Author's note

I know it took a long time for this update and I'm sorry to inform you that this one month interval will probably become the usual amount of time between uploads. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Bonne lecture.


Chapter 4

The dark knight had spent the hours following his discovery of Joker's message searching for him, unfortunately, he seemed to have vanished. The past events had left the vigilante feeling idiotic and unskilled, plus he had an hard time repressing the bittersweet feeling his last encounter with his nemesis had filled him with. He was not embarrassed for the only one of them who was most likely to talk about what had happened was the clown, but surely no one would actually believe him.

Since their last session, the number of murders had rose in Gotham and Batman had not been able to solve any of them, furthermore nothing had been done with the prince of crime's style. He always kept an eye out for him, but he was nowhere to be found, he started considering that maybe he had left the city, or even the country.

He shifted his attention back to the rehabilitation case. Arkham had been releasing a lot of people with minor mental illness and the detective thought that maybe the releases and murders had a correlation. In order to test out his theory he asked the doctors of the asylum to wait longer before letting a patient out of the institution. Convincing them had proven harder than gathering enough data to figure out if there really was any link between these phenomenons. Unsurprisingly, there was a connection between the two, but without any killers to attach to any crime he could no longer force the psychiatrists to prevent anyone from getting free. As a result of this, after three months of perfect behavior, changing from an hopeless patient to a normal human being in a matter of 24 hours, Jonathan Crane had been released during the month of July.

Crane had spent a week at Jervis and Harleen's place before moving in his own apartment. The hero always kept an eye out for the three of them, but he was getting ready to call this case a miracle himself. They seemed perfectly stable and normal in their own original ways. He had always pictured his enemies becoming sane as a beautiful event in his mind, but now it felt like this was meaning the end of him. He was feeling lost in this new situation, meaningless and useless as the Bat, with fading foes that fought their illness and won without his help. As much as crime was rising, GCPD were not really relying on him since he had not been of any help, criminals had simply gotten better in their doing and no one could do anything about it.

Without fully dropping the case, he turned his focus on his equipment, on his way of working in order to find a way to upgrade everything and get better, to finally solve something. Consequently, he started spending more time at Wayne Tech with Lucius Fox, researching new technologies and working on improving gadgets. They did successfully pulled off some amelioration and he solved a few minor cases, but this was not enough. By the end of October he felt their ideas were falling short and shared with the CEO that maybe they were starting to lack originality and could find someone with more eccentric ideas to work in the company and take his creation to turn them into gadgets for the hero. Bruce did not went as far as to admit this was plagiarism and called this a plan for inspiration. Anyhow, Lucius accepted and started looking for somebody who's profile fitted.

Chance seemed to have been smiling to him as in the beginning of November Edward Nygma had been released from Arkham. As twisted as it might be, the detective was thrilled to learn he was free and apparently sane, he was exactly what he needed, an original and creative mind. Plus he figured giving a job to a recovered patient could be something that would actually make his company look good, furthermore it would make it easier to keep an eye on him, but he decided not to rush his decision and talk about it to Lucius when he would get the chance.

November 13th, he was in the car with Alfred driving when he explained his idea to him.
"Nygma has always failed when up against you. How could he possibly come up with something that is better than your own ideas?" He responded.

"The reason Nygma failed had always been because of his personality, of his narcissism and ego, if he would have been reasonable, which he seems to be now, he could have stood a chance against me."

"Perhaps, but isn't working this close to an enemy a bit disregardful?"

They were getting close to the Wayne tower, Bruce was looking out of the window, he smiled.

"You're the one who's playing video games with an ex-killer."

"That is one way of seeing it." Alfred chuckled.

They arrived at destination, the butler turned to his friend before he left the car.
"I know you are facing a difficult time, sir, but please think it through before putting your trust into Nygma."

"You don't have to worry." He said exiting the vehicle.

In the tower, he made his way to the elevator where one of his employee greeted him with a smile which he returned. They each pressed a different button and started going up.

"Have you met the albino guy yet?" She asked.

"Who?"

"Mr. Fox presented him to the whole team this morning stating he'll soon be part of it."

The CEO must have found someone for the job.
"No I haven't met him, how is he?"

They arrived to her floor where she left while speaking a short sentence.
"He's something."

That filled him with curiosity and optimism, after all he was looking for an eccentric mind to inspire his. Reaching his floor, he started heading to Lucius's office instead of his own wishing to meet this albino man.

He knocked and his friend let him in, inviting him to sit down, which he did not.
"I heard that you found someone for the job?"

