I stared at the closed back door, the frown on my face deepening in thought. Why would the Joker waste time here making sure I went to that fundraiser? Just the thought of that man thinking he still had any power over me was infuriating. He must have involved me in whatever plans he had for the fundraiser, but why risk involving me after—?

More obnoxious knocking interrupted my train of thought, and I jumped, having forgotten someone was at the door.

I stood on the balls of my feet to look through the peep hole before I opened the door to see Cat's irritated face. "Took you long enough. What—"

"Joker just left." I said, cutting her off.

She quieted, studying my face as I paced in front of the coffee table. "I take it he didn't stop by for a friendly visit?"

I nearly snorted. "Of course not. He wanted me to go to a fundraiser Bruce Wayne is having for some guy."

She raised a neatly trimmed brow. "And why would he want you to do that?"

I sighed, pausing in my pacing to plop onto the couch. "Hell if I know."

"Well…" she said, the look on her face making me scoot away warily as she sat down next to me on the couch. "How do you plan on getting in? It is invite only, you know."

"Are you invited?" I asked, avoiding the question.

"Actually, yes. But I wasn't planning on going."

"Oh." I stood from the couch and made my way into the kitchen, reaching into the fridge for some water. I heard Selina follow me into the kitchen. She leaned against the counter next to the fridge.

"You know Bruce, don't you?" she accused slyly. "That's why you weren't here earlier."

I crossed an arm across my chest defensively, taking a sip of water before replying, "Yes."

"Then getting in won't be a problem, right?"

"I'm not going." I said stiffly, my thoughts wandering back to what had occurred less than an hour ago. I mentally cringed and turned away from Selina, who was giving me an odd look.

"Why not? Did something happen…?" I turned back to stare at her again, and, judging by the look on her face, I could have sworn that she knew that something did happen – that I had reacted like a ditz when Bruce kissed me and that I had no idea how I would deal with the embarrassment of reacting like some cliché, crush-stricken schoolgirl when I wasn't even sure if I liked the guy—

"Nothing happened." I cut off my mental almost-breakdown and sat in one of the chairs tucked under the square kitchen table.

She lifted herself gracefully onto the counter across from me and folded her hands neatly in her lap as her legs swung back and forth in lazy yet graceful arcs. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought she'd dropped the topic, but as it was, I had no such luck. "Then there's no reason for you to not go, right?" she inquired in a mock innocent tone that made me want to throw my water bottle at her head.

I glared at her stubbornly. "I don't want to; that's as good of a reason as any."

A sly smirk twitched on her lips, and I grounded my teeth in irritation. "It could be fun, Jade. When was the last time you went out?" At the look on my face, she interrupted my answer, "And I mean 'out' as in 'going out to a party' out."

I closed my mouth, my lips pursed. Selina's smirk grew. "Exactly. So there's—"

"I'm not going, Selina." I cut her off.

She slid off of the counter and crossed the small space to the other side of the table, laying her palms flat on the table to lean closer and invade my personal space. I scowled at the spreading smirk on her face. "You don't want to go because of Bruce." She stated. I kept my face straight, staring at the nearly full bottle of water clenched so tightly in my hands that my knuckles were turning white and I hope that's not a bend I see forming. I forcefully unwound the tight limbs from around the crinkling, weak plastic and folded them in my lap.

"It doesn't matter why I don't want to go. I'm not going." I said evenly.

She stared at me for a long moment, her expression blank except for the contemplative glint to her eye. Then she just gave a nonchalant shrug. "Alright, then. Fine. But you're still not getting out of training today."

I blinked, thrown off at the sudden change in subject before I sputtered, "B-but you never specified that we would do it today, and I still haven't slept in over 24 hours so I wouldn't be very productive today!" I shouted after her as she left the room, "Where are you even going?"

She ignored me and reappeared a few moments later with my jacket in hand. "Well, that's too bad. Sometimes you have to work even while sleep deprived." she said with mock-pity as she tossed my jacket to me.

I scoffed. "Where? In my line of work, you just take a day off and sleep for 12 hours."

She gave me a sly grin, her eyes glinting mischievously before she turned towards the window. "That's nice, but we're not in your line of work anymore, Jade. Now let's go." And with those final words, she unlocked the back door and disappeared through the night.

