CHAPTER FIVE
Gia finishes off the flask, taking a drag of her cigarette while simultaneously attempting to stay on the road as she speeds across the bridge from the city to hell.
She wishes she would have brought more alcohol when she sees the eery peaks of the asylum's roof, the decades old building looking as though its tearing apart at the seams from years of trapping the screams, tears, and deaths of its victims within the walls.
Everything gets in. Nothing gets out.
She believes, "abandon hope all ye who enter here," should be plastered on the front gate that reads in bold letters, "ARKHAM ASYLUM."
It sends a chill down her spine but she drives until she reaches the dimly lit parking lot and parks the car in a space close to the door, staring at the chipping paint of the building filled with cloudy, barred windows—some windows obviously painted over with black paint.
She steps to the front door and hits the bell, opting a fuzzy voice to come over the intercom speaker.
"Visiting hours are over." A man speaks over the speaker and she presses the button to say, "This is Gia Gordon. I'm here to speak to Dr. Arkham."
There's a pause before the door unlocks and she pulls it open, stepping into the make-shift lobby, a security guard holding a hand held metal detector, and she raises her brows.
"We ask that you put your personal belongings in here," He tells her, handing her a plastic container.
She puts her purse in it before he's hovering over her with the detector.
"Let Arkham know he's got a guest." The guard tells the receptionist located behind protective glass and she nods, picking up the office phone.
It only takes Arkham three minutes to get down to the lobby, Gia having to keep herself from audibly cursing upon seeing him.
He'd always given her the creeps.
"Miss Gordon, it's good to see you again, how are you?" He asks her.
"As good as I can be." She tells him as he leads her to the elevator and she takes a deep breath when the lights flicker just a little bit, her counterpart ignoring the smell of smoke and alcohol on her breath. "I really appreciate you being able to see me today on such short notice.," she says next.
"No, it's no problem. When they told me you had called I knew immediately it was urgent." He explains, raising his brows before pushing his circular framed glasses up his nose as they get off the elevator and step to his office. "So, what can I do for you?" He asks when they get in, Gia taking in the sight of unorganized files, a computer with sticky notes framing the screen, and filing cabinets so full they're one fourth of the way open.
He sits down and smiles at her as she cautiously sits down.
"As you probably know, I'm sick." She says. "And it's gotten worse, and because it's gotten worse, my boss—Bruce Wayne—has let me go from Wayne Biotech to live the rest of my life." She states and Jeremiah raises his brows. "I've been working for several months on developing a cure for what's killing me, using Wayne Biotech''s labs and resources to do so but now that I no longer gave access to those things—"
"—I'd be overjoyed to let you use our labs here at Arkham." He cuts her short. "The technology isn't as up to date or state of the art but it gets the job done."
"Well, it's-it's not exactly as simple as that, either." She warns him.
"What do you mean?"
"I know what works and what doesn't work in this...search…I've been doing. I just need to engineer it properly. Wayne Chemicals has proven absolutely useless in terms of alterations but you might be able to help me with that, indirectly, at least." She says next and he furrows his brows, confused.
"None of our staff has any training in chemical engineering." He informs her and she has to try to manually slow her speeding heart rate, her palms prickling with anxiety.
"Your staff, no. One of your patients, yes." She states.
He stares at her, racking his brain for a moment, and not a moment longer.
"The Joker? To cure your cancer?" He has to hold back a laugh—as ironic as laughter is in this instance. "That is the most preposterous idea I've ever heard. He's a patient. He's mentally vulnerable and you want to pry into that for your gain?"
"For his gain, too." She rushes to try to save her case. "He's intelligent, you know he is, and we both know you want these people to be given the help they need and to be accepted back into society. Just think if this were to work, the Joker would be accoladed with curing cancer, Jeremiah." She lays it on thick, not believing for a second it'd help him in any way—except being able to taunt her with it for the rest of their lives.
Arkham purses his lips.
"Besides, don't you want to know if he can pull it off?" She adds, raising her brows.
"Anyone being able to cure cancer is an ethereal idea in itself, at this point." He argues.
"Which is exactly why it makes sense that he would be the one to do it." She doesn't give up. "How many times have you seen him do something and thought, 'how the hell did he manage to do that?'"
She makes a good point, and he gives that to her.
"So, what, we just let him have free reign over our labs, our resources, for however many days it takes?"
"He works fast when he gets his mind on something—we'll probably need less than a day." She quickly rebuttals.
"Well, Miss Gordon, you've just got this all figured out." He takes his glasses off, leaning back in his chair. "The one thing I'm not sure you've failed to pinpoint, though…" he leans forward, folding his hands on his desk. "...Will he feel like getting his mind on it?"
The Joker whistles while laying on his cell floor, not making any noise due to his lips
being dry, an airy whisp pushing beteen them as he stares up at the ceiling, a distant, soft echo of silent steps down the hall, growing closer and closer.
His head tilts slowly to look at the door, and he finds a sick comfort in the fact that his onlooker can't see him due to the cut off lights in his cell being that everyone is supposed to be sleeping at this time, and the emergency lights from the hallway aren't bright enough to expose him.