"The perfect man for it. You asked for originality and originality you shall be getting."

"Well, where is he?"

"I actually don't know." Fox picked his phone up. "He got a little impatient while waiting for you and decided to go outside. I'll give him a call."

He got up, his phone against his ear and waited for a moment.

"Mr. White? It's Lucius Fox, Mr. Wayne has arrived... His office and..." He suddenly had a confused look on his face. "No, thank you... I'll ask him." He turned to Bruce. "He's asking if you would like him to bring you a slice of pizza."

"It's morning." He answered perplexed.
"He'll pass... What? Hello?" He hanged up. "I think he accidentally dropped his phone."

"His name is White?" Bruce pointed out guiltily amused.

"Yes, it's a bit... awkward. Well, he must be heading to your office as we speak." He sat back in his chair while the other man went to the door a placed his hand on the knob.
"I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this."

"It will go away when you'll meet him, I'm sure." His friend reassured him.

He was walking rapidly through the hallways impatient to get to his office. Around a minute later he reached the long corridor leading to his destination, at the end of it was his secretary. He saluted her and went in the room where he sat at his desk wondering how much time he would have to wait for this man.

A short moment later his secretary called.

"Mr. White is here to see you."

"Send him in."

The door started opening very slowly, and he entered with his head bowed down, white hair covering his face, looking at a bag of food he was carrying. He was tall, slim, had glasses, was wearing black pants and a magenta shirt. He shifted his attention from his meal to Bruce and time seemed to have drastically slowed down for him. His heart stopped, his jaw dropped, he was completely stunned by the sight of the man's face. Green eyes with blond lashes, gray eyebrows, strong jaw lines, bleached white skin and pulpy light red lips with that unique smile. He did not say a word while the pale man sat down opening his mouth and filled the quiet room with his exclusive unforgettable voice that sent chills down the hero's spine.

"Are you okay?" He put his bag on the desk.

"I... I'm sorry. You just look like someone I knew... You look like him so much." He cleared his throat while the man started opening his bag and getting the items out of it.
"A good friend of yours?"

"No, not at all."

White raised an eyebrow, losing his smile while Bruce scratched the back of his head, uncomfortable.

"That's a beautiful lie."

"You're calling me liar and expecting me to hire you afterward?"

He filled his mouth with a huge bite of his pizza slice and nodded while chewing.

"I don't think you're taking this job opportunity very seriously, Mr. White." He swallowed.
"Jackson's the name, but my friends call me Jack." He opened a can of Pepsi and took a sip.

"All right, Jackson, what did..."

"Jack." He corrected.

The billionaire was deeply disturbed and wondering why he was here, even more troubling was the way he talked, slightly insinuating that he knew he was Batman. He was trying to act like he was nothing more than Bruce Wayne, but the real challenge with this situation was to keep calm and act as if he was nothing more than Jackson White. He could not understand how it could have come to this; after he had been missing for months, the most dangerous criminal in Gotham reappears to eat pizza on his desk during an interview to get a steady job.

"Okay... Well, you've met Mr. Fox and he seemed very impressed with you and I'd like to know why."

"So do I." He chuckled while the larger man frowned. "Seriously, the truth is, I know things about stuff."

"You're wasting my time."

"Just a little of it. Why so moody? It's not like there's a bomb somewhere just waiting to explode."

The detective knew what he was referring to and he clenched a fist, hiding his hand behind a speaker of his computer, trying to control his rising anger while the lunatic took the last bite of his meal.
"A bomb?"

"Oh, it's just a manner of speaking." He finished his Pepsi, drinking it loudly. "Do you have a garbage bin?"

Bruce pointed to one side of his desk as the smaller man put his trash there, except for the Pepsi can, he put it in front of the athletic man and sat next to him on his desk.
"If you bring the empty can to the grocery store they give you five cents and since I know you're short on cash, I'd like you to keep it."

"Look." The billionaire sighed, he was furious, still he was in control. "I'm gonna have to ask you to leave or get serious."

He started giggling, the vigilante wished that they were in their usual costume on a rooftop at night so that he could just punch the annoying clown. Unfortunately, they were two simple men, having a foolish discussion that made no sense. Jackson took off his glasses and presented them to him, who did not reacted.
"Well... Take them." White mocked lowering himself a little toward Bruce as he obeyed, putting them on.
"Your eyes are fine. These are just... Why are you wearing fake glasses?"

