hope this will suffice?
This is my first time writing Jervis Tetch. Trying to insert him into the Nolanverse was a difficult albeit exciting challenge. I hope I did him justice and managed to bring something new to the character you hadn't seen before. He's a creepy bastard, yeah?
This story is partially adapted from Robin: Year One, where the Mad Hatter's plot to abduct and sell children into slavery is foiled by Dick Grayson. Dick Grayson is practically a baby here—even if he's already adopted the Nightwing moniker. I just imagine the "Robin" thing wouldn't have lasted very long in Nolanverse, and he wouldn't have been taken seriously with a name and costume like that.
As always, thank you so much for your continued support and your ideas. I wouldn't be here without you.