WARNING:
EXPLICIT VIOLENCE
MENTION OF RAPE
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gia's shaking, cold hands grip the stainless steel counter in the lab, sweat beading down her face as she shivers, trying to catch her breath.
Her head is swimming from trying to pull out of anesthetics, her body stinging, aching.
"I'm dying." She shutters out, panicked but too exhausted to cause too much of a fuss.
"No, you're not." Joker replies sourly, sitting down, head leaned back against the wall, his eyes closed.
Twenty seven fucking hours just for her to accuse him of half-ass fixing her...he'd say he went an extra mile in ensuring her survival, actually.
She tries to put together what exactly happened. One minute she was questioning why exactly he was going to draw blood from the snakes after he posed the question, "how the hell do you get blood from these things?"
Before she could explain that they have a scale one third of the way down their back that's obviously different from their other scale, and just underneath it is their heart to draw blood from, he was suddenly shooting her full of sedative and pinning her until she gave way and stopped being coherent enough to fight.
Glass and blood prickle at her feet as she tries her best to ignore the sprawled, beheaded bodies of the snakes that were once safely tucked away.
He found a way to get blood samples from them.
"What did you do?" She asks him next, her heart feeling as though it's going to pound out of her chest.
He just keeps his eyes closed, his face towards the ceiling, a sly, smug, knowing little tug of his lips pulling upwards…
13 YEARS AGO
Gia shakes uncontrollably as she hears the peeling of duct tape screech out in the confined elevator.
The faint, dim, emergency light is the only thing lighting the elevator since the power's been cut off.
She doesn't know if it's Batman's doing, or Joker's...she assumes the latter because when it cut off mid-elevator ride, he mumbled, "perfect timing."
She breathes out, panting, really, her arm trying to slow down the bleeding of her abdomen as she lays in the corner.
"Where oh where are you at, Bats?" Joker mumbles, getting frustrated. "Don't you just hate when your date stands you up?" He asks the girl, crouching down, pushing her hair, that's sticking to her sweaty, clammy skin, away from her face and her neck. "Course I'm not the only one in this instance...maybe they just don't care about you enough to get you outta this."
"My brother will." She says nearly inaudibly, a sharp whisper shuttered by chills.
"Oh, I'm sure he will, little Gordon." He agrees, nodding, his hand reaching out to gently run a knuckle across her cheek, his features soft before he suddenly turns, his features twisting, teeth gritting together, eyes nearly blacking out. "Just not alive."
He's smacking the duct tape over her mouth in the blink of an eye, his lip snarling at her before he reaches into his pocket, pulling his knife out, grinning at the sight of the fear in her eyes.
...Her pretty eyes…
The blade of the knife springs forward, his hand grabbing at her hair, forcing her head back.
She doesn't make a move to fight him, knowing that's what he wants, knowing the more she fights, the faster she bleeds out, the faster she passes out, the faster she dies, and the more satisfied he'll be.
"Pretty, pretty, pretty," he mumbles looking at the beads of sweat immulating across her skin, smearing her makeup, catalyzed by the remnants of tears.
Gia has to ball her fists to keep from trying to twist out of his grip when he runs his tongue along her jaw tasting her blood, sweat, and dried tears.
A move obviously made to get a rise out of her.
It works to the extent of her attempted recoil, squeezing her eyes together and trying to turn her head away, only yelping out a whimper when he tugs her face back in his direction.
"O be careful little eyes what you see," he hums to himself, pulling her right eye lid back, running the point of the blade along the inside of her top lash line, an uncontrollable sob escaping her as her blood drenched hand comes up to grab his wrist to try to control the hand that holds the knife.
An irritated stutter in his mind causes a lash out, his other hand snatching hers off of him, sneering out, "O be careful little hands what you do," slamming her palm flat against the floor of the elevator before severing her middle and index fingers.
The white hot sensation of the action causes her to scream loud enough that the duct tape lacks its purpose at muffling her cries.
"It slipped." He says to her, sarcastically, kicking the amputated digits aside with his foot.
She feels lightheaded at the sight, the realization that she's missing half of two of her fingers trying to punch through the adrenaline flushing her system for the time being, her mind trying not to go into melt down mode, but getting there faster and faster.
"Where's big brother, now?" He asks next, looking down at her, thinking of a thousand ways this could go.