"I look handsome with them, don't you think?" He got off and placed himself behind the billionaire grabbing his shoulders.
"Do not touch me." He violently shrugged.

"Call the security." He whispered in his ear holding him firmly. "But before you do!" The larger man got up aggressively, turning around to face him. "Before you do, why don't you try pressing a few buttons on my glasses?"

Bruce was staring at him, his face was even more familiar and disturbing without any accessories. Jackson still had his dangerous hunger in his eye, he was smirking confident as he slowly took a step back. He placed his fingers on the sides of the glasses feeling a few very small and well hidden buttons. Pressing one, it activated an x-ray vision. He was completely astonished, but kept himself still and pressed another button to see as if the room was under black light, he removed the glasses.

"What else can it do?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Well it's linked to a map, it can be used as shades during a sunny day, it have a night vision, bla bla technology." He sighed. "This interview is boring."

"What inspired you to build these?"

"I was wondering what it would be like to see things like a superhero do." The pale man got closer and his grin widened. "You know, like Superman?"

"How did you built them?" He asked while giving the item back.

"With some tools."

He had a big mocking smile on his face as if he was nailing this interview like a champion. Truth be told, he was, Bruce had never been this worried about his identity, consequently he desperately needed him to be close to him in order to understand what was going on.

The billionaire smiled back and presented his right hand, awaiting a handshake.
"Congratulations, Mr. White, you're hired."

To his surprise, the clown did not shook his hand but gave it a slap instead as an awkward high five while he was giggling.

"Of course I am."

Never in his life he had ever felt this much of a craving to punch the annoying lunatic in the face, but he had to keep acting.

"Before you leave, I will need you to give me your phone number and address."

He opened a drawer to take out a small paper and a pen, which he then gave to the smaller man. He scribbled quickly and gave it back. It was barely readable. Jackson started heading for the door.
"Have a nice day, Mr. White."

"See you soon, boss." He replied in a soft voice.

He turned around and gave Bruce a wink before leaving. The hero was puzzled, furious and overwhelmed by his recurring inexplicable bittersweet emotions. He sat down placing his face in is palm sighing. He wondered if the information Joker gave him was right and gave the number a try, sending a simple text message consisting of "Jackson?". He received a reply around five minutes later.

Jackson: Customer?

Bruce: No, it's Bruce Wayne.

Jackson: Bonjour boss :)

He was glad he had not lied, now he will be able to track him down and go to him as the Bat. He decided to dig a little into what he was offering to his clients.

Bruce: Why do you have customer? What service do you provide?

Jackson: I wash stuff.

He was not believing him at all.

Bruce: I'd like you to come back tomorrow at 9:00 AM, we'll set up your office and start working right away.

Jackson: As for me, I think you should take all of them 32 pawns and shove them way up into your asshole.

Jackson: Oops, wrong person.

Bruce could not repress a chuckle at these uncanny messages.

Jackson: See you tomorrow.

November 14th, 4:47 AM, Batman is standing on the roof of a store near the apartment building Joker gave him as his address. He had decided to go there extremely late wishing to give an excuse on to how he found him that could be entirely unrelated to Bruce Wayne. He had not told Alfred yet of his return, he had not been comfortable talking about the clown since they last saw each other.

He stealthily entered what is supposedly his apartment by the master bedroom. The light was off, no one was in the room. There was a mattress on the floor, boxes with clothes in it, holes and cracks in the walls, empty food packages and his glasses on the floor. It was an ugly, filthy room and the vigilante was not expecting more from any other rooms of the place. Out of the bedroom he was in a short passage with a door to his right leading to the bathroom. He could see in it, crummy tools were filling the bath in a liquid, probably water. He continued and ended up in the living room that was linked with the small kitchen. Joker was on a chair asleep in front of a small TV lying directly on the floor in his living room. A table was placed in the middle of both room, on it was a pile of devices such as phones, MP3 players, cameras and a laptop. The kitchen was disgusting with rotting food scattered across the counter and in the sink.

He approached the pale man who was still wearing the same clothes as when he saw him earlier.

"Joker."

He woke up instantly and looked up at him.

"Batsy! I was expecting you much earlier... What time is it?" He got up walking past the Bat to head to the kitchen. "I didn't think I'd fall asleep."

"Joker, what are you doing?"

"Well... At least I'm not late." He said as he picked up a phone from his sink.

"Late for what?"

"A phone call." He slowly walked toward the hero. "It really is a shame that I had to disappear, right after we made love."

"We did not made love." He growled as Joker stopped moving and stared at him angrily. "I had to do whatever you wanted me to do."

