A Killing Joke

Chapter Three

It had been a few days since I blew up at Eddy at the restaurant and he hadn't exactly been returning my texts or calls which I had to admit bothered me. I apologised to him after I had lashed out but he had to have realised that I was no longer a little girl. He knew me, I didn't like those dark brooding men. He knew I liked interesting, fun and well out there people. Even my friends were pretty oddball people. Barry had introduced me to a bunch of people just like that and we all got along very well together. Eddy had to have known I would never have called Bruce, sure I liked the attention but I didn't like knowing that was probably how he got all of his dates.

Really no one hands out cards to prospective dating candidates that's just weird. I sat at my desk trying to figure out what to do next. I really didn't feel like sitting at home all night, but I also didn't feel like wandering around Gotham alone. It wasn't as bright and happy around here like it was in Central City; however wandering around Central City I always managed to bump into Barry. Which always struck me as odd since he didn't have a car and usually always stuck to the few places close to his apartment.

I let out another deep sigh just writing down some notes on my last session that was with Harvey Dent. He really wasn't interested in talking to me about what had happened with Rachel Dawes, or his life before the accident. All he seemed to want to do is talk to me about his hatred towards Batman and how much he wanted to kill him. Which yes sure that was progress in some ways, but it wasn't what I felt like he should have been dwelling on. He was never going to change if all he was doing was hating a masked vigilante.

I had hoped to speak to Zsasz today as well however he told the guards again that he just wasn't ready for me yet which was really only making me anxious. What was he up to; I had heard the stories and read the articles. I even talked to Edward about him and he was mad, the man did have some pretty wild things going on in his head. So it often drew the question as to what he could possibly be working up with me.

I had seen Floyd twice this week out of schedule let him see his little girl, watched as he helped her with her homework and deal with bullies in school. He really was a pretty admirable guy, he was an excellent father. I really did wish there was something that I could do to help him get out of his sentencing faster; however he and I both knew that was likely never going to be an option. Not in the way Gotham Cities systems worked at least.

Doctor Crane had been in here for a session before Harvey had been in; no matter how hard I tried with that man he just wanted to analyze me. Wanted to know what made me tick, what scared me what made me nervous. He said I acted like I was perfect, like nothing phased me when in reality I was far from perfect. I was just like every other girl out there; I hated spiders, centipedes and the thought of a bee stinging me made me run around like a mad woman whenever one was near me. Yet seeing the lack of sun that seemed to find its way into the City almost made me wonder if I would welcome the sight of a bee flying around my head. Probably not.

The last thing on my mind was telling Doctor Crane my fears and anxieties, had he ever escaped again surely he would go after his own Doctor just to mess with me. Something he had apparently done to Rachel Dawes years ago when he had tried to spread fear through Gotham. Not that she was a Doctor, no she worked in the district attorney's office… with Harvey Dent. Everyone here really did seem incredibly connected to one another.

I sighed looking at my notepad next to my office phone, George Harkness was my next patient to come in. I hadn't seen him since he had sat there hitting me, and I had ordered for him to start being brought to the showers more often. Now that I look back on it that was really kind of rude, and implied probably to him that had he started cleaning himself more I would be interested. What an awful message to send out to a criminal. I finished up my last few notes on my meeting with Harvey before calling down to the guard to bring up Harkness.

Being much more organized this time than I had been since I started I already had a bottle of water and some form of meal placed on the coffee table in front of the couch waiting for him as I was already sitting down on the opposing couch with my notepad waiting for him. Once he entered my office I watched him as he strutted towards the couch, the desire to laugh was becoming incredibly strong. His beard looked trimmed, and he didn't really look like he had been sleeping in mud so those were good signs that he took my suggestions to heart.

"Welcome back Digger." I smirked.

"Notice anythin' different, love? All washed up for ye' just like yea asked." He exclaimed as I just nodded.

"Wonderful, you've mastered basic human hygiene." I teased him.

"Even brushed me teeth." He told me with a grin, "Food and water for you." I motioned towards the table.

"Ah amazing love. Good woman always knows her way to a man's heart is his stomach." I just shook my head again.

"Ready to talk?" I asked him as he finally sat down, "Aye." He seemed to shrug.

"Last week you told me how you turned to this because of all the teasing, wasn't your mother ever around?" I asked him he almost choked on his food. "Getting straight to the hard stuff eh love?" He winked. What a pervert.

"Well me mum was around yea' but I ne'er really had a pa figure. Worked in the circus for a but, jugglin' and using boomerangs ye'? Me ma encouraged me with my crime, guess she ne'er thought it would get this far." He told me, I was still skeptical on the facts he was giving me yet, my job wasn't really to deal in facts it was to get them talking.