Training with Cat didn't last nearly as long as I thought it would, considering how big of a deal she'd made it out to be earlier. Surprisingly, she didn't mention Bruce's fundraiser again, which also made me wary of any other subtle ways she might've been planning on bringing the topic back up again. I was pretty much on my guard all day. So much so, in fact, that when I dragged my aching limbs back into my apartment later that day, I wasn't even surprised to see Joker lounging on my couch, my laptop balanced carelessly on his stomach as he watched whatever was on the screen intently with his arms folded loosely behind his head.

My lips tightened as I fought to keep a scowl off of my face, and I crossed the room quickly to snatch my computer back from him before he let it fall to the floor and break out of spite or something. "What the hell are you doing here? As if it weren't enough threatening me—" I began my curse-filled rant as I turned to place my computer on the coffee table before I was yanked backwards by the end of my shirt and landed halfway on his abdomen, and halfway hanging off of the couch. The only thing that kept me from sliding off of it completely was Joker's leather-clad hand wrapped around my throat, tight and completely blocking my airway. My hands instantly latched onto his, prying fruitlessly at it as I struggled to try to get air into my lungs.

His face appeared over mine as he curled his upper body upwards to hunch over me, and he lowered his white-painted forehead to mine, his other gloved hand stroking my cheek in what would be a caress if it didn't fee; like he was trying to rub off a layer of skin there. "Now, sweetheart, I'm, uh, pretty sure we went over this, but, ah, you will watch your tone when speaking to me." He growled, his hot breath washing over my face and filling my nose with the scent of slightly burned coffee. "Understand?" he asked with a raise of one black-painted eyebrow, and I gave a single, jerky nod as I ground my teeth and tried to force back the lightheadedness and hoped to whatever god was listening that he would let me go before I passed out.

"Good." With a slight tap to my cheek, he let go of me, and I slid off of the couch completely, my tailbone protesting in pain as it collided harshly with the unforgiving floorboards. My hands cradled my throat and I hunched over my curled up legs, fighting the urge to cough as I greedily sucked in air and tears built in my eyes. Instead, I focused on getting away from the madman behind me, choosing to crawl around the coffee table and pull myself up to my knees.

I staggered into my kitchen, wrenching open the refrigerator door to grab another water bottle. I closed the door and leaned against it heavily, taking large gulps from the bottle to try to ease the burn from my throat, which didn't work all that well. I stared blankly at the dirty tiles beneath my feet, letting my mind avoid the problem sitting in my living room by noting vaguely that I needed to clean more often because I knew if I did address it I wouldn't make it through in one piece. I fought down the wave of dark emotions that tried to force their way up through my knotted stomach and onto the same dirty floor I was distracting myself with—

Oh God, this wasn't working.

My eyes darted around the small kitchen, looking for another distraction, an escape—

They landed on the back door before darting back to the doorway leading back to that man before returning to the door, and as I strode towards it I prayed that he wouldn't try to follow me, but a gloved hand came between me and my escape and killed that prayer before it was even complete. I backed away from the exit, and kept backing away, my eyes going back to that same dirty floor before my back hit the sharp corner of the counter. I didn't lift my eyes when Joker turned to stare at me, nor did I lift them when he approached me. The silence stretched on, awkwardly, and I found myself fidgeting with the bottle in my hand, twisting and un-twisting the cap until I blurted, "Why haven't you killed me yet?"

For a while he didn't answer me, and I was about to repeat myself when he laughed suddenly, loud and uncontrolled. He bent over in his laughter, grabbing my arm with one hand and using the other to slap his knee as he continued to cackle. Finally, he paused in his laughter long enough to rasp out, "Kill you? No, that wouldn't be any fun."

My jaw clenched and I snatched my arm away from his grip as I struggled to see straight in my renewed fury. "Fun? You think this is a joke? James is dead because of this bullshit! I— he—" unable to continue with distinguished words, an animalistic screech tore its way from my throat as I threw myself at him, at the bastard who ruined my life.

His laughter only seemed to grow wilder as he dodged my attack and dealt some of his own. I'd somehow tackled him to the ground, but he threw me off of him and pinned me down as I screamed at him and clawed at his arms, my anger building when I couldn't deal much damage, wanting to kill this man in front of me so badly that not being able to just fueled my rage. "Why? Why did you choose to ruin my life? Why did you kill the only person I had left?"

Slowly, my assault grew weak as a wave of exhaustion flooded my veins. I noticed that there were a thick trail of tears running down my cheeks, and a deep, painful sadness threatened to fill my lungs and drown me within my own body. I closed my eyes, hating how exposed I felt in front of Joker, in front of the man I hated most, and a shudder wracked my body as I let my arms fall limp beside me.