What he could do.
What could he do?
Specially reserved for Jamesy's precious Gia?
Gia's past the point of stubborn pride at this point, crying and trying to plead through her restriction.
He slowly crouches once more, pulling the duct tape off of her mouth.
"O be careful little tongue what you say," he sing-songs next, taking his blooded knife prying her mouth open to wipe it off on her tongue, making her give out a throaty shriek, her body beginning to tremor as she gags.
"Shh, shh, shh," he soothes, his palm brushing over her hair, the knife still in her mouth.
"I really want you to remember how much your brother loves you, Gia." He tells her softly, sarcastically. "I've had you by the heels for over an hour now...I think if he were really concerned, he would've already been here—or at least sent the big bad Bat and his squeaky little bird boy down here." He adds. "All this waiting around is just pissing me off and making me bored." He says next. "Really, really, really, bored." Each "really" he presses the curve of the blade harder and harder against the roof of her mouth making her try to beg him as best as she can.
Before he can dig the knife into her nasal cavity, a swift thump sounds on the top of the elevator, causing him to give an exaggerated eye roll.
"You would come when I'm beginning to enjoy myself," he grits out, standing up as Gia's breathing begins to labor, her vision starting to blur just as the ceiling of the elevator is busted in.
PRESENT
"Gia, it's your brother, this is the fourth time I've tried to call you. I'm beginning to worry." James says as Gia's phone goes to her answering machine. "You're unemployed, you're dying, you should be at home." He says next, sighing. "Call me back when you can." He hangs up, rubbing his forehead.
"She still hasn't called back?" Renee asks from where she's stepping past him to get to her office.
"No, she hasn't." He replies, breathing out. "She was supposed to stay with me while her boyfriend was outta town, but...I don't know, I guess she changed her mind."
"Or she went with her boyfriend." She suggests.
He furrows his brows, considering the possibility…
"Maybe." He says next before taking his phone, again, and calling her once more.
It rings until it goes to voice-mail again and he records a new message, "It's me again, clearly, if you're with Jason while I'm worrying where you're at, I'm gonna feel really stupid." He admits gruffly before hanging up once more.
Gia's unsteady hand grabs at her phone that's been ringing, seeing multiple missed calls from her brother along with some voice-mails.
She clicks the first voice message, met with the sound of her brothers voice on speaker phone:
"It's me again, clearly, if you're with Jason while I'm worrying where you're at, I'm gonna feel really stupid."
She closes her eyes, guilt and regret beginning to chew her alive as Joker lets out a deep chuckle.
"What did you do?" She repeats to the clown about her condition, beginning to get angry as her body buzzes.
"You know those insurance commercials? 'We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two'?" He asks her, his eyes still closed.
Gia realizes her grave mistake.
"What have you done?" She demands weakly, glaring at him.
"I imagine you'll ease off soon." He ignores her.
"E-Ease off?" She winces when she tries to stand up straight. "What have you done?!"
"What have you done, little Gordon?" He asks her, finally opening his eyes, looking at her.
Her phone rings once again.
"Might wanna answer that unless you want them to find out." He says next and she grimaces when she reaches out and sees that Jason's calling.
"Hello?" She answers as best as she can without sounding troubled, despite being in pain and afraid right now.
"Hey," he says. "You told me we needed to talk and then you never answered or texted me back." He recalls.
"Oh, yeah, I'm…" she has to catch her breath. "I'm okay, I just...umm…" she tries to think through her foggy mind.
"Are you okay?" He furrows his brows, hearing her sounding as if she's having a hard time breathing.
"I'm okay, just…" she trails off, holding back a sharp gasp when she feels a sudden pain in her lower abdomen.
"Gia." Jason says it sternly, starting to pay more attention to her, his ears trying to focus on the background to try to see if he can hear anything.
He doesn't.
"I'm okay, I just need you to do me a favor and I promise I will explain later." She gets out.
"What's going on?" He demands.
"If my brother calls you and asks about me, please tell him I'm with you."
"What?"
"I'm okay, I swear I'm okay, Jason, just please cover for me and I promise I will explain it when you get back." She assures him, gritting her teeth together.
He stays quiet for a moment before reluctantly agreeing.
"Okay."
"I love you." She says next, sniffling. "And I'll see you when you get back."
"I love you, too." He replies lowly.