Yet, that never really seemed to keep my mind hungry I needed to know everything. Needed the truth. "Was she really accepting of you being a criminal or did she just not want to talk about it with you?" I asked him.

"Well I was paying all her bills with the money I was stealing so, Ye' probably just didn't want to ask." He told me.

"I 'aven't seen me mum since I became one of 'stralia's most wanted jewel thieves. I do miss her, yet I went to her to hide and she kicked me out."

"Because you're a criminal?" I asked him as he just seemed to nod.

"What about you love? Do you see your mum and pa?" He asked me, I had almost completely forgot I told him I was willing to make this a conversation not just a therapy session.

"I haven't seen them since I was fifteen. My older brother and I were emancipated." I confessed to him. "Emansi...what?" He laughed at me.

"Emancipated we petitioned the government to be removed from the control and guardianship of our parents. My brother raised me until I was old enough to go to college." I explained.

"Higher education yea? I never even bother to dream of such a thing." He told me.

"You know you can take courses while you in Arkham right?" I told him. "Yea I know but what's the point I ain't ever leaving Arkham." He laughed. "Amanda Waller will see to that."

Amanda Waller? Was that who was running Task Force X? I have never heard anything good about that woman. Barry had mentioned her coming into the station once to talk to him about something he never really divulged into it, he did however mention that she was pushy and really not that good of a person. What did she want with people like the Floyd Lawton, Doctor June Moone, Harleen Quinzel, Chato Santana,Waylan Jones and George Harkness? Honestly though the whole thing seemed very off.

"Why will she see to that?" I asked him curiously.

"She wants us to fight against other bad guys yea? Hunt down whateva' meta humans are either kill them or bring them in. Stupid really." He told me.

"Meta-Humans?" I questioned him.

"Yea, when the Squad was first formed, we had this girl who turned into a witch, and a guy who was basically a giant fire. They're both dead or well he is...I don't know what happened to the creepy witch girl."

I had completely forgot Enchantress was a witch and El Diablo was a flame demi god. It had to have been in my files somewhere. Must have read over it or something. "Oh of course." I said brushing it off as if it were nothing.

"Why do you do this job anyway, it can't be as fulfilling as you act like it is. You know we're all lost causes." He shot at me.

"It's not that you're lost causes, because you aren't. If Gotham's system worked anything like Central Cities or even Metropolis you would all be reintegrated into society once it's been determined that you're fit to rejoin. Gotham will just simply never let you leave its jails or even Arkham which really only makes you all more angry and hate the city and it's people even more. Gotham has a hierarchy. The poor and the criminals mean less than nothing therefore they are treated as such…" I explained watching him as he nodded.

"I do this job because for at least an hour a day you aren't stuffed in your cell rotting away, at least in my office I'll treat you like a human being and talk to you as such. Doesn't hurt to try and make your stay more comfortable." He just laughed.

"Me last shrink didn't care this much about his patients, hell he would bring us in for maybe twenty minutes sometimes not at all and just say he did." He informed me as I just shook my head.

"That I believe, which is really unfortunate for all of you. You may have either chosen a life of crime or are mentally insane… but you are still people."

"Such a passionate lady there love. Like a passionate woman." He winked at me.

I ignored his flirtations for the remainder of the session and had gone back to my desk finishing up my notes. I couldn't have been more excited to leave Arkham to go back home to my cat, kick my feet up and relax for the next day. I was on a no call in note for my days off, I wasn't going to let this job become my life. I couldn't.

"Ah good Miss Nygma you're still here, I have some good news and some bad news." The Warden exclaimed as he entered my office. Something told me both sides of the news was going to be bad, was probably the way he was staring at me to be honest.

"Good news?" I questioned hoping this was actually good news.

"Well Batman finally did something good for once and caught the Joker, bad news is he is coming to Arkham and we will be assigning him to you. You have the shortest list of patients since we had to move everyone around. Not to worry however you will always have a guard in the room with you so that what happened with Miss Quinzel doesn't happen to you."

"I don't need a guard, I'm not an emotionally unstable woman who craves male attention. Least of all from a deranged psychopathic serial killer clown. When is he to be admitted?" I asked him, I guess my little rant caught him off guard a bit.

"You won't be seeing him till your back from your day off not to worry. Just enjoy your day off!" He practically cheered to me before rushing back out of my office door. Now what, that was all the worst news I could have been given. The Joker? He was one of Gotham's worst, the man didn't even have a name, sure they had a speculation of his name being 'Jack Napier' heck he has even referred to himself as 'Joe Kerr'. I would get stuck with him, even after what happened with Harleen they still thought it was best to shove the madman with another woman.