"I didn't ask for it! You started it! Did you hear me say -Oh Batsy, take me here and now!-?"

He expressed those words in an higher pitch, awkwardly rubbing his hands on the dark knight who pushed him hard against the wall. He jumped back at him trying to punch him but the larger man grabbed both his hands and kicked him in the stomach sending him back into the wall.

"It was heading there anyway. You would have asked eventually."

"That's not true..."

Batman approached the smaller man who quickly gave his tibia a kick he was not expecting, but through the armor he did not felt much of it. He bent down grabbing the clown by his collar and pinning him with force against the wall.

"I can't rape." He lowered his eyes and smiled. "I can't do it."

"What are you talking about?" He made eye contact.

"You and I was fully consensual, I can't rape people. I've tried, it just does not arouse me when the other person is crying too much, you know? I don't get it, I mean, screaming is fine but..."

The hero punched the other man on the side of his face making him spit a little blood.

"You're disgusting!"

"And somewhat attractive to you, apparently."

He landed another punch on his face, some skin shredded next to his eye.

"Be careful with my face! You wouldn't want me coming in to work looking like a mess?" He started chuckling. "Am I right, boss?"

"What do you mean?" He pathetically lied.

"What do you think I mean?"

"If I knew I wouldn't be asking."

The clown facepalmed and sighed before he started furiously screaming.

"You're Bruce Wayne and I know it! Do you need me to draw you a picture or do you get it now!?"

"How did you find out!?"

"The same way anyone finds out a person's identity."

He stayed silent while the other man rolled his eyes.

"DNA, you world's greatest detective, DNA!"

The caped crusader let go of him and stood up feeling nauseous.

"Is that why you had sex with me?"

"No, that was not even suppose to happen." He grinned devilishly. "But thank you for making it happen." He stood up too. "I was simply suppose to get some of your blood on my hands and the floor during our fight."

"I never wanted to sleep with you."

"Yes you did!"

The arguing was stopped by someone loudly knocking at the door.

"White, you're gonna open this motherfucking door immediately!" An angry woman's voice came through.

Joker walked to the door and opened it slightly, hiding his place. He did not even had time to place a word before the woman started talking again.

"It's the fifth night in a row that I can't sleep because of you fucking yelling! If you don't stop right now, imma call the cops on your ass!"

"Oh, but you don't need to call the police, I've got an agent of justice in here. See!"

He rapidly opened the door exposing Batman to the woman who looked completely shocked.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have a spanking to receive!" He slammed the door to her face and turned around. "Where were we?"

"What am I suppose to do?"

The vigilante could not believe he was asking his nemesis this question, but what else could he had said. Joker had proof of his true identity giving him complete power over Batman, he was now nothing more than a slave or a dead man. The lunatic pouted as he gazed at his miserable hero.

"Sit down, baby..."

He sadly obliged and let the smaller man sat on his lap, this was not worth fighting back. He placed his pale hands behind the dark knight's neck and smiled.

"You're safe here. You're always safe with me. Trust me."

"Safe with you? You have tried to kill me on multiple occasions."

"No, I was helping you." The jester took off the other man's mask slowly. "I made you stronger each time. I'm the reason you're still here, still fighting." He ran a hand in the man's black hair. "I'm the reason you're alive."

"I don't live for you."

"Could you die peacefully while I keep living, leaving Gotham into my care?"

"I live for the people of Gotham. My life is about justice."

"Yes and they're about to use the same argument to take you down." His tone got more serious on the last sentence.

"Joker, what's going on? "

"Well Batsy, truth be told, I'm not even sure as to where to start!" He jumped off the man's lap, standing up, facing him and scratched his head. "Justice, as you call it, is a myth. You see, what is seen as right and wrong, sane and insane, just and unfair is simply the result of society's opinion and nothing more, really. What makes you sane and me insane? Public opinion. What makes it okay to beat your wife in a certain county, but unacceptable in another? Public opinion. What makes it okay for you to beat up people and spy on them?" He lowered himself, grinning widely awaiting Bruce's answer.

"Get to the point."

"This whole sanity thing is a lie, Brucie! We're just bending our worst personality trait with drugs to be functional enough to keep a low profile." He sat back on the detective, placing his legs on each side of the man. "They're going to shift the public's opinion in our favor, as I'm speaking we're taking control of the media, we're taking control of any important information we can get a hold to, we're creating a network so big I can't even tell from where it begins and to who it ends."
"By we, you mean all of the inmates that has gotten out of Arkham?"
"Mostly. They do their best to keep me uninformed."
"What is their purpose? Did you uncover my identity for them? Why would you obey?"

