AN: Sorry about the delay, yesterday consisted mostly of a shopping trip (Dear God, now I know why I always get my gifts far, far in advance. The mall was a nightmare.) and a visit to my uncle's. Today consisted of mostly work, and now The Princess Bride is on in the other room, tempting me. Ah, Inigo. Sorry, I digress.

This chapter mostly exists because I wanted Jonathan to interact with someone who wasn't the Joker, for once. Also, I like writing Jonathan being a narcissist without realizing it. I have no explanation for the opening scene, however. My mind is a strange place to be.

Thanks for the reviews!

"C'mon, Jonny, it'll be fun."

"Absolutely not." He tried once more to close the bedroom door, impossible with the Joker's foot blocking it. His own foot was trying to drive the clown's out, but it was a fruitless struggle, given the difference in strength.

"You might like it, you know. How are you ever gonna find out if you don't try?"

"I don't need to try. I'd hate it. And if you want the toxin as soon as possible, you need to stop distracting me."

Joker pouted, and did what Jonathan took as an attempt at puppy dog eyes. Given the makeup, scars, and everything else about him, it wasn't very effective. "You can't take even a little break? It wouldn't take that long."

"Not interested, sorry." He tried kicking the Joker's foot out of the way. The only result was that he might have broken one of his own toes. "Ow."

"We could stop if you don't like it, kitten. What can it hurt to give it a try?"

"For the hundredth time, I don't want to try." He went back to pushing with his uninjured foot, to no avail. "Besides, I don't know how."

"I can teach you. It's not that hard."

"I have no interest in playing Grand Theft Auto with you," Jonathan said. "I have no interest in playing Grand Theft Auto at all. Shouldn't you be planning your Attract the Bat scheme anyway?" Damn whatever idiot had invented video games and damn whichever henchman had brought them here. If one needed proof that intelligence was slowly being bred out of humanity, Jonathan believed they need look no further than Nitendo, Atari, and whatever other companies produced such filth.

"We've got other games." Joker paused. "Er…do you like DDR?"

"What I like is creating deadly compounds. Which you are keeping me from doing. Which is slowing down your operation. Which is keeping you from your rendezvous with Batman. So it is for your happiness that I stay in here."

"Can I at least have a kiss?" he asked, still frowning.

"If it'll get you to shut up, then yes." He opened the door slightly more, still keeping his full weight on it in case the Joker tried coming in, and their lips met. When he pulled back to wipe the lipstick from his face, Joker abruptly stopped pushing back against the door, causing Jonathan to slam it into his own foot.

"Disgraziato!"

"What was that?" The Joker dodged a shoe thrown at his head, laughing.

"Italian."

"For what?"

Jonathan slammed the door in his face.

Three hours later and he was ready to start breaking things.

God, how he hated dead ends. Or hidden ends, anyway. There really were no dead ends, only ways of going about things he hadn't thought of yet. He'd never faced a real dead end; being a genius, he'd always been able to find some way to achieve what he wanted. It took time yes, but an answer always came to him. Not that knowing that makes the waiting any less annoying. Scarecrow wanted to break things. Jonathan was severely tempted, but he needed all the equipment around him and doubted Joker would appreciate it if he put his foot through the bedroom's TV.

Behind him, he heard the door creak open.

"Whatever it is, the answer is no."

"You haven't heard the question yet."

Not the Joker's voice, Jonathan realized with a start, turning. Knox stood in the doorway, looking every bit as happy as Jonathan felt. "It's still no." See, this is what happens when you start living with your lackeys. Give them the familiarity of sharing a home, and they started thinking they could ask for things. He wished he had his fear toxin. He could kill this man with the laughing gas, yes, but it wasn't the same. Laughing didn't give the pleasure screaming did, even if he knew from experience the sensation was the same.