Joker's laughter had died off sometime during my tantrum, but when he spoke, he had an unexplainable, almost joyful tone in his voice, "I, uh, don't think you understand." The air shifted around us as he bents over me, and I noticed a bit too late that he was straddling me. "You. Are mine. No one, nothing will take you away from me." His breath ghosted over my ear as he growled.

I jerked away from him, my eyes opening to stare at him in incredulity. "Yours? You do not own me! And that is not even close to an excuse for killing James!" I yelled, shoving at him to get him off of me so I could get as far away from this madman as possible. "If you can't see that then you're just delusional and crazy!"

My struggling was halted as I was grabbed by my throat for the second time that day, and a sharp pain bloomed through the back of my head as Joker slammed it into the hard floor beneath me. I fought to see straight. There was a flash of silver, and a knife was shoved into my field of vision. "What did I—" he started, but I yelled over him,

"I don't care what you said! If you have such a problem with it then kill me! Just do it already!"

He fisted his hand in my hair, the limb shaking with restraint. His stare was dark, and I matched it, challenging him with my own. "Do it." I hissed.

I grabbed the hand he was holding the knife with and pressed the blade to my throat. His expression blanked, hiss dark eyes grave as they searched my own. Then, he laughed. Again. He sat back in his laughter, and I noticed, again, that he was still straddling me. I scowled and struggled to get out from underneath his crushing weight. "What's so funny?" I grunted, my scowl deepening when I wasn't able to budge and had to settle back onto the floor.

It was a moment before he got his cackling under control, and when he did, he slouched over again to grab ahold of my hair, wounding its curls through his fingers thoughtlessly before he spoke, "This is why I chose you. You, uh, have something, uh, interesting, and I've gotta admit: it caught my eye." He grinned widely as he spoke, and if I wasn't mistaken, I swore I saw something akin to… pride shine through his grin.

I huffed, my scowl deepening as I crossed my arms. "That doesn't really explain much, and it definitely isn't any excuse for killing my brother." I ground out between clenched teeth.

"Brother?" Joker parroted, and an eyebrow quirked in response. "Oh, now that's, uh, interesting." He sat back again in thought, and I took his distraction as a chance to escape by wiggling out from under him. i scooted backwards until I could reach the counter, and i rested my back against it.

"But," the Joker continued as if nothing had happened, "He did break the rules, and, uh, I'm not responsible for what happens when you break the rules." He smiled then, wide and ugly, and I wrapped my arms around my knees, suddenly feeling very small.

"But haven't I broken these "rules"?" I pushed, making air-quotes around the word with my fingers.

His smile dropped, a more serious, darker look crossing his face. He slinked closer to me, and the movement of his limbs reminded me of a monster stalking its victim. I rewrapped my arms around my legs, shrinking into the cabinets behind me as best as I could as Joker got closer to me. He stopped when he was looming over me, and lowered his head near mine to whisper, "Yeah. Ya did. HA! Hahaha!" he burst into another bout of laughter, rolling to the side so that he sat against the counter beside me.

I huffed, crossing my arms as I hoped my slight embarrassment wasn't being broadcasted across my cheeks. "Yeah, well, then there's no point to them if just anybody can break these dumb rules…" I grumbled.

"Not 'just anyone'." He said, mocking my tone, his grin stretching wider across his face. "Ya know, when you're trying to hide your blush, you hide behind your hair. Hate to be the one that break it to you, but, uh, that doesn't really work—"

"But," I interrupted him loudly, trying in near-desperation to avoid the direction the conversation was going in, "You killed James because of the rules, so why—"

"Jamie-boy threatened what was mine, and, uh, I didn't like that." His voice came out in a hiss, and his tone implied that the conversation was over.

I felt my anger rise, and tears of frustration built up in my eyes. I wanted to hit him again, but the adrenaline rush was gone, and I was left feeling empty and drained. "I told you, you don't own me." I hated how my voice sounded almost like I was pleading, so I cleared my throat and tried again, "You can't—" Joker heaved a big, dramatic sigh, interrupting me again.

He turned towards me, then, and grabbed my face between his thumb and fingers, squishing my cheeks together so that my words became indistinguishable. "Shshshsh." He said, petting my hair again. "It's too late to change your mind now."

"Change my mind?" I frowned again, this time in confusion. "I never gave you—"

"Shshshsh…" he repeated, covering my mouth again as he pulled me into his side, his other hand coming up to pet my hair. "Conversation for another time, doll face." He said, as if I weren't going to continue to pursue the topic.