He can see her, though.
Barefoot, heels in hand, staring in the general direction that she believes he's in.
He's quietly, too quietly, getting up.
She can't see him, she can't hear him, but she knows he's in there.
He waits for her to get right up to the door, inches from the glass, before slowly stepping out of the dark, reminiscent of a shark slowly swimming from the shadows to torment it's prey.
Gia wants to take a step back, but forces herself to stay where she's at, looking up at him.
She swallows thickly at the sight of him.
He doesn't have his usual crimson smile, his entire face a blank canvas—white as one, too.
Arkham's gotten a tighter grip on leniency with him since he screwed up one of their best doctors.
He glares at her, eyes cutting just the slightest. She looks nearly unrecognizable...unhealthily skinny—boney, even—deep circles under her eyes, her skin nearly sallow, her skin taught against her cheek bones, her eyes exhausted.
She's in a dress, though, and he glances again at the heels in her hand.
You can sprinkle glitter on shit, but it's still shit.
He grins at this thought and Gia keeps her breath as steady as she can as his lips pull upward sharply, the whisper of a laugh leaving his throat.
He stops suddenly, seeing her unwavering commitment to standing before him.
Like tapping at a fish in a tank, he raises his pointer finger and taps against the glass window three times.
Gia finally takes one step back.
This was going to be a little more difficult than what she was expecting.
13 YEARS AGO
"I'm sorry, Gia, alright, just—"
"—This is the second night in a row, Jason." She harshly spits, snatching her heel off the floor of the hotel suite as he buttons his shirt back up.
"Bruce just called me, alright? It's an emergency." He tells her.
"Right, right, I'm sure it is." She smartly replies.
"It is, Gia." He argues, glaring at her.
"Oh, don't look at me like that, Jason—"
"—Look at you like what, Gia?! I just made a fucking expression!"
"Look at me like I'm overreacting and being unreasonable!"
"Because you are!" He pulls his shoes on and she starts trying to get her dress back on. "You think I like leaving you or something, you think I'm just itching to get away from you so damn bad that I'm jumping for joy as soon as Bruce tells me to come home?!"
"Can we stop pretending 'Bruce' is the one calling you home, Jason? Can we do that? Because at this point in our relationship it's fucking exhausting to keep up this facade that I believe Bruce is the one getting you to leave all the time." She snaps and he stands up, raising his brows.
"Who the fuck else would it be, Gia?!" He cuts his eyes.
"We know who it is. I don't have to know a name or a face to know—"
"—You think I'm cheating on you?" He asks as clarification.
"I didn't say that. But, sure, I think you're lying to me. I think you're not being honest about who you're seeing, or where you're going, or why, and if that's another girl or not—"
"—Fuck you, Gia, alright?" He barks without a second thought and she scoffs.
"You don't have time, Jason, remember? Your master has rung his bell and just like his little bitch, you're running to his side." She comments, getting her heels on and Jason grinds his teeth.
His phone starts vibrating again and he looks down to see it's Bruce, again.
"Go." She tells him, scoffing out, walking to the door.
He's tempted to throw the phone at the wall but decides against it, answering the phone.
"Hello?"
"Change of plans, we don't have time for you to meet me—Barbara and Dick are backing me up, I need you to get Gia out of that hotel."
"Bruce, what the hell is going on?" Jason demands, slamming the door shut again when Gia opens it.
"Gordon put Harley away last night, Joker's pissed, he's hunting Gia down to bite back."
"He doesn't know she's here, there's no way he does." Jason states in disbelief.
"The staff is packed with people clawing for money, Jason, he's got bugs everywhere." Bruce explains.
"Fuck,"
"Which means if he doesn't have your room number and a key to the room by now, he will when he gets there which is why you need to get her out of there."
Gia glances out of the glass door that leads to the balcony, hearing a faint commotion down on the street, furrowing her brows.
Jason's attention snaps to the balcony, and he opens the door and stands out, Gia furrowing her brows as she looks down, seeing people bustling out of the restaurant below the hotel.
She goes to look up, focusing on the building in front of them...one of the windows up just a fourth of the way…
"How the fuck do I tell her, Bruce, she doesn't—" Jason realizes Gia's on the balcony, and immediately goes to her, his eyes catching on what her's are on, except he doesn't have to wonder what it is.
He knows.
He pulls her to the ground a millisecond before the shooter starts firing off rounds.
She chokes out a cry as he pulls her back into the room, taking deep breaths.
"What the hell is happening, Jason?!"
"Gia…" he starts, frantically trying to pull his mind together.
Her phone rings and she sees it's her brother.
"Don't answer it," He orders her.
"It's Jim, Jason." She argues.
"No, it's not." He states, grabbing the phone from her.
"Jason!"
"Keep quiet and follow me." He tells her quietly, opening the door and looking down the hallway to see nobody up there...yet.
"Jason, what the fuck is going on." She demands, his hand white knuckling hers.
"I'll tell you when this is over." He assures her, going down the hallway a rooms before taking a step back in front of one of the rooms opposite of the wall their room is on.
