Apparently, the henchman hadn't been sent for some weird, crazy test of my loyalty. Joker had (apparently) sent the man to leave a box, and I had (unfortunately) caught him on his way out. I glanced warily at the plain-looking white box, sitting innocently on the edge of my bed, and I heaved a heavy sigh. I shoved it to the side and fell face forward on my bed, too tired to try to figure out what could be inside of it.

I woke up early the next morning for some odd reason. And I couldn't figure out why. I didn't have to use the bathroom, and there was no one else here to disrupt my sleep, so it seemed to be completely random.

With a groan, I gave up on trying to fall back asleep and got up, maneuvering through the still dark apartment to get to the kitchen. I made bacon and rice, and as I munched on my small breakfast, I remembered the events of last night. I stood, traveling back to my room to see what was in the box I had killed a man over. I picked it up from the place on the floor I must have kicked it to in my sleep, mildly surprised it hadn't spilled open in the fall.

I sat it on the edge of my bed before I lifted the lid off of it and moved the tissue paper aside to view its contents. "What the hell?" I muttered to myself as I stared unbelievingly at the contents of the box. I pulled at silky green fabric, and as it slid out of the box, a note tumbled to the floor.

Wear this.

—J

It was a green dress, floor length and ridiculously fluid. An even deeper shade of green set of stones lined the top of it near the breast, getting sparser as they trailed down the midsection of it. I pulled it against my body, and the end of the fabric brushed the top of my bare feet, and I frowned. Where the heck had the Joker gotten this from? Even better, why? I know I had plenty of dresses fancy enough to wear to Bruce's fundraiser, and if Joker was as nosy as I thought he was, he knew it too. So why go through the trouble of buying—or stealing, considering who we're talking about— a whole new, unnecessary dress? A laugh bubbled up in my throat as I thought of a man like Joker in a fancy boutique, picking out a dress, of all things—

My almost laugh was cut short as I thought of the corpse I had yet to get rid of, still sitting in a plastic bag in my bathtub. I had killed a man over a dress? I was sure I should have felt regret, guilt, or something, but I just had the urge to laugh at the irony of it all.

I sat down on the edge of my bed, staring at the girl in the mirror on the closet door across from me. "What are you turning into?" I asked her.

I stared at my reflection in the same mirror I had stared into this morning as I applied the last of my makeup and slipped on my other shoe, a pair of plain dark green ballet flats I had chosen to wear over the dangerous-looking heels that had been in the box. The dress was long enough to cover them anyway, so they would only be seen as I walked. The dress was sleeveless and had an open back, and it fit snugly over my hips and waist. I wasn't surprised that the dress fitted so well, though I did find it a bit creepy just how well it fit me, almost as if it were custom made or something. Actually, that made much more sense than Joker actually buying it, but I couldn't think of who would actually ma—

I froze, halting my train of thought as I heard the front door open. "Oh, Jade." A voice called out in a singsong tone, dragging out my name.

My shoulders sagged as the tension left my frame when I heard the voice. I walked out of my room and into the living room as I snarked, "So forcing me to go to this stupid thing wasn't enough? You had to come see—" I froze when I laid my eyes on the man standing in the middle of my living room. My mouth fell open and snapped closed a few times before I finally got out, "Joker?"

"Who, uh, who else would I be?" he said smiling sardonically as he walked towards me.

There was no face paint in sight, and even the scars seemed to have disappeared under the magic of makeup. A fedora sat atop his head, hiding the green strands from view, and he wore a plain-looking black suit with a simple green tie. "Don't you look, ah, lovely." He drawled as he drank in my appearance. His eyes swept back up to meet mine, a knowing glint flashing through them before he added, "I, uh, almost wasn't sure you got it considering that my little delivery boy never made it back."

I felt my face flush as I thought of the hours wasted digging, trying to hide the body. I dipped my head out of habit, trying to hide my face, then silently cursed the fact that I had decided to wear my hair pinned up.

I shrugged awkwardly, and then stepped around him to go to the door. "I don't know, it was here when I got here—"

Joker grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him, his nose nearly touching my own. "You, ah, you sure ya don't know anything about that?" He asked quietly, and it almost felt as though he had pried my skull open and was searching my memories as easily as flipping through a magazine, as if he knew I was lying. Something about that gaze looked familiar, and I—

"Well?" he asked, and I snapped out of my stupor.

I snatched my arm away and twisted on my feet to open the door. "I said I don't know nothing." I said as I exited the building, not really caring at this point if he followed or stayed behind. Hell, I didn't even care if he locked the door behind him, which, now that I thought about it, he probably wouldn't..