They both hang up, and Gia's phone hits the counter when she tries to push herself to stand up straight.
She quickly realizes she's unable to at the moment.
Giving up, she helps herself down to the cold tile floor, dingey with dirt and blood from the Joker's work.
"What did you do?" She asks him again.
"I wonder how long we have to wait to see if it worked." He ignores her, standing up.
"What. Did. You. Do." Gia grits through her teeth.
"What you told me to do." He replies, cooly.
"What I told you to do didn't require you to take any blood samples." She argues as best as she can, her eyes trailed on the rotting ceiling.
"There were some...creative liberties taken…but for the most part I stuck to the plan."
"You bastard!" She bites out, sweat once again smearing down her forehead, attempting to force herself up.
"Ah, ah, ah," he cuts back, his foot colliding with her collar bone, keeping her on the floor, "That's what I detest about you women...so nice and sweet on the outside then when you don't get your way, even if it's a mere, unplanned inconvenience that still works in your favor, you all turn into Atilla the Hun." He hisses. "We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two." He repeats to himself, looking down at her, his eyes studying her face, narrowing at her.
His thumb goes to his tongue, wetting it, only to run it under her makeup smudged eyes, scraping the black pigment away, already telling a difference in the look and feel of her flesh.
Her cheeks don't look as sunken in, her eyes not as deep set…
He looks at her arm, seeing the generous slice he gave to the inside of her bicep while she was knocked out.
It doesn't look as deep as he knows he made it, it doesn't look as irritated.
"He thinks there's test subjects, so if he finds out the truth, he's gonna wanna scan you to see if it worked." He says next. "You don't take one here. You go to your physician and have it taken there, even if it's improved, you tell Arkham it didn't work."
"Why?"
"Trust me, Jeremiah is one power trip away from stepping into that same realm that wacko doctor off that Human Centipede movie was snuggled up in." He warns her and she stares at him.
"I find it really hard to feel sorry for you if you are subjected to torture of that caliber." She replies coldly.
"You think when he finds out the truth, he won't keep you in here, too?" Joker seemingly mocks her.
"Finds out what?"
"How do you think I stabilized it to keep it from boiling you from the inside out?" He refers to the venom and she tries to think about it, brown eyes shifting to the beheaded snake carcasses. "You can't kill a snake with it's own poison." He adds.
"That would never work." She shakes her head at what he's implying.
"I think you're underestimating my technique at engineering."
"I think you're overestimating the size of what you have packed in those psych-ward issued pants." She states.
"I don't know, am I?" He replies, furrowing his brows, narrowing his eyes at her.
"I'd rather submit myself to Arkham's on-coming, 'same realm that wacko doctor off that Human Centipede movie was snuggled up in,' phase." She states, rolling her jaw.
"Careful now. He might just hear you and take you up on it." He cautions her, and she looks at him pointedly before feeling nauseous.
"Also might wanna take into consideration you feel so shitty because you came in for your procedure today under the influence." He mocks a doctor's serious tone, scolding her, wagging his finger. "I imagine your inebriation is insurance so you can say I took advantage of you?" He asks next and she slowly turns her head to look at him.
He has to give her props.
She'd look like a demon possessed witch with such a hellacious look.
Gia knows where he's going with this, but he has no intention to stop.
He hasn't pushed her buttons in a long time.
"I broke out after catching word you were in talks with Dr. Arkham, you were drinking earlier to distract yourself from the fact you were getting eaten alive with cancer, and then on a whim I decided to drag you to the lab and try to finish what I started so many years ago?" He presses, all the times he's tried to kill her floating through his mind. "We get caught, you tell them you were drunk, I overpowered you…took advantage of you…"
Gia gnaws on her own teeth, grinding them together.
"...It's not like it'll be the first time those things have happened to you, anyway. Except maybe this time the G.C.P.D. won't vouch for the perpetrator since I'm not one of their very own boys in blue like the last one was." He keeps on. "And I didn't rape you and give you severally metastatic reproductive cancer."
Gia shakes, tears of pure, unadulterated hatred in her eyes as she glares at him.
