"Oh...Bruce," Adriana said after opening her front door. "Hi."
"Hi, Adriana," he said. "Can we talk?"
"Sure..." she said cautiously and stepped aside so that he could come in. Once he passed her, she noticed the pamphlet that she had gotten from the dentist about the process of receiving a dental implant still sitting on the table by the front door. Fortunately, he was moving slowly as if he was in pain, so she had a few seconds to move her purse on the table to cover it.
"How have you been?" he asked and turned around to face her.
"Good," she lied. "You?"
"Been better," he said,
"May I sit?" he asked.
"Of course," she said and sat on the couch.
"Oh.." she said and sat beside him.
"Adriana," he said and took a deep breath. "I need to apologize. I'm sorry. I've been horrible to you."
Adriana said nothing in response, she just nodded.
"I shouldn't have gotten so upset at you not wanting to expose Shade," he said, continuing to apologize. "What I asked of you was out of line. Disappearing and ignoring your messages and calls was also unacceptable. I wouldn't blame you is you hated me right now."
"I don't hate you, Bruce," she said, honestly. "I forgive you."
"That easily?" he asked.
"Well...it hasn't been easy," she said. "But I've already forgiven you."
"You're very forgiving," he said.
"Yeah..I know," she said. "So..Shade. You're not worried about her exposing you?"
"Actually," Bruce said and rubbed his forehead. "I suppose not. She could have exposed me by now..she had the opportunity."
"Yeah..." Adriana said.
"So you see what happened," Bruce replied with a bit of shame. "Why I'm...banged up right now?"
"I do," she answered.
"I don't know what happened," Bruce started to explain. "I don't hit women. Especially not like that. I hit her hard. Same as I would hit a man."
"I know," Adriana said. "I'm sure she's fine. She takes hits all the time I assume...right?"
"Yeah," Bruce said. "She was well enough to effectively retaliate. My rib is going to take longer to heal. She really went for me...civilian had to stop her. Then she just...walked away."
"Mm.." Adriana said, listening intently. "Do you think you'll do what she asked?"
Bruce looked at her.
"Staying away from her?" he asked.
Adriana nodded.
"Yes," he said.
Adriana did her best to avoid showing any relief. She needed to appear impartial.
He looked over at the small table in front of the couch.
"The masquerade ball," he said. "You are going."
"Yes," she said. "With...Damien."
"The cop?" Bruce asked.
"Yes," Adriana said.
Bruce looked genuinely surprised.
"So are you two back together?" he asked.
"We're...going to just give it a shot," she said, not even sounding remotely convincing even to herself. "See...if we can make it work somehow."
Bruce looked away and nodded.
.
.
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8th Block of Percy Street. 3rd Building. No clown hair. Now.
Another text from the Joker. Before the crack of dawn.
Adriana entered the brick building with many busted out glass windows at around 6 a.m. The Joker and Brake were there in one of the rooms, surrounded by mostly empty cages. Two of the cages contained two small monkeys each. The animals were quiet and docile.
Brake was injecting one of the monkeys when Adriana walked in.
"Here," Adriana said, unexcited.
The Joker stood, bare faced, and walked past her out of the room. He had what looked like mud stains all over his clothing. He smelled like potting soil. She followed him into another room where a suitcase sat on a lone table.
"Take it to 40th Street train station," he said. "Before 7."
"What's the key for?" she asked, about the small key sitting on top of the case.
"Locker 414," he said, dryly. "Put in inside, lock it, leave. Let's hope that even you can do something this simple."
"So, that's it?" she asked.
He didn't answer. He felt the answer was obvious. A normal looking, non threatening appearing person needed to do this. That was why she couldn't go with striking bright hair.
He grabbed his large suit jacket, also stained with mud, from a chair by the table and left the room briskly. He was leaving the building. Adriana lifted the case and walked back into the room where Brake was appearing to experiment on the monkeys.
