"Promise! Run! Fucking run!" Joker shouts. It's the last thing I hear him say for the next several years. It's the last thing I remember of our final night out. It's my only sense of hope I have for the future.

***
We are bored. Terminally bored. And when we get bored, we go out and wreak havoc. But this time, we are more bored than ever before. So we plan something really big and really fun to do.

Two hours later we're at an abandoned warehouse, setting up twenty-seven barrels of gasoline . We had hijacked a semitruck from a rest stop and used to it to haul the barrels to this huge factory that had shut down before I was born. Jack is connecting the last fuse as I gather our things to leave.

Joker opens the door first, an excited smile for the explosion to come. But he closes it immediately and the smile disappears. I look at him, confused.

"What is it?" I ask.

"I want you to run," he says, his face stern and serious.

"Why? What's out there?" I ask, worry rising in my throat.

"Just run, Promise." His eyes are determined, showing no sense of fear, but I feel panic rising in my stomach. "When I tell you to, you run."

He puts his hand on my head and nods; a silent "Are you ready?"

I nod back and take in a gulp of air. He opens the door slowly, revealing a crowd of police officers. A spotlight lands on us and I'm temporarily blinded.

"We have the warehouse surrounded. Put your hands on your heads and step away from the building," a man on a megaphone says.

Everything is silent as the cops wait for us to make a move. Joker's warm hand clasps mine. I look up at him and he whispers a single word to me.

"Run."

His hand fiddles with the cuff of his sleeve while still holding mine. I don't look down directly but instead, use my peripheral vision to see a pair of knives hidden in the sleeve of his gray sweater. He takes off, ripping the spotlight from me as it followed his figure, running toward the crowd. He swings a knife-wielding hand and everything slows. Adrenaline builds in me, filling me, urging me to sprint my way back to the house.

Six police officers are running towards me, the rest to catch the Joker.

Suddenly, there's nothing.

Blackness.

And those four words.

"Promise! Run! Fucking run!"

When I come to, I'm at our house. My shirt is covered with blood and upon further inspection of my body, I find none of it seems to be mine. I spend a day in only my panties, waiting for the shirt to dry after I washed out all the red.

I learn through a tv displayed in a store window that the Joker pled innocent due to insanity. He was sent to Arkham Mental Institution with a 10 year sentence. When he was asked about "the approximately ten year old girl who escaped the scene" he only replied, "I'll never tell, I promise."I live the way Joker taught me, robbing stores and setting structure fires just to pass the time. There are only two changes in my life.

One, I couldn't sleep. I wanted to sleep, but if I did, I would have a panic attack, hyperventilating and passing out for hours more. The Nightmare Men as I called them, still plagued me.

The second change would effect my life with the Joker forever. A justice-bringing, utility belt wearing, masked vigilante whom everyone calls the Batman. I've only met him once but I have a feeling he'll always be in my way, always watching my moves.

It was October and the air was cold and raw. Being a squatter, my house had no heat and I had run out of dry crates to burn a while ago. I only had the flannel shirt which, by then, was ragged and moth-eaten. What's the point of keeping it? I was 15 and blossoming. I couldn't continue to wear it for my own health and safety.

I went out, found the richest-looking lady in Gotham, took all her clothes and left her with the ratty blue flannel I wore for five years. I had absolutely no post-partum depression.

I turned out the alley, clad in my new, sweet-smelling coat and clothes, when a hand pulls me back in. It was the Batman and all his self-proclaimed glory. He held me against the brick wall of the building and off the ground by the collar of the coat. I kicked and whinced but he was too strong. Fighting back was only a waste of energy. I spent two years in and out of a jail cell. And do you know what I had to wear while I was there? You guessed it. The blue flannel shirt.

When I got out, the shirt was torn and tattered as it had lived through many fights and rape attempts. The liutenant there, James something or other, decided it was a good punishment to let "the clothes thief" wear what she's trying to get rid of.

I, nearly 17 and almost an adult, went back to the abandoned house. For two months, I didn't sleep or eat until I fainted at least twice, then I would cautiously steal something and eat it alone. I was torturing myself not out of self-loathe or masochistic dreaming, but out of boredom.

There is a noise downstairs; someone is trying to get in through the front door. It could be cops, it could be other squatters, or it could be... Well, there's two-thirds of a chance that it's an enemy of mine. I grab one of the several knives Joker had left behind and quietly make my way down the stairs, avoiding the four broken steps by nature. I stand next to the door, readying myself to attack. I turn the latch on the door and it bursts open, a man tripping inside. I lunge, pushing the intruder against the door, the knife at his throat. He had silly makeup, a red smile painted across his cheeks. On his chest is a patterned purple shirt under a green vest and a heavy purple tailcoat.

"Promise," he mutters, taking off the tailcoat and slipping it over my shoulders. I stare at the man, looking past the makeup and finding a face so familiar. The coat smells just like him. I feel my heart skip a beat.

"J... Joker?" I hiccup.

I let hot tears spill down my cheeks and I drop the knife. It makes a hollow thunk on the floor. I fall into him, hugging him and sobbing. His arms wrap around me and I feel his head rest on the crown of mine. And without warning, for the first time in months I fall asleep, standing there with my only friend.

A/N: Sorry this one kind of took long compared to the others. I want to post at least one chapter everyday. There are 27 chapters posted elsewhere, so it won't be a really long story.
But there is a sequel. Whether or not I get reviews dictates whether or not I post it. :)