Fortunately for him, my phone chose that moment to ring, and it took me a moment to realize that it was still in my pocket. I took it out and, upon seeing who it was, moved to put it back in my pocket, but Joker snatched it out of my hand before I could do so and peered at the screen. "You're, uh, going to that fundraiser." He growled in my ear threateningly before he put the device to my ear.

"Hello?" I said hesitantly, wanting badly to not have the conversation I knew was coming now while Joker was looming over my shoulder, listening to my conversation.

"Alex?" Bruce answered, "Hi, I'm sorry to bother you after this morning—"

"It's fine, it's fine!" I interrupted before he said anything embarrassing, mentally wincing at how high-pitched my voice was. "Did you need something? I can't really talk for long…" I threw a sour glance at Joker, who grinned as if he were silently laughing at a secret no one else knew about.

I moved to scoot away from him, but he held me in place, pulling his blade from his pocket as his face darkened, and he slowly shook his head. "Alex?" Bruce said, and I realized he must have said something.

"I'm sorry, can you repeat that? I'm kind of busy right now…" I said awkwardly.

"I won't keep you long." He said, "I was just going over the guest list for my fundraiser, and I was wondering if you were coming. I know I only just asked you this morning…" Joker moved his knife to my side, threatening to gut me like a fish, and I glanced at him again.

"Tell him you're going." He mouthed.

"Alex?" Bruce said again, and I realized I had tuned out again.

"Sorry! Yeah, I'll be there." I said, mentally sighing in relief when the sharp object was removed from my side.

"Great." he said, sounding relieved.

Not much longer later, I made an excuse to get off of the phone. It was extremely awkward, or at least it was in my end, particularly due to Joker breathing down my neck as he listened in on my conversation, and partially due to the metaphorical elephant in the room because of what had happened this morning. I could tell Bruce wanted to bring it up, so I hurried to make an excuse to get off of the phone before he did.

When I hung up, I turned off my phone and replaced it in my pocket, glaring at Joker. I got off of the floor, stumbling as I went into the living room. I could hear Joker following behind me. I plopped down onto the couch and stretched my sore limbs across its length, watching Joker as he moved about the room. He grabbed the jacket that must have gone over the vest to the somewhat gaudy suit he was wearing and put it on over the vest.

I raised my eyebrow when I saw him turn towards the door. "You're leaving?" I asked hesitantly, almost afraid he would change his mind.

"Well, I've finished what I came here for, so, uh, yeah." he said sardonically. "I do have other things to do, Jade." He said, his tone sounding almost as if he were scolding a child. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

"Yeah, that's believable, especially considering how much you like to stalk me." I muttered under my breath as he closed the door behind himself.

The next few days leading up to the fundraiser were uneventful, and I didn't hear from Bruce again. I filled the time with making up assignments that I'd fallen behind on, and I'd even trained with Cat a few more times. The night before, however, was the most interesting.

I'd come home from another training session with Cat, sore and irritated as hell, to find my front door unlocked. I'd stood there for a moment, debating on whether I wanted to take my chance and enter or not. I'd decided on going around to the back of the building and entering through the window in my kitchen. I crept silently across the tile floor to a drawer near the refrigerator and pulled out a knife. My gut was telling me that this was Joker-related, so I figured if it were him, he'd be able to dodge me or something. I couldn't say the same for if it were one of his henchmen.

Now, I know you might be thinking that I was overreacting, but I'd been in a bad mood since Joker had visited a few days ago, so I think my actions were completely rational. In my defense, I didn't know what to expect from the madman. He could have been testing me to see if I was going to bail out of going to the fundraiser at the last opportunity.

So when I killed a henchman by accident, I believed I was completely justified, seeing as he was breaking and entering and he had been sent by a madman like Joker. Yes, I told myself, I was completely justified. And this sudden accident had nothing to do with my leftover rage with Joker.

Yeah, the voice in the back of my head returned for the first time in weeks to pipe in, you're not losing your shit at all. Ha!

I ignored the voice's manic laughing while I cleaned the blood of the henchman off of my knife, feeling a bit less irritated than I did when I came home.

A/N: Yes, I know I've been MIA for the last four months, but I've had almost no motivation for this thing until recently. Then, when I did get excited about it again, school was all like, Nah, you can't do this now. But I did it anyway, cause I'm such a rebel. Hope you enjoyed, and review/pm me if anything needs clarification (I have a feeling the end of this chapter will raise some questions).