Disc: I don't own batman or anything related.
Also: Yes I did rate this teen anyway, but in this chapter there's a bit more language than in past chapters. Not a ton though.
Ok, ha, ha, I don't usually put more on my not here than enjoy and tune in next time, but I just wanted to warn you poor people…oh, it just makes me all tingly and giggly, but I'm absolutely sure you're going to be subject to the biggest and most magnificent train wreck ending with this story…it will be preposterously beautiful, a terror of total chaos…ha, ha, ha…meanwhile, enjoy the story!
It was priceless, simply priceless. "Ha, ha, the circus?" He chortled overjoyed, and then, he repeated his thoughts aloud, as he was prone to doing. "That's priceless!" And he didn't dare let such a good thing go. Why crush her now, he thought excitedly, when she's so much fun to play with, then, when she runs out of fire, he'd allow himself the pleasure of giving her a smile and the sort of ironic death a woman like this deserved.
The Joker looked down at Trish, who was looking mildly surprised and had managed to hide all but a bit of relief. "You, you're a real treasure." He smiled cheerily, "The kind you…appreciate before you let go of it." He stowed the knife in some purple pocket, "I reserve the right to make you smile…for the moment when you're no longer any sort of fun alive." He backed away, "Tootles, Wedding Girl!" He called, re-tracing his steps in an odd backwards hop as his men held the crowd at gunpoint. "I promise I'll get bored someday!" And with a wide, yellow, toothy grin, he flitted away into the construction zone behind him, laughing, of course.
Trish dropped her face into one hand, creating an unsettling silence as her crowd watched her, no longer feeling threatened. She rested it there for some time before uttering a final statement, leaning just close enough to the microphone that most of the front row accidentally heard her sour remark. "If I ever, hear the word 'wedding' again," She muttered gruffly, "I think I might just shoot myself." And with that she stood a few seconds longer, and abruptly left the stage, standing up proudly, but walking slowly, with more than a little visible despair.
"Oh honey, it's better than it looks,"
The last thing she'd wanted to receive the next morning, other than her newspaper, was a phone call from her mother at the hospital. She had been grumpily reading the former, which featured a nice big juicy front-page story on her famous speech, and at the same time trying not to over do every little thing out of frustration; something she'd been excelling at until the phone call. It was all "We need to make sure you're alright" and "Did he hurt you?" and "You should be here with Dave instead." She'd slammed the phone down, three times before getting it in the right spot and groaned, which didn't help a ton, but it kept her from screaming. "Yes, I am coming to see Dave!" She yelled hoarsely at the inanimate phone. When would that psychopath just have the decency to do away with her, because god knew her parents would drive her loony long before he ever could. She wrestled her coat from the hook, not bothering to look overly decent and started driving as fast as she could manage in a large city absolutely full of cars and pedestrians.
"Ok, I'm here." She stated calmly, walking into the hospital room with maximum control. With her parents' eyes resting nervously on her, the Joker seemed a phantom of the distant past. "Trisha!" Her mother was the first to rush over, throwing her self at Trish with the most force a relatively small woman could muster. "Oh sweet heavens, did that man hurt you?" Trish shook her head, trying to remain civil: her mother did have the right after all, no matter how young it made her feel. "No mother, I'm fine," She responded with a dull, barely audible sigh, Dave caught it; she could read it on his face. Her mother looked up at her, Trish's heels making her appear even shorter than usual. She was so close, her studious eyes found the nearly invisible scratches rising up her cheeks, and traced them lightly with one finger, so as to alert the others. "What are these?" She furrowed her brow, with a practiced and motherly look of concern. "Oh, they're nothing," Trish said truthfully, sliding out of her mother's arms, she knew they'd be gone by tomorrow. "My new playmate just likes to remind me of his cosmetic skills." She flashed a vaguely amused smile. "As seen on the cover of Gotham Weekly!" She added, displaying good humour towards the subject. "Trish!" Her mother exclaimed, "We were very worried about you, that's not funny at all!" Trish frowned and sighed with frustration, "You don't need to worry mom, I'm safe enough, see, you're already giving up on what I'm fighting to prove! This man will be caught, and I swear he will do hard time!" She said this with a much greater quantity of dignity and respectability than the other's ever admitted, and she smiled brightly with hope, slowly dwindling hope, but that emotion all the same. She sat on the bed next to Dave, knowing he didn't agree, but would support her under the pretence that he loved her. "You believe me," But Dave wasn't pulling his actions from "Romance 101", anymore, and he regarded her with only disappointment, "No Trish, I can't support this, you'll be in serious danger. Come on, we'll be married and then we can move out of this disaster area!" He smiled superficially, and she scowled, knowing he only wanted her there, to make him look good, it made no sense for Gotham's rich prince to be married to some wild woman. "No," She said, standing up, than with the strength she couldn't have mustered at her wedding, "NO!" She walked towards the doorway, three sets of eyes looking at her, frightened and dejected. "No, I will not leave this…" She looked for something to say and only came up with only: "Utter dump, no matter how bad it gets! I will not run from what I believe, and I will not marry you!" She crossed her arms proudly. "I hope you find yourself a nice slut for a trophy wife somewhere, because I never want to see you again!" She said this with more dignity and confidence than was revealed as well, not screaming, but only just raising her voice. She turned to her parents. "I don't want anymore phone calls until this is over, none, no messages, no worrying, go make yourselves miserable, I don't want any part of it!" And so she turned and stormed off, putting them to shame with her well-aimed words. "Fine!" Dave yelled, demoting himself in the ranks of honourable ex-fiancés. "Go out and save the world, rid us of 'The Madness'!" He waved his arms, making a stupid face, "You're always going to be ashamed of yourself, more than anyone else, Because you love a first class MADMAN, you malevolent little screw loose bitch!" His screaming died out as Trish rounded the corner and headed for the elevator. Disappointing herself, but not in the way Dave had foreseen, she noticed a particularly nasty little grin spread over her lips. I shouldn't enjoy hurting people, she thought, but this had been long over due.
