back of the van shivering as the Joker pounded against it to signal his driver to start moving. It was just him and I back there. Alone. Again.

"Lucy, Lucy, Lucy" he sang, sitting against the side of the van across from me, "Aren't you just a magnet for violence!"

"Why do you keep helping me?"

"Were you expecting batboy?"

He laughed in a high pitched tone as he moved closer to me, his yellow teeth shining between his red coated lips.

"Unless I'm a part of an elaborate scheme, it wouldn't be too farfetched to say that you were a little obsessed with me..."

He grinned. I didn't like that.

"Listen Luce. Why are you so stuck in this victimizing persona? Why are you playing by their rules?"

"Why should I play by your rules?"

"Exactly!" he exclaimed.

I looked away, but fell forward onto him as the van jolted. He caught me with his hands, continuing to speak, unphased.

"Ever since Batman's been gone this city thinks it can just put itself back together. No no no no..." I pushed myself away, feeling pings of embarrassment as I collected myself.

"Things have changed around here, toots... Just look at me. You at YOU! Look at this new Batman wannabe!"

He was really pushing a lot of my buttons, but I kept my mouth shut.

"I dont scheme, Lucy. I don't plan. Don't flatter yourself. What I see in you is just a beautiful woman with great potential... to help introduce a little bit of chaos into this city."

"Why the hell would I wanna do that?"

"Chaos is fair, Lucy. It doesn't have any rules. You don't run from it. It finds you. Why? Because no matter how much society tries to live by some made up set of rules... it always comes full circle. No one seems to get the bigger picture!... I'm a man ahead of the times, you see... and I know you're right on the verge of seeing it too... you just need a little... taste of it."

"We have a lot in common, Joker. But destroying Gotham is not one of those things."

"Oh... you're thinking too big. No no... all it takes is pulling a few bricks from the foundation. You'll see Luce. In time you'll see. Then things will start to make sense."

I looked at him, challenging his gaze. Dark eyes like an endlessly deep lagoon. I was trying my best to see the human in them - that boy that I saw in his memories.

I finally put my hands in my head. He was by my side as quickly as I had left his. One arm around me.

"Alright so here's the deal. Some big things are about to happen in Gotham. You're a walking stick of dynamite around here… and I just love that. But for right now, stay with your boyfriend-"

"He's not my boyfriend!" I heard myself protest. He threw his hands up in the air.

"Didn't mean to offend," he said. I looked down, frustrated that I was trapped in the back of a van with a man who was constantly finding ways to get under my skin. But I could tell we were heading in the direction of Wayne Manor. Through the rhythmic bumps we hit along the bridge, I knew he was taking me home.

"Did I ever tell you how I got my scars?

"No, but I have a good idea."

"Always full of surprises" he said in a low voice that made my spine tingle.

The car came to a halt and the doors flew open. Before I could protest, the driver pulled me out and onto the road. We were about 100 yards from Wayne Manor.

"Don't forget what I told you. Be a good girl. Stay here and enjoy the show." he said, laughing hysterically. The van doors slammed shut.

As the van lights faded into the distance, I was left in the dark, with a lot of conflicting feelings and unanswered questions.


Walking back to the Manor it was almost two o'clock. I cursed as I remembered the bike I had borrowed was now a burning pile of metal. I had no idea what I was going to tell John and Alfred.

Before I could even enter the side door, John opened it, pulling me inside. He was livid.

"Where have you been!?" John said. He shook me with a force I wasn't used to.

"John, You're hurting me!" I said, stepping back as he released me.

"You weren't answering your phone and Alfred said he saw you take off with a

bike. Where were you going? This late at night you could have been kinapped. Or worse, killed!"

"I thought you were trying to help me take care of myself. Can't I do that?"

"Yeah, I'm trying to help you. I know you can handle yourself. But running back into the Narrows alone isn't what I had in mind."

I stood in shock... how had he known I had been to the Narrows?

"Look...I'm sorry, Lucy… you are your own person. I just couldn't bare it if

something happened to you."

I placed a hand on his cheek absentmindedly and got a fresh new set of uncomfortable memories.

He knew I'd be at the docks, of course. He had witnessed my meeting with the Penguin and his

men, saw the explosion… the Joker leading me into the van. Following the van back on his bike, he waited until the van had dropped me off before heading back to the Mansion.

He knew everything. Everything. But he was hiding his feelings below the surface... Rager. Anger. Jealousy. Defeat. He could fool anyone else, but he couldn't fool me. I could see right through him.

Maybe now was a good time to tell him about my gift. About the whole situation.

He took my hand and pulled me close to him.

"I'm sorry Lucy, I'm here for you. I didn't mean to hurt you, I was just so worried. If you ever want to tell me anything, I won't judge you. We all have our demons."

I looked up at him, releasing myself from the embrace.

"I do want to tell you something about myself," I whispered. It was time. As much as I didn't want to bring up my past, it was surfacing whether or not I wanted it to.


We were sitting in the dimly lit kitchen.

John handed me a cup of tea and his jacket was wrapped tightly around me. Before I could begin, he spoke first.

"Before you start, I want you to know that I know you know about me... It explains why you've been following me at night. I also know about your meeting with the Penguin and your gifts... but I'm not upset. Like I said, I care about you, Lucy. I want you to know you can trust me as much as I trust you."

I nodded and let him put his hand on mine. I could feel he was being genuine, stifling a tear before I began.

"What I'm about to tell you… will help explain why I've been running. Why I guess I've been attracting all this attention...

When I was little, I realized my mother and I shared a special bond. She would touch me and I could hear her thoughts. She'd speak to me without having to speak aloud. I noticed that she never used this gift with anyone else and that eventually it wasn't something everyone could do.