The sound of his laughter followed me as I pushed through the front doors of the building, and, as I turned to glance over my shoulder, I noticed that the bastard had a smug grin stretched across his lips; I realized that he hadn't really cared whether or not I had gotten rid of his thug, though I still didn't know how he knew that I had. The thought that he had just been toying with me to get a reaction out of me made me more upset than it should have, and I stormed away as he exited the building as well.

"Where are you going?" he asked from behind me, and I didn't bother stopping as I spat over my shoulder, "I don't care, as long as it's away from you."

I didn't hear him follow behind me, but he grabbed my arm and yanked me hard enough to nearly pull me completely off of my feet. It was enough of a distraction for him to drag me in the other direction, towards a plain black car that had been (apparently) waiting the entire time. "In case you forgot, you kinda have somewhere to be right now." He said sarcastically as he opened the door and shoved me inside, scooting in after me.

"Really? I had completely forgotten!" I snapped back, rubbing the place on my arm where he'd grabbed me (and where I knew there would be a bruise forming later). "I just decided to put on fancy clothes for no reason and go for a stroll in the neighborhood."

Joker gave a short laugh, shaking his head mockingly at me. "I don't think that's very smart in this neighborhood."

I scowled, opening my mouth to reply, but he pressed a non-gloved finger to my lips. "Shshsh," he hushed me before rapping his knuckles on the divider that hid the driver from our sight, and the car lurched away from the sidewalk.

Getting in was a lot easier than I thought it would be. We just had to show our ID and the invitation I'd gotten from Bruce. When Joker was asked to show his, I wasn't all that surprised to see he actually had both an invitation and an ID. I was more curious about the ID, though.

"Lemme see." I demanded once we had gotten on the elevator and the doors slid closed.

I took it from his hand before he could answer or put it away out of my reach, though I'm sure he'd let me take it from him, if the amused tug at his lips was anything to go by. I ignored him and looked at the fake ID, choosing to study the picture first. He looked just as he did now, only without the fancy clothing. His hair was down, still in its stringy form, but instead of being green, the locks were an odd shade of brown. His expression was grim, not a grin in sight. Although, I'm sure it would have been a dead give away had he actually smiled or something. The information listed beside the picture listed the name as Jack Napier, and it said he was only a few years older than me.

I gave it back as the elevator dinged and the doors slid open again. "You look weird frowning." I commented.

"Oh, I know." Was all he said.

I frowned and turned to ask him what he meant, but the elevator was empty and Joker was no where to be seen in either direction of the hallway. "Really?" I asked the air where he'd been.

Just as I thought, socializing with all of those... people had been as excruciatingly painful as I thought, and I stuck to the edges of the crowd as much as I could. Bruce wasn't there when we arrived, and there was still no sign of Joker anywhere, which was both relieving and worrying at the same time.

I had somehow made my way around the large room when a heavy gust of wind blew through the room through the open balcony doors, followed by a deafening sound I couldn't identify. I stepped away from the doors and shielded my eyes from the wind, squinting against the bright light that shone through.

'What the hell?' I thought, but my mental question was answered when the source of the light swung around slowly and I could see what it was that landed on the balcony.

"A... helicopter?" People behind me whispered.

"Leave it to Bruce to make such a grand entrance." Someone else added sarcastically.

Sure enough, the door to the helicopter swung open and Bruce stepped out before helping two women out behind him. All three entered the room from the balcony, and I realized too late that I was too close when Bruce spotted me immediately.

"Alex," he greeted me, leaving the company of the two women with him to approach me. "Glad to see you made it." he said with a smile as he gave me a small hug.

I fought the urge to tense at the contact and forced a smile. "No problem." I said. "That was quite the entrance you made there." I said jokingly as we turned, walking towards the place I wanted to be the least: the center of the room where most of his guests had crowded.

"Oh, that was all for show." he waved his hand nonchalantly, and I noticed his arm around my waist, his touch light enough where I barely noticed it was there. "Come on, there's someone I want you to meet." he added.

Bruce led me over to a table where a man was sitting down, facing away from us, and he greeted the man, "Ronald! Nice to see you made it." the man turned around, and I nearly laughed at the irony of the situation.

The man was Ronald McHardey, one of my more frequent clients, and, ironically, the first to find out that I had relations-if that's what it's even called, I'm not sure at this point- with Bruce. He smiled at Bruce, "Bruce. You know I wouldn't have missed it." Ronald said and his gaze shifted to me.