"I heard he's still on the force, too." Joker lowers his voice. "Only transferred to a different district...I thought once they knew the truth, they'd surely lock him up...I guess when big brother takes the stand to testify against the accusation made by a Jane Doe who wanted anonymity…" his lips spread across his face, nearly ear to ear. "That's a kick to the metaphorical balls—being you didn't have enough real ones to really do anything about it at the time." He raises his brows. "I know, I know, 'Fuck you'." He mimics her voice. "Yeah, fuck me." He sarcastically spits as he puts his hands on his chest, motioning to himself before suddenly adding, "Would you even be able to do that without crying over P.T.S.D. and the unbearable feeling of your rotting snatch-tissue sloughing off in the process?"
There it is. The punchline she should have seen him building up.
Gia's lunging forward faster than she was expecting, faster than he expected.
13 YEARS AGO
Bruce takes in a breath as Joker has Gia by her hair, her unconscious body limp as he presses the end of his gun to her temple.
"Put it down." Bruce snaps out and Joker grins.
"After all these years you really think I listen to orders given by you, Batsy?" The clown growls out.
"For your own safety, I suggest you put the gun down." Bruce clarifies.
"I wouldn't even have a need for the gun had you given me five more minutes." Joker points out.
"Drop the gun."
Joker just pulls the hammer back on it, smiling as he replies, "persuade me."
The power comes back on and the elevator starts moving, the flickering of the lights giving Bruce enough time to hit the madman as hard as he can and the gun is abandoned before he's grabbing him by the hair, cackles emitting and reverberating off the elevator walls.
"Oh, Bats, you know how much I like it rough," Joker gets out, teeth bleeding from the impact of Bruce's punch as the elevator doors open on the next floor down and he's tossed into the hallway as the bat stalks to him, grabbing his throat.
"Your girlfriend's down stairs." Bruce informs him, bringing him up to eye level with him.
"Is that your version of, 'get in the van, there's candy in the back'?" Joker mocks him, giggling.
There's the familiar 'click,' and Bruce and Joker both look to the elevator that's still open, seeing Gia standing in the door of it, using the edge to hold herself up as she shallowly breathes, her shaking hand aiming the weapon at them.
"Drop the gun." Joker eerily yet humorously deepens his voice to sound like Batman's.
PRESENT
"It didn't work." Gia tells Arkham as he looks around the lab in dismay, Joker hiding a smirk as he's put in cuffs by an orderly.
"It didn't work?" Jeremiah's voice hardens, taking his handkerchief out of his pocket to put over his nose at the sharp smell of dead snakes.
"I'm sorry I wasted time and resources." Gia tells him calmly, her voice breaking slightly.
"It's alright," He assures her, furrowing his brows, his eyes catching on her bloodied clothes...evidence of the slaughter that took place.
Gia can't help but wonder why the guards that could clearly see what took place didn't try to stop it...or tell Arkaham.
She gets her answer when the guards give Joker a knowing look, and he returns it.
Of course.
"Where's the test subjects?" The doctor asks next, raising his brows.
"What?" Gia wasn't expecting that question.
"We fed them to the snakes." Joker replies quickly.
Arkham takes note of no evidence of mice—no cages, no tanks, just the wooden crates the snakes were transported in.
He looks down at the dead reptiles.
They hadn't eaten before death.
None of them have the obvious lump of a meal in them.
Joker notices him studying the animals with his eyes, guessing what's on his mind before his blank eyes are giving a look to Gia.
She meets his eyes, bruising from her fingers that were wrapped around his throat moments earlier, catching her gaze for a second.
"I should be going." She says softly to Jeremiah. "My brother will wonder where I'm at since I haven't been taking his calls."
"Yes, of course." He nods.
"But thank you for the opportunity." She adds, eyes back on the clown and he clears his throat, making a show of arrogantly awaiting her gratitude for saving her life.
"Go fuck yourself." She says instead, confident in his restraints or else she admittedly wouldn't have said such a brazen thing to him.
He knew she'd go that route.
"Maybe you can finally do the same without discomfort." He retorts. "Well…" he rethinks it, picking at her the best he can while he still has her here.
"Go to hell." She grits out.
"Poking a pretty big bear, little Gordon." He warns, his eyes cutting her.
"Yeah." She harshly scoffs, looking at him with his hands bound, his feet chained together…"You look pretty big right now." She smartly adds.
The taunting grin falls from his face, his features hardening, tense.
She sees him shaking slightly, and turns her back on him, and heads to the door of the lab before she's walked to the lobby by an orderly.