After a while I began to develop the power as well. We called it the insight. When I touched someone, I could look into that person's life - whether it be memories, thoughts, feelings… I could never control what I saw, but I always saw or felt something.

When I was around 10 or 11, that's when I started to notice that something was wrong. I had never known my parents to be loving and affectionate. My mother would take care of my father and live by his rules. I would wonder how they came to love each other. She didn't fit into the world of the mob. Neither did I. As years went by, I learned to hide my gift as my mother did. But I felt like a reject at my private school. None of the children dared bully me because of my father, but they never went out of their way to make friends with me. Most of the time I was alone with my thoughts, and used art to ward off the loneliness.

In time, my father would start to abuse my mother. He would beat her, call her names, tell her she was a worthless freak. She would avoid touching me to shield me from her pain... but puberty seemed to heighten my gifts. In many ways I surpassed my mother's gifts. As much as she tried to hide it from me, she knew that eventually she would be murdered by my father.

One night when I was 16, she came into my room. It was mid January and it had been sleeting since morning. I was lying in bed looking out the window, watching the freezing rain collect and fall slowly down the glass. She sat quietly next to me and I knew what was coming next.

"Mommy is leaving tonight. And honey, you can't come with me this time." I wish I had been surprised. I wish I didn't know why. She touched my hand and I felt such a mixture of love and sorrow that tears immediately ran down my cheeks.

"Don't go mom, we will run away together"

"They'll come after us. Both of us. I love you too much to get you caught up in all this. Promise me you will hide your gifts. Don't use them. Blend in until you can, get out and go to college. Your father doesn't know you have the insight like me. I know too much, baby. I'm going to let them do this. I have to."

I wanted to scream and protest, but I clutched my covers as a gust of rain pelted snow onto the windows.

She embraced me and kissed my forehead.

"Lucy baby... before I go I want you to have something. My mother gave this to me, and her mother before her and so on. It will protect you as you grow into the beautiful woman I know you will be."

It was the tiger's eye I had kept hidden in my apartment in the narrows that now hung around my neck.

"Mom please don't leave me... you're all I have..."

"And you're all I have... one day you will see that sometimes you have to sacrifice your own needs for the ones who need them more. I've lived my life and I want you to live yours."

She stood as I cried uncontrollably. She held my hand and it was hard for me to let go... knowing after this moment our bond would be broken. I would have lost the only friend I ever truly had. She taught me how to love- and now how to let go.

The next morning I learned the news.

My mother's car had been tampered with. On her way to meet my father at a party, her car had crashed into the water along the harbor side highway. There were no survivors - her chauffeur included. When my father told me the news, I had to pretend to be comforted by him. During the funeral, the mob used the murder as evidence to start a war with the rival mob boss. I hid the rage as my father put an arm around mine.

Every day my anger grew. Inside me was a rage I channeled into revenging my mother. I wanted my father to suffer as much as I had. As much as my mother had. I wanted to destroy everything he had worked so hard for.

So I went along with the plans for myself. I trained. I took on inside jobs. I declined the opportunity to go to college to gain status in the business I was making my way towards the top, hiding my gifts behind the rage.

But then Crane came along and ruined everything.

He put my father in Arkham Asylum before I was able to destroy him. I lost my patience then. I did things I shouldn't have that blew my cover. I used my gifts to wring out information on my father whereabouts in the Asylum. I wanted to sneak in and finished him off with my bare hands.

Eventually the new mob boss Marconi caught on. He learned about my mother and unlike my father, put two and two together. So I ran.

Even after Marconi was crushed by the Joker and ripped to pieces by the GCPD, the raining loyalists to my father and to Marconi were still looking for me. I was a part of what was going to rebuild the mob. My gift could get them information they were never able to wrangle out of the squealers. I could keep the mob clean and trustworthy... that is, if I had agreed to. But I didn't.

Now the Penguin was picking up the pieces of the mob. He knows what I can do. So does the Joker. My gift is like this big spark that could ignite so much chaos in the city. I'm afraid of what it will do to me, how it will affect you, Gotham… everything. The more use it, the worse things get. I can't seem to run from this, as hard as I've tried. Like a maze, it just leads me into it all over again..."

John sat silently for a while. It was a lot to take in. He took a sip of his coffee and after a long sigh he looked up at me.

"So, what do you want to do about it?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you going to let yourself be prey to these circumstances or are you going to stand up against it?"

"I can't be like you, John. I can't wear a cape, trying to save this city from the bad guys. It's not that easy."

"No, it isn't easy. It never will be. But you have a choice. You have the insight. Are you going to use it for good? For bad? Or are you going to throw it away. I want you to think hard about all the rage you have. I know firsthand that you'll have it for the rest of your life. No matter how hard you try to snuff it out, it will always be there. Lurking behind you like a shadow. But you can face it, you can channel that rage. Like your mother said... someday you have to sacrifice your needs for the ones who need them more. There are going to be more victims of the mob, more victims of senseless violence. As much as the police try to protect this city, you have an edge they don't have."

"I don't want to be used in any way for anything" I said bluntly. "I want to make my own decisions"

"I'm not forcing you to do anything. If you want to leave tomorrow, I'm not going to keep you here. Just think about what I'm saying. The opportunity is always here for you. And no matter what you decide, I'll support you. Just think about it."

John squeezed my hand that he has been holding this entire time before releasing it.

"We should both get to bed..." he finished.

"I agree."

He stood up and kissed me once on the forehead.

"Are you going to be ok tonight?"

I nodded. I stood up as well and we went our separate ways to bed.