"Well, who is this beautiful young lady?" he asked, and I could see the amusement in his expression.

"Alex Peyton." I introduced myself, extending my hand in greeting.

"Ronald McHardey." He returned the greeting.

Ronald and Bruce continued their small talk for a few minutes before Bruce decided to introduce me to a few more people; among them were Rachel Dawes and Harvey Dent. Overall, none of the people he introduced me to were very interesting, except for the few of whom I already knew because of an odd job here and there I had done for them before. Things didn't get very interesting until I saw Ronald again while I was getting one of the fancy tiny sandwiches at the table of food.

He walked up beside me and got a glass, filling it with some sort of juice. "I didn't expect to see you here." he said as he took a sip.

I dipped my head in a lazy nod. "Same goes to you. Although, you already knew I know Wayne. How do you know him?" I raised my brow and took a bite out of the sandwich.

"My company does work with his... you know. Boring stuff." he shrugged.

"Ah." I made a noncommittal noise as I chewed on the last bits of the sandwich.

"You know, kid, I might need a favor soon." He said as he turned to look over the crowd.

"Well, that would be no problem. You know how to contact me when you're ready." I said. "Just use—"

"I didn't mean that type of favor, Alex." He interrupted, stepping closer to lean towards my ear. I jerked away on instinct and resisted the urge to use the knife hidden inside of my dress when I felt his hand graze my bottom near the opening of the back.

"I don't know where you got the idea that something like that would work with me, but I advise you to keep your requests to yourself." I hissed, gritting my teeth to keep from raising my voice.

Ronald scoffed. "So that Wayne boy gets to—"

"Bruce has nothing to do with anything. My private life is separate from my business."

"So he doesn't know." He said, a calculating look crossing his features.

"No." I said firmly. "And he won't find out."

I stepped closer to the balcony's railing and sighed, glad to be away from the obnoxious crowd. I pulled the pins out from my hair and tucked them into the small purse that hung lazily at my hip, feeling the wind comb through my hair's red curls as it fell out of the fancy-looking knot I had managed to roll it into at the base of my neck. I ran my fingers through the roots, rubbing my scalp slightly in hopes that it would get rid of the headache building behind my skull. I wondered briefly if whether it would be worth it to risk going back inside to grab a glass of whatever expensive-looking alcohol waiters had been carting around all night when I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

I turned, squinting as a small gust of wind blew a lock of hair into my eyes as I tried to see who had tried to get my attention. Once I had cleared my path of vision, I saw Bruce standing in the doorway, looking amused. "Care for company?" he asked with a smile, but I was sure I saw a hint of uncertainty in his gaze.

I gave a small smile and shrugged awkwardly. "Sure." I responded.

As he walked closer, I saw that he held two glasses in his hand, and when he was closer, he offered me one. I took it, smiling gratefully, and bumped shoulders with him lightly, "This is just on time." I said jokingly, taking a sip from its contents.

"Good thing I brought it, then." He replied, and, for a moment, we stood in silence, watching the dark city's busy movement tons of stories below on the streets before Bruce spoke up, "I see you let your hair down?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. I was starting to get a headache." I clarified.

"Is it the crowd?" he guessed, gesturing with his head to the doorway behind him.

"Yeah." I repeated, scrunching my nose up as I glanced over my shoulder. "Not really my type of party, I guess." I paused, then, "Well, I don't really like parties in general." I shrugged a shoulder almost lazily, taking another sip from my glass.

Bruce's eyebrow dented, and I nearly laughed at the look of confusion written plainly on his face. "Well, why did you come?" he asked, and any hint of laughter in me disappeared.

"Eh… you asked me to." I said, scratching the back of my neck as I failed to come up with a better excuse.

'Yeah, ok. We all know it's because clown-boy told you ya had to.' The voice in the back of my head snickered, and I inwardly scowled.

'You don't have to say it like that.' I grouched back at it.

Bruce touched my arm, bringing my attention back to the present and away from my potential mental problem.

"You didn't have to. It would—" I cut him off, waving my hand nonchalantly.

"It was no problem. Really, I do enough of these things for work stuff, anyway." I said, shrugging again for the millionth time that night.

It was then that I noticed how close we were, and I glanced up at Bruce. He leaned closer, and I tried to step back, but my lower back smacked painfully into the railing as my mind screeched at me, 'No! We can't do this again! Do something!'