At least I knew his games and I wasn't about to let him get to me. I instantly texted Edward about the news hoping it would get him out of his ignoring me bit and get him to talk to me about this whole Joker bit. On the outside sure I was acting calm cool and collected as I was steadily walking from my office to the check out. Yet in my head I was melting down, this guy probably did some recon on every single employee in here before getting caught. There was no way he got caught by accident everything I read and heard about this man was always carefully thought out.

Unless him being caught was done by Harleen then he for sure was caught by fluke. She was known for backstabbing him whenever he got her angry which from what Floyd had told me the other day he and Harleen had something small going on between them, and that she hadn't mentioned the Clown Prince in a few weeks. So that was also very likely.

Once I had made it to my car I noticed Edward still hadn't texted me back, I did what all stupid scared girls do and waited with the phone pressed to my ear as it rang. "Mia?" I heard the voice on the other end. I sat there in silence not really sure what I was thinking or what to even say. "Are you crying Mia?" The voice said again.

"Barry; They're assigning me to the Joker." was all I could say.

"I'm in Gotham doing something for work… I can always meet you for dinner or something… if you want to talk about it?" Barry knew me well he knew warm comforting food was the only real way to get me to talk about things making me uncomfortable. Central City never sent their Forensic Scientists to other Cities ever… they just conversed over the phone about things.

Yet for some reason Barry being in Gotham didn't even matter didn't even register. "I'll text you my townhouses address I should be there in a half hour… might take you the same time to get there from Gotham PD." I told him as I hung up my phone tossing it into my purse knowing that digging it out later was going to be a right pain in the ass.

Once I pulled up to my townhouse I noticed Barry was already there sitting on the steps outside playing on his phone. All the time apart and he still looked exactly the same, plaid casual dress shirt, blue jeans and his hair pushed back slightly. I did miss him and sure I never really stopped loving him but there was no way we could have continued our relationship. "Hey." I said to him as I stepped out of my car and locked it.

He stood up making his way towards me pulling me into a very tight very warm hug. "Mia." He sighed as he held me. I hugged him back, but nowhere nearly as tight as he held me. "I saw a small little diner not too far away from here on my way to you. It was really nice." He told me as he started leading me down the sidewalk.

The walk was pretty awkward Barry telling me how Cisco and Caitlin were doing, how the West's where doing even though he knew full well that Iris was one of the main reasons we broke up. His undying feelings for her and the fact that everyone saw them except for her. He didn't think I knew but we always had to bring her along to things, she was always mentioned and he always had to be talking to her. Of course I knew.

When we finally got to the diner Barry apologised for it actually being really far away, I wasn't sure why he said it was a few minutes away when it was in fact nearly an hours walk from my place. The place was actually really nice on the inside even through from the outside it looked like it was just some run of the mill fast food place with no seating. How did he even know about it being nice?

"I've known you for nearly seven years Barry Allen and yet you still manage to surprise me. Why are you really in Gotham, how did you even know this place was nice… we couldn't even see if from the inside." I rambled.

I watched as he looked down at the table seemingly contemplating something before he let out a deep breath of air and leaned in closer to me. "I'm the Flash." He told me searching my face for a response which was really just me staring blankly at him.

"Seriously Barry… anyway what did you want to order." What was he expecting me to tell him? That I was Batman or something, or rather Batwoman.

"What if I was being serious?" He asked me, "I'll probably get a burger." He smiled. Barry and his Carbs nothing changed.

"About being the Flash? Would explain why he always managed to stop me from nearly being hit by a car, scratched by a cat, hit by a ball. Yet you were always working when those things happened. How would you have known?" I laughed, "I'm probably going to get the Carbonara." I sighed, "I still can't believe I'm assigned the Joker didn't they see him and women don't mix? Look at what happened to Doctor Quinzel." I sighed taking a sip of the water they brought.

"I would like to think I always knew when the girl I'm in love with is in trouble Mia." He sighed almost like he was annoyed. "You're also a lot stronger of a woman than Harley Quinn is, sure she's stronger now but mentally she is very weak… sure you can be too but I can't see the Joker ripping you down to the point he did with her. Mia you just can't let him get to you, lie to him about your personal life… that's all she got too personal."

"I know but the guy as crazy as he is… is a very intelligent man. He'll know I'm lying and I'll perhaps never get through to him. I don't know I know these criminals are nothing like Central City and that's something I have to accept. I just, I care about their well being."

"I know you care Mia but with the Joker you can't." He reminded me.

"I know. I deal with enough crazies… they have me working with Scarecrow, two-face, Victor Zsasz, Deadshot and Captain Boomerang." I told him, I knew Barry never paid attention to criminals first names but he always seemed to know the silly pen name they went by.