"Someone just tried to shoot me down, Jason." She argues, her throat tight with tears that cascade down her cheeks.
"They weren't shooting at you." He promises her.
"What?"
"They're trying to get me outta the way."
"What?"
"Cutting out the middleman." He replies, taking in a breath and kicking the hotel room door in, it's occupants screaming as Jason drags Gia behind him to their balcony.
"You two hide." He tells the couple that have been woken up from their sleep, laying in the bed, confused and horrified.
"What middleman?" She questions, confused. "Who's after you?"
He ignores her, getting the balcony door open.
He's not worried about snipers on this side of the building, the bay only being separated from the hotel by a slim slat of sidewalk, no other buildings able to reach their line of sight this far back.
"C'mon," he pulls her along as he climbs over the railing, his foot on the concrete ledgeing around the building.
Gia's heart sinks in her stomach.
"You can't be serious." She tells him.
"Just don't look down, you'll be alright." He assures her.
They hear gun fire in the hotel and Gia tenses up.
"Gia, you gotta trust me, if you fall I've got you." He promises and she shakes her head a little bit.
"Jason, I can't."
"Your brother had Harley Quinn locked away recently, Joker's mad as shit and is hunting you down." Jason tells her honestly.
"W-What? He doesn't even know me, how does he even know I exis—"
"—He's got moles everywhere, Gia, including Wayne Tower and the G.C.P.D." Jason explains. "I can get you safe if you will just trust me."
She reluctantly takes his hand and once she's on the ledge with him, she lets go to brace her palms against the side of the building for balance.
"You're doing great, babe," Jason encourages her, trying to move as quickly as possible.
"What're we doing?" She asks him. "What's the plan?"
He comes to a stopping point and looks at her.
"Climb down." He says.
"Climb down? How?"
Jason raises his brows.
"This is where the trust comes in." He states.
PRESENT
Gia sits quietly across the room as an orderly handcuffs the Joker to the shackles in the floor, and on the table that seated several feet away from her.
"You have an hour," Jeremiah tells her, glancing at the makeupless clown as he smugly looks at Gia.
"Thank you." She tells him and he gives a single nod before leaving them alone.
"'Thank you,'" Joker copies her tone of voice and pitch. "So, sweet." He adds, and she rolls her jaw, not saying a word. "Is this date night so we can makeup for the hostile feelings we've created amongst ourselves regarding one another?" He asks next. "Because I'm not so sure I'm ready for that yet—think I have a couple more attempts left to be made on your life. Real creative ones." He explains.
"You've dangled me from the sixteenth floor of a hotel—"
"—Thirteenth," he corrects her.
"You've totaled my car and attempted to light me on fire in the middle of the road while I was trapped in said car. You've tied me up and tried to blow me to hell. You've dangled me over a vat of chemicals. And lastly, you burned down Wayne Manor, and made sure I was the only one left in there." She reminds him and his grin gets wider and wider with each incident. "So, I'm curious to know what attempts you have left?"
"I've thought up four more in the midst of your complaining." He tells her, monotone, and she balls her fist up.
"How's bird boy? He still holding out that grudge against me?"
"We're not here for him." She hisses.
"Then what, little Gordon, are we—you—here for?" His curiosity is piqued and she exhales.
"How do you know so much about chemistry?"
"Why does it matter?" He retorts.
"You owe me something." She states.
"What could I possibly owe you?"
"I know you'd love to be the one to do me in, but cancer's beat you to it,"
"I wasn't gonna mention how fucked you look but I'm not necessarily one to talk at the moment," he mentions.
"I've been experimenting since my diagnosis and I've found that snake venom can kill cancer cells."
"Not without killing the healthy cells, too, you'd have to stabilize the protei…" he cuts himself short, looking at her knowingly.
"You owe me a favor since you killed Jason, and as much as I know doing something halfway decent will just damn near kill you, I'm not ready to die. Not like this. And you won't be able to make those creative attempts at trying to kill me if I'm already dead."
He thinks for a moment, empty blue eyes narrowing at her…
"You want me to help you cure your cancer?" He asks, hand going to his chest, over where his heart should be, pretending to be touched.
"I want you to engineer the treatment so it won't kill off healthy cells. I know you can do it." She says next.
"You're sure of that?"
"Pretty damn sure."
"Maybe you need to be in here." He says next.
"You in or not?" She ignores his comment.
"What's in it for me?"
"If it doesn't work, I die."
That's not good enough for him.
"And if it does happen to work…?"
She tries to think for a moment.
"...Tell ya what," he starts, leaning forward in his chair a little and she finds herself leaning back away from him as if they're inches apart, when in reality they're a length away from each other, "if it works, you owe me a couple favors."
"What kind of favors?" She cuts.
"Only be tacked as a couple misdemeanors if you get caught." He shrugs. "Not that your moral code is much better than mine being that you're doing something very illegal here." He adds.
"I'm not like you." She says clearly.
"You want my help or not?" He questions.
"Fine." She relents, and he gets his eery smile back on his face as he asks, "Should we seal it in blood?"