"It's nothing you'd have to do," he said quickly, as if sensing Jonathan's displeasure. He probably had. Working for the Joker so long would require a good sense of when to shut the hell up. "I'm getting a headache from the noise out there, is all." He tilted his head back toward the door, braids swinging. Even through the wood the sounds of shouting could be heard. Video game violence inspired quite an uproar, it seemed. "Could I just sit in here or would that piss you off too badly?"

"Can't you sit in the bathroom?" It didn't bother him usually, having people around when he worked—as long as they were quiet—but he wasn't in the best of moods now. And he'd never been particularly disposed to generosity.

"Tried that. They keep coming in and out."

"There aren't any closets in this place?"

"Tried that too. I'm too tall to fit under the shelves, it seems. And the kitchen's open to the living room," he said, before Jonathan could ask.

"Fine." If he turned out to be bothersome, he'd use the laughing gas regardless of its less than satisfactory method. Or maybe just pour unmixed chemicals down the man's throat, if he could subdue him. Doubtful, but he could dream. Joker wouldn't be able to complain; he'd given him permission, after all.

"Things aren't going so well?" Knox asked, sitting down by the door.

"What would give you that impression?" Oh, so he wanted to make conversation. Well, that was a bad omen.

Knox shot a glance to the many papers littering the floor, most discarded formulas, and many with obscenities scribbled on them. "Last I checked, "fuck" isn't a scientific term. That, and I stood in the hall for around ten minutes debating whether or not to come in, and heard a lot of swearing. At least, I assume it was swearing. I don't speak German."

"Russian," Jonathan corrected, only half-listening. Standing around for ten minutes before opening the door indicated fear, which showed the man wasn't a complete fool, at least. True, even vermin had a sense of danger, but he'd assumed his particular brand of terror was too subtle for street thugs, and here he was viewed as weak, unintimidating compared to the Joker. This one's got a few brain cells to rub together, at least. That, or he was lying about the fear to get on Jonathan's good side, but henchmen weren't that smart.

"You're fluent?"

"No. Most languages I can only curse in." He turned back to his notes, wondering if it wouldn't be best just to quit for the night. Sometimes it was best to sleep on these things. Of course, every time he slept on a problem he ended up with incredibly frustrating chemistry-based dreams.

"Still impressive."

"Thank you." All right, so Knox was no longer on the kill list. That didn't remove him from the non-lethal experimentation list, however. At least not yet. Silence fell between them and he went back to the task at hand. He wasn't sleeping on this. He doubted he'd be able to, giving how incredibly annoying this snag was.

About twenty minutes passed before Knox spoke again. "Exactly what are you trying to do?"

The sudden words startled him, though to his credit, he didn't jump. "Do what?"

"With the poison. The boss said it's like laughing gas, but he didn't get into the details."

"Do you know what the fear gas I designed did?" he asked. Anyone who'd been in Gotham on that night the League had released the stuff should know, he assumed, but he didn't know the man's background, and having not achieved the Joker's level of notoriety, there remained those who didn't know Scarecrow had been behind that.

Knox, however, apparently did. "Like a bad acid trip, right? Seeing things, terrified, like that?"

"Correct." Very correct, give that his compound had actually been mixed with LSD during his drug dealing business, among other illicit substances. But that wasn't worth going into. It was the low point of his career, not to mention irrelevant to the current topic. "This one does the same, only it makes the victim laugh at the same time. And ideally, freeze a smile on their face, even after death."

"Ideally?"

"That's where I'm stuck." He indicated the profanity-covered papers, deciding that he may as well explain. It wasn't as if this lackey was going to offer up any great thoughts, but talking through it might help jumpstart his own mind. "The muscle stretching and subsequent paralysis bit will have to occur through skin contact, I think, because I can't exactly program a chemical to find a specific point in the body and only affect that."

"Isn't that what the laughing part does, though?"

