A Rose by Any Other Name

"Joker!" Batman struggles to form as his body begins to burn even more.

Joker stood up and limped over to the edge of the pit. "How are ya my old friend?" He chuckled and turned back to see that the young man was still convulsing. He hurriedly ran over to him and knelt down. "Shhhhh..." He held the boy close.

"How are you still alive?!" Batman struggled to gasp out, "I watched your body burn in the furnace."

"Wrong!"

"What are you planning Joker?"

"Are you serious right now?" Joker turns and frowns. "I am busy." He turns back and continues to hold the terrified schizophrenic child.

"No!" The boy began screaming and covering his face.

"Quiet my child. Shhh." Joker continues to hold him, "How's my doll Bats?"

"Suicidal." Batman says as he is slowly lowered and the pit covered. "Why are you letting me down?"

"To have fun."

The young men and women surrounding Joker help lift The Laughing Shadow and carry him off into a back room.

"He seems a bit like you." Batman says as he steps on the hot steel grate over the pit.

"He is like that because of you." Joker's head is lowered and his grin his cutting deep, "We are all here because of you. Do you really think you are helping?"

"What do you mean?"

"His dear mother was the only fucking thing that stopped his father from beating him. His mother was killed by Freeze to get your attention." He turned and sat down on the floor laying out. "So his father began beating him and cutting him until you intervened and 'saved' him." Joker pulled out a cut cigar and lit it and took a deep drag. He blew out the smoke and sighed. "He was put in a foster home miles from your protection and it was you who left him there. Well that is where he met his brothers and sisters and found out how hilariously black the world could be." Joker began laughing and wiped a tear away, "He was attacked by the man of the house in one of his drunken raves. Well remembering you telling him to stand up for himself." He took another drag, "Well the boy took a knife and jammed it down the man's neck. Laughing as he done it. I guess he was sick of being beaten and bloodied. Then came the police to take him and his friends away cause they had continued and killed the crackhead whore that slept upstairs all day. They were put in a psychiatric ward for a while and you showed up since they had fought off another attack on them. They were taken by you to Arkham, the man who save him now condemned him to the crazy house."

"Joker...I didn't-"

"Shut it bat brain." Joker sighed and stood, trowing his cigar at him. Years later he and his bestest friend in the whole wide world wanted to be married. But you wouldn't let the boy marry her since they were evil in the mind and that their insanity should stop with them. That their children would be worse then them. So you had them separated for the safety of the city, and the asylum. I got bunked with the boy and he told me everything. His life story, every ounce of truth, then one day you volunteered him for tests the good doctor I carved was working on. Those damned tests. I got put through them and I am tough." He flicked the still hot cigar at the burning bat. "He was driven deeper into his madness. Harley told me that his lover had tried to kill herself because of the tests. You never really looked into the asylum staff...did you?"

"Joker...what happened?" Batman asked with a concern for the villain and his creation.

"The doctor tortured the poor boy. Injected him with some drug to increase brain functionality but I knew better that it was really a way to securely weaponize Venom. Well it only affected his brain, warping it into a massive ball of jelly and yarn." Joker shook his head, "I know this must be strange for you, to see me like this...but I have my reasons."

"He reminds you of yourself?"

Joker begins to laugh grievingly, "Oh what a cruel joke that is. No...someone I never met." The strange clown of grieving joy turned and smiled sadly, "Someone I loved before I touched them. Thats who he reminds me of." He smiles and suddenly a tearing anger cuts through and he screams, "Someone who was torn from me before I, or he was ready!"

"Joker."

"Shut up! You know you would be no better then me if it happened to you." Joker walked back and forth as the iron grate grew hotter and the caped crusader began to wince. "I tried to prove it to you over and over. Maybe I was being to indirect." Joker turned and his menacing grin carved his face again. "I am going to take Harley back Bats. I just needed a break from you and to see my boy again. And when I return I will find a priest who is unwilling and force that sonovabitch to marry me and my dearly beloved Har. And then My boy is gonna get wedded and guess what, your gonna be the best man." Joker began laughing manically.

"You are insane."

"You know it Batboy." He smiled, "but first I need you to be in the same mindset as us, you know...so you can be one of the pals."

"What do you mean?"

"Pull that bitch back up!" Suddenly batman was dragged through the air and hung high up. "Remember a few years ago when I put a slug through Gordon's girl and terrorized that geezer?"

"Joker what are you doing!" Batman's last ounces of will and strength were being drained vampirically from him, drank dry of every ounce. "Stop Joker!"

"You asked me if I wanted help and I told you there is no hope for me."

"Yes. I remember. I remember it all!"

"Well guess what. I realized why Gordon didn't go mad!" Joker's grin began to widen and his eyes seemed redder. "His girl lived. She was a paralyzed bitch, but she lived."

"Joker!"

"So I decided to try again, but how could I? Barb and Gordon are still close but they grown apart. I already killed a Robin and watched you caress his lifeless body. Neither of you broke." He began to walk back and forth again, "So I got thinking, and I thought well if one of those two self righteous asses has a kid I could do it then."

"Joker! No!" Batman began to feel anger beyond himself growing as well as worry.

"So I find out you got my woman, my Harley pregnant during one of our little argument periods." Joker slams his fist on the table, "Oh! Bats you bastard. I needed someway to get to her again and you gave it to me." He laughs, "You 'pawned' her and Ivy off on Bruce Wayne." Joker winks at Batman, "As if I didn't know. And Batboy, guess what. I made sure to be the first thing that baby saw."

"You sick son of a bitch!" Batman began to struggle beyond human strength, "I will kill you if you harm my son!"

"Your son?" Joker laughed, "I won't harm him." suddenly the iron grate was being removed.

"Batman..." Superman moans in agony and pity for his friend.

"Save your strength."

The laughing shadow suddenly appeared behind them with Batman's child in arm. His eyes closed, his little body moving slightly.

"Hey Batman." The boy was no longer hearing voices and seeing things, or he just wasn't showing it. "If me and my beloved couldn't have a child because we were mentally demented and insane...then why can you!" Batman tensed as the shadowed jester walked forward with his child. "I was going to be a better father then my own. She was going to be a better mother then her's, but you said no! You tore us away and forced all couples in the Asylum to opposite ends!" The baby woke up and began to cry in terror. "You are classified as a mentally demented self righteous insane man whose child shares his and that of another insane woman's, genetic signatures."

"Please no." Batman pleaded.

"But Batman, you are just as bad as us. Your child thus will be worse then you, like with me and my beloved. Or Joker and Harley."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh Batman. My dear savior bastard. Didn't you know?"

"Know what?!"

"You really don't."

"Oh this is rich!" Joker chimed in. "Harley hates you so much right now you know."

"What are you talking about!"

"Harley is pregnant again."The Laughing Shadow laughed as he spoke the heart breaking words.

"But..."

"And you realize that all your girls you have been with hate you now."

"What have you done!" Batman shouts as the pain begins to burn deeper.

"You left, they hate you cause of it too."

"TO GET MY SON!"

"Should of forgotten about it, Ivy is the most pissed too."

"NO!"

"And now if you will excuse us, we got to go see them."

"Toodles Bats." Joker said with a jump and he grabbed the child and left with the army of psychos.

"JOKER!"