I opened my mouth to say something, but the loud, piercing noise of gunshots cut me off, startling me enough to make me drop the half-empty glass in my hand. I mourned the loss of the remaining alcohol that was now pooled at my feet along with shards of the glass itself before I realized that the Joker must have made his reappearance. Bruce must have concluded that something was wrong as well (obviously) because he stepped around me to go back inside, tossing a brief, "stay here" over his shoulder as he re-entered the building and disappeared into the crowds within seconds.

I blinked, almost confused by his sudden disappearance before my mind registered what he had said. I scoffed aloud. "Stay here my ass." I mumbled to myself, lifting the ends of my dress to step over the sharp, messy remains of my glass and walked quietly to the doorway to peer inside.

As I had guessed, Joker was gathered near the main doorway with a bunch of rag-tag men wearing clown masks, and I wasn't all that surprised to see him in his normal get-up. 'Where'd he stash it though?' I asked myself, and then decided that it wouldn't matter and that I'd probably get to ask him myself sometime soon. I shook myself out of that train of thought and tried to listen to what he was saying.

I only caught bits and snippets, but apparently he was asking for Harvey Dent. He went from person to person, asking whether they had seen Dent or not, and most shrunk back in fear, shaking their heads silently. One particular brave soul, however, stood up to the clown, "We're not intimidated by thugs." He said loudly.

Joker grabbed the poor (albeit kind of stupid) guy and pulled him closer, his knife dangerously close to the guy's face as he said something else. I scrunched my nose up, debating whether or not I wanted to move closer to figure out what the heck he was saying, but then Rachel stepped forward, attracting Joker's attention to herself. He turned to her, saying something else— I decided to move closer at this point— but she jerked her knee into his midsection, and he hunched over and took a step back, laughing at his own pain.

"You've got a little fight in ya." He said. "I like that."

"Then you're gonna love me." A husky voice said, and out of nowhere, Batman appears and kicks Joker, knocking the knife out of his hand before engaging in a fight with Joker's henchmen.

This went on for a while, and I was beginning to to wonder where the heck the cops were when another gunshot rang throughout the room, and I looked back to Joker. Apparently, he had shot out a window and was holding Rachel hostage with a gun to her head.

"Drop the gun." Batman said.

"Sure." Joker drawled, "Just take off the mask and show us all who you are…" Rachel shook her head as best as she could in Joker's hold. When Batman didn't respond quick enough, Joker shifted his hold on her so that she was dangling out of the window.

"Let her go." Batman shouted.

Joker laughed, baring his teeth in what looked to be a snarl. "Very poor choice of words." Then, Joker dropped Rachel out of the window, and Batman dove after her as she screamed.

I blinked, staring after the cape-clad man. 'Really?' I nearly said out loud, and from the look on the faces of the people standing around me, I could tell they thought something along the same lines. 'He leaves the rest of us for one woman?'

Joker stared out of the window after Batman and Rachel before he turned his gaze to the sea of people looking expectantly at him.

Joker gave the cowering crowd a scrutinizing look, his teeth working at his scars. "Well," he said expectantly, "What are you, ah, waiting for?"

When no one replied, his stare darkened. "Scram." He growled.

And then there was chaos.

People shoved and pushed towards the small exit of the room as if fire nipped and snapped at their asses like a rabid dog. A larger man nearly knocked me down to beat me to the exit, and somehow, I ended up near the long table that sat off to the side of the room, and just as I got ready to shove my way through the crowd towards the exit, someone grabbed me by the upper arm. I turned to yell at whoever it was, but I nearly choked on my own spit in surprise.

"How did you—? Where did you come—?" I sputtered to form a full sentence, but the Joker, now in the same getup he wore when we first arrived: suit, fedora, and plain face (with the exception of the makeup hiding his scars).

He shushed my incoherent questions and took my arm again, herding me into the rest of the crowd. For some odd reason, the elevator wasn't working, and we had to take the stairs all the way down to the lobby. By the time that we got there, the cops were swarming the place, and Joker guided me out of the building and onto the sidewalk, where we walked down about two blocks to a spot where the car that had dropped us off was waiting. Once we got in, it screeched away from the curb and farther away from the ruined fundraiser.

A/N: It's been...almost a half a year since I last updated. Funny thing is, the majority of that time, I've had about 90-95% of this done, I was just too lazy to re-write the last bit of this. Meh. I'll probably be writing more in the immediate future, depending on whether or not I have any motivation for this. We'll see. Hope you enjoyed; review and give me feedback, all that jazz. Later.