"Captain Boomerang?" He questioned, "Why is he in Arkham?"

"They think it's easier to keep an eye on Task Force X when there in a high security mental facility rather than a prison. He's so irritating always hitting on me, and asking me such personal questions." I told him as our food was set down in front of us, "Of course he would hit on you, annoying aussie-" He paused probably realising how I was staring at him.

"What?" I questioned. "Nothing, That guy is the Flash's most irritating nemesis ask him about that." He seemed annoyed.

"He never mentioned that to me… how did you know that?" I asked him, Barry just looked at me with wide eyes. "You really don't believe me?" He asked me as I just continued to stare at him with some disbelief.

After that the meal got really awkward with more small talk much like we had on the walk here. I felt like I shouldn't have mentioned my patients to Barry it seemed to be what turned the mood at dinner. Which made me feel really bad, obviously he wasn't here on work business and had come to see me and I just went along babbling about work. It was weird that he was so uptight over Harkness however.

Once we were done dinner we went to leave the small diner only to find that it was pouring rain. "Seriously." I sighed, this would happen. I felt Barry wrap his arm around my waist pulling me closer to him he was holding me tightly and before I could even blink we were inside my house. I pulled myself away from him looking around myself at my own home like it was a hologram almost. Touching my hair my clothes, patting him down too… we were dry. Bone dry.

"How… how...this isn't even possible." I began to stammer out.

Barry just stood there with a smile on his lips; "Mia, I told you."

"That's just not… the particle thing blowing up… you?" I asked him as he nodded.

I stood there taking it all in for a moment before punching him in the shoulder than instantly holding it close because, his shoulder was a lot harder than I had expected. He had grabbed his shoulder "ow, what was that for?" He asked me in a bit of a pained voice.

"We dated for an entire year after that happened and you never once thought to tell me you are the Flash? Seriously Barry what the hell!" I exclaimed causing him to laugh.

"Cisco, Caitlin and the others made me swear to keep it a secret. Cisco thought someone would try to hurt you should they have found out."

"Barry… you saved me from nearly walking into a post… while I was texting you about dinner plans with Felicity and Oliver… your enemies would have to be absolutely stupid not to notice things like that."

"They didn't notice that." He laughed, "You're a really smart girl and you didn't see it." He pointed out.

"So you are really the Flash… that's crazy." I commented as we sat down in my livingroom. "That doesn't mean we're dating again." I teased.

"I know, I wish it changed things but I know it doesn't. I came here because I could sense something was wrong, you hadn't even been talking to Cisco or Felicity I needed to know you were ok." He told me as I pulled him into a hug.

"Thank you Bares." I told him before pulling away giving him no time to return the hug. "For listening to me rant about the Joker, saving me all those times and well everything. I am sorry for leaving you." I told him.

"I think Cisco is more upset about us breaking up than I am. I mean sure I'm upset but… He's outside of himself." He laughed.

"He just liked all the stupid riddles I spouted off to him." I laughed, riddles I learned from Edward.

"This was nice." I smiled at him almost forgetting what spending time with Barry was even like. "It was; I'm glad we can at least be friends again Mia." He told me, "I do however have to get back to Central City; I'm supposed to help the Green Arrow take down some villain roaming the streets of Star City." I couldn't help but laugh.

"Keep in touch than alright?" I asked him as he smiled, "Always Mia, anything you need." He told me and like that Barry was once again gone.

I quickly locked my door and began to get ready for bed; I plugged my phone into my charger not before noticing I had missed a text from Edward. Something about being careful around the Joker but the weird part of the text was him talking about being bullied at work. He never once told me about being bullied or this officer that had been bullying him.

I quickly texted him back explaining I was going to bed but I wanted him to come over for the whole day, this was something that as siblings we needed to talk about. His response gave me a very unnerving chill down my spine.

'The answer to this, is what will become of him.'

'The answer to what Eddy?'

'I am always around, but never seen. I am often avoided, but you can't out run me. for I will come when you're old and grey, or maybe even the very next day. I will come with cold embrace, and give you rest with a chilled kiss on your face. I come in many forms of emotional state, weather it's irony, love, laughter, or hate. I am everyone's finale fate… what am I?'

'Good night Amelia I will be by your place around lunch would you be so kind as to make those wonderful tarts you used to make me?'

Death. The answer to that riddle was Death. What was happening to my brother he was never this dark before, I noticed it first when he picked me up from work, when I mentioned Bruce Wayne and Batman… whatever it was I was going to figure it out and put an end to it before it could even begin.

Barry Allen is Portrayed by Grant Gustin from the TV Series the Flash.
He will be in a few chapters but not very often.