"You're identity was for me alone, darling. We have many goals, one of them is getting rid of you permanently and replacing you with a new champion." He placed one of his hand on Bruce's cheek. "I didn't like the idea of you dying so I convinced them that I should be the champion who would take care of getting rid of you."

"Joker, why did you need my identity? Why shouldn't I simply bring you back to Arkham?"

"You see, if I get back to Arkham it would risk blowing up their cover and they would have to find a new suitable champion and they don't want that. Do you remember the last thing we talked about?"

"Yes, what I would do if you were to get killed."

"I know you've been having trouble solving murders these past few months and sending me back there would give birth to another unsolvable case, if you know what I mean."

The dark knight placed both of his hands on the smaller man's waist without really realizing it. He bowed his head down, thoughtful. He did not knew what to make of the situation yet and was full of question, which made him somewhat grateful to have Joker by his side, for now.

"I'm surprised you haven't simply murdered them."

"Scarecrow, the Riddler, the Hatter, their deaths would need to be grandiose, Batsy. I can't just go on and end their life with a simple boring bullet, it would be mediocre! Besides, some allies I don't know about would just take over the plan and move on." He placed a finger under the vigilante's chin and slowly pushed his head up to force eye contact. "And that's why we need to be together, more than ever."

"You're basically asking me to uncover who should be your targets." Joker smirked at him. "Never." The jester chuckled and started placing kisses on the man's neck who did not reacted. "I don't need your help, I'll discover this conspiracy by myself."

"And I'll expose how Bruce Wayne fucked Gotham's most wanted criminal." He whispered in his neck, while the other man gritted his teeth. "Think about it baby, we'll be ruling this city together, like Gods."

The detective understood the little freedom he had in the situation, but was fairly pleased that his enemy was not interested in destroying the hero, but only the man. At least he had been right about one thing all along, the rehabilitation had been a lie, plus most the free inmates were responsible for the homicides.

"What was your role in all of this?"

"I had to distract you for a while." He gave the larger man some space by getting off him. "Now I'm suppose to be stealing your company and you're suppose to be busy with unsolvable cases."

"That's why you needed my identity."

"I had to reach you somehow and I just love how everything coincided." He giggled. "For some odd reason, they don't trust me around the Bat!"

Bruce stood up while Joker went to a closet in order to get a coat and some shoes out.

"This whole thing is a little over complicated, don't you think? All that to kill me..."

"As I already said, they have other goals, you're just one of them." He started dressing up. "We're watching the birth of a new powerful criminal organization, baby!" The clown threw his hands in the air with excitement. "And we're gonna ruin it all!" He happily shout out.

Some brutal knocks were heard through one of his wall and the voice of a screaming woman came through.

"Shut the fuck up, Jackson!"

He turned to it and simply screamed but the yell quickly transformed into an uncontrolled laughter so loud it was covering the following knocking and insults coming through the wall.

"I'm not convinced. I think you want me to uncover the allies so you can get leverage and take control of this organization." He put his mask back on. "Besides, I could simply take you all in for drug use."

The pale man was close to his door, putting leather gloves to his hands.

"Look. There's a reason you can't take us in for drug use and I know you have a lot of questions, but right now I need to go. I need to get to a phone booth for the call." He turned his back to the hero, facing his door. "Now, you're going to hack into my conversation and we'll be into this together or I'll have to destroy you, Bruce, because without your old pal J here, you're going to need to be the Bat at full time to solve this case."

He opened the door and glanced back at Batman with a smile as he was walking out.

"And why on Earth would I want a pitiful organization when I'll have you?"

He closed the door leaving the detective in his crummy apartment, knowing he would never have the time the inspect the place if he wanted to listen to that phone call. In all of the emotions he was filled with a the moment, guilt was overwhelming the rest. He was feeling selfish as he was wondering if he was placing his life as a man above justice by following Joker's lead. After all, he believed everyone to be equaled and keeping the lunatic free to save his own skin from embarrassment would be a great egotistical action coming from him. He had to face the consequences for what he did with his enemy. Then again, maybe the clown really was into something and his help would be needed. He was stuck in a dilemma and he could not turn to Alfred for advice. Furthermore, he had the make the choice rapidly for he knew how impatient the jester was. He was certain of only one thing, no matter what decision he was going to take, it was going to have terrible repercussions.