The monkey he had injected before was gripping the bars and jumping up and down vigorously, making a sound that sounded like human laughter. Then it sounded like it was gasping for air, but still laughing. It was a horrible sound.
"What's wrong with it?" she asked Brake.
"It's dying," he answered and turned around.
"Really?" she asked. "It sounds really...happy...excited and..crazy.."
"It's dying," he said again. "We shoot em up...they laugh and laugh..and laugh..until they can't breathe and they die."
"Seriously?" she asked him. "They laugh themselves to death?"
"Yep," Brake said and yawned. "New poison. It's why we went to the lab."
"Fuck...that's horrible," she said, now hearing the tiny monkey struggle to breathe. "What the hell..."
"Yeah..." Brake said. "We have a successful injectable. But bro wants it airborne. Still working out the kinks..to see if it's possible."
It was her fault. One of the components for this awful substance was stolen by the team she was a part of, from the lab she had stolen the blueprints to.
"So...some kind of a deadly laughing gas.." she murmured with sadness.
"Yeah," he said. "I mean this stuff works as a laughing gas. But it doesn't really kill them. Made one of their lungs collapse but that was as bad as it got. He wants this shit guaranteed deadly. It's too weak as a gas right now. The injectable though, hundred percent fatal."
"Wyatt...we can't..." she started talking but he stopped her. "This is wrong. This poison shouldn't exist. We can..taint it or...destroy-"
"No," he said, stopping her from speaking. "If he hears you-"
"He's gone," she said. "He left."
"He could come back any time," Brake said. "He could just pop back in right now and hear you talkin' about sabotaging this-"
"He's not in here," she said. "I know for a fact he's not in the building."
"You don't," Wyatt said. "He pops back up when you least expect it, trust me. Too late anyway. That payment there in that case, that's for the last chemical we need for this. Should have a working laughing gas by tonight."
She couldn't deliver it.
"No!" Adriana said. "Wyatt, how can you do this! This is cra-"
"Shh!" he said. "Don't be stupid, sweetheart. After what happened the other night too? You're on thin ice. Surprised he didn't kill you."
"That wasn't my fault," Adriana said. "I didn't cause that shootout-"
"It doesn't matter. I've seen him kill people," he said. "Over way smaller things. It was your fault, as far as boss is concerned."
"He's not here," Adriana said again.
"Look..this is the last job I'm doing for him," Wyatt said. "Then I'm out. In the end he might only be able to make enough to kill two or three people with this shit, max. This shit is hard to make...even making enough to kill three monkeys so far has taken months. I'm not killing anything but monkeys."
"But you're helping him," she said. "Testing it and everything-"
"You too," he said and looked at the case. "Better get to the station."
Adriana realized that he was right. If she didn't take this case, he would kill children. If she did, he would use this gas to kill someone else. She needed a plan.
.
.
.
"..worked for the state court system for over thirty years, was found dead in his home today. First responders states that the death appeared to be due to respiratory arrest, but the following video was received by the Gotham police department earlier today"
The news showed a shaky video. A room filled with greenish smoke that was slowly fading to reveal the criminal court judge that everyone recognized as being the one overseeing the Joker's case. He was in his office, crumpled on the floor, laughing his heart out. It almost looked like he was having fun, but then as the camera came closer, it became easy to see that he was crying through the laughter and had a mild nosebleed.
"You know," it was easy to recognized the Joker's voice which sounded muffled. "Laughing yourself to death isn't the worst way to go. Must be more fun than...say...lethal injection?"
The judge laughed harder and harder as if he'd heard the best joke in his life. The visual was uncomfortable to watch, the man laughing so hard when you could see he wanted nothing more than to stop. His face gradually turning blue as he held his stomach and slapped the floor.
"You know what else is funny?" the Joker said as he turned the camera to himself. He was wearing a gas mask. "Your...honor. Your honor...The honorable..."
The laughter became louder.
"Yes, we call this man your honor and the honorable...but is he really?" the Joker said and turned the camera back to the man who was wheezing out his last breaths. "Or is he no better than me?"