"Yes, but it's made up of chemicals that will only react in the parts of the brain that trigger those sensations. As far as I know, there's no paralyzing chemical that only affects the cheek muscles. So I'm trying to devise a way to make it contact-based, which still raises the problem of other facial muscles, like those around the eyes."

"Oh. Yeah, I can see why you're stuck."

"Mmm-hmmm."

Another few minutes passed. When it became clear he wasn't finding a solution any time soon, he turned back to the man seated against the wall. "So what's your story?"

"Nothing interesting."

"There has to be something." He straightened, closing his notebook. "You've managed to survive working for the Joker for at least a month, haven't you?"

"I've been with him since his first attack on Gotham," Knox said, a slight smile coming to his face.

"Right. Which means you're not a complete idiot."

"Oh, thanks."

"Well, no one working for the clown is exactly smart. I don't count," he added, as Knox began to open his mouth. "I was forced into it. What on Earth made you pick him as your employer?"

Knox shrugged. "He's persuasive."

To say the least, Jonathan thought, recalling all the times he'd been talked into doing something. About half the things he'd done since the partnership began, looking back. "Still. The man was wearing clown makeup and threatening people with potato peelers. That didn't strike you as, I don't know, insane?"

Another shrug. "Everybody's got their gimmick. Most aren't as dramatic as the boss's, but they've all got them. It was a small group, to start with, so I figured the money would be better." A pause, a glance at Jonathan as if he were debating whether or not to say something. "And he was a lot more…put together back then, you know? Less…well, still impulsive, but not so…intense?"

"How do you mean?"

"Back then, the things he did were more for his own enjoyment. Now it's all about the Batman. I don't know if he wants to draw him out, kill him, or impress him, but he's obsessed."

True. Very true. Analyzing the Joker's odd dependence on his nemesis would be interesting to say the least, but he doubted the clown would be happy if he found out they'd been discussing his psyche. That sort of thing was best done in his own head. "So, you've managed not to be killed how, exactly?"

"It's not that hard, if you know when to keep your mouth shut. And spend enough time around people, you'll learn how to read them. Your chances of living are much higher if you know when someone's pissed and wants to be left alone, or if they're pissed and want you to cheer them up through compliments or making them feel good about themselves, or something."

"I suppose he would enjoy strokes to his ego." Another point under the antisocial personality disorder checklist.

"Him and others, yeah. You're still stuck?"

He sighed. "I suppose I could try modifying a chemical so it won't react to say, the saline in tears, which would keep the eyelids from being affected. Doesn't solve the issue of the skin around the eyes, though. Or the forehead."

Silence for a bit. Then Knox straightened up. "You only want it to stretch the cheeks, right?"

"Yes."

"And you can design it not to react with chemicals in tears?"

"Yes."

"Is there a way to design it so it'll only react with a certain chemical?"

"What, like saline?" He considered it. "Yes, I suppose, but seeing as how I don't want it to affect the eyes, it wouldn't help."

"There are chemicals in spit that aren't in tears or skin, aren't there?" he asked, straightening the sleeves of his coat. "Could you find a way to limit it to that? Then you'd—"

"I'd be able to stretch the mouth and only the mouth from the inside." Jonathan pulled the notebook open with enough force to nearly tear the cover off, already scribbling down ideas. "You, sir, are incredible."

"No, I'm just good at getting on people's good sides."

Jonathan wondered, briefly, if the whole conversation had been a manipulation on Knox's part to get on his good side before casting the thought off and throwing all his mental capacity into the experiments at hand. It was a ridiculous concern anyway. He was far too clever for that. And that was nothing compared to this new development. It might work. It would work.

He could have kissed the man, but when he looked up Knox had left the room, so he went to find the Joker. The clown, still involved in the video game, agreed to stop pistol whipping police officers for a moment and paused the action to hear the news. Upon hearing the announcement, he cheered, then literally swept Jonathan off his feet into a long, fantastic kiss, in front of the henchmen and all.

One expressed disgust, and was promptly shot.