The
next day, she spoke with Harvey Dent and Bruce Wayne, who seemed
concerned, but were less troubled with her immediate safety and more
with the operation on whole. "We're taking you out of the public
eye, just for a while, until we see what sort of effect you've
achieved." Harvey proposed reasonably, looking suave but
uncomfortable in the large room, and the presence of Mr. Wayne.
"Yes," their stately host agreed, "Now that you've…stirred
things up" He paused, smirking for a moment as Harvey chuckled,
"We're going to wait, and there's no way we'll let Dave go
public with the break up," Bruce's face became serious, "If I
have to talk him out of it myself." He was interrupted by more of
Harvey's humour, "Yes," he agreed, "Cause if you change too
many things at once in your life, people start to think you're
going crazy." He smiled impishly, making Trish laugh. "Though
I'll admit you're a lot more fun without him glued to you." He
added, Trish nodded aloofly, "He wasn't my type. I like a man,
who has real, deep down, serious emotions, but that only works if he
can laugh, Dave"
, she sighed, "Dave doesn't laugh to
often."
She managed to speak momentarily with Rachael, as she was leaving and the other girl was approaching the tall, reflective building. It was one of those buildings you didn't mind seeing, even though it didn't match the historic city, because it was very handsome, as far as architecture went, and looked tasteful on the street level, as it reflected the sun in a beautiful array of colours, creating a stunning halo around the top floor. Rachael introduced herself, and with the sincerity of a person who'd been in a similar situation, she complimented Trish on her calm actions in the face a Gotham's latest horrific criminal. Trish smiled, but she knew this wonderful woman was in more danger than she ever had been. You're a real treasure! The Joker has said to Trish, meaning, in her opinion, that she was safe for a while (until you aren't any fun alive.) Rachael however, was someone Harvey Dent cared a great deal about, a type of leverage, possibly enough to send him into some sort of spiral, if she were tortured enough. "Well good things are all I hope for this city," Rachael said as they parted, "And good luck!" Trish smiled; turning away, and then she muttered, "God knows we're going to need a great big circus wagon full of it!"
She went home to nurse her mental wounds over some hot coffee and mindless television, not bothering to even answer the phone for the rest of the evening. It was all so complicated; what she was feeling now. These feelings were the kind of complicated things she tried to keep herself from feeling, while she worried about other people's complicated lives. Tonight, she thought, kicking her self remotely for breaking off her engagement without thinking twice- or once for that matter, tonight you're the only person you have to give a damn about. So she sat in her favourite chair, in her cozy little apartment, and gave in to just thinking about herself and her problems; it was the hardest thing she'd ever done.
It was so hard not to be distracted with how others might have felt as her mind slid over the wedding and the speech, her marriage made in hell, her loss of composure today at the hospital, those scars. She shivered; diving into a deeper layer of her self, one where everything was symbolic of another thing entirely, every little line of every conversation was glued to some conclusion. She'd seen those scars, they were glued somewhere deep, deep down, a repressed memory maybe? No, she had nothing to repress, she was sure. A dream? One of those totally senseless dreams where little has anything to do with anything, where you suddenly own a dog that speaks Russian and by some utter fluke, by some crazy one in a million chance, she had gone to get the mail and her postman had smiled at her with a face full of bloody cuts like that? She couldn't be sure, she just knew that she felt helpless under the weight of whatever emotion that crocodile smile triggered in her, was it obsession, anger, jealousy… rebellion? She couldn't possibly remember to put her finger on it…
"There's a lovely bride right there, in your right eye!"
The clown doesn't have to marry some retard!
"Is the pretty bride not happy?"… "Hello Wedding Girl!"
"You love a first class MADMAN, you malevolent little screw loose bitch!"
All of this echoed, painfully, explosively in her weary mind. I'm not getting anywhere, she thought with frustration, "It all comes down to the Joker" She muttered, pulling up a scrap piece of paper and drawing a little cartoon smile, underneath she drew those dreadfully intriguing scars, and bellow that she placed the joker-card with the message.
She didn't have anything to scrawl down the other side of her flow-chart, she'd have to draw from deeper, sleep on it maybe, perhaps she'd never know unless this mysterious man revealed a bit more about himself.