"We did good work tonight," Bruce said to Adriana as they drove home.
"My eyes are so tired," Adriana said. They had both been looking at screens for hours. "Aren't yours?"
"Yes," Bruce answered.
"I feel bad..." Adriana said. "You have to wake up early for work..and I get to sleep in."
"It's fine," Bruce said. "We made a lot of progress tonight. More than I anticipated. If we keep this up we should be done well ahead of schedule. The sooner we can finish, the better."
"Mmm.." Adriana said.
Her eyes were closed and she felt like she was going to fall asleep. Bruce glanced at her and smiled and then looked ahead at the road.
.
.
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"Everything is being erased," the Joker told Dr. Kapoor during his therapy session. "Eh...well...altered...so essential erased. And the Bat is making it happen."
"I am aware," Dr. Kapoor said with a smile. "It means a new beginning for you."
"Yep," the Joker said.
"And you don't sound particularly excited," the doctor said.
"I owe him a lot," the Joker said to the doctor. "We've been working on this all week. The Batman, Adriana and I. We work on those computers over there for six hours every night. He brought Arsenio here three times so far."
The doctor nodded.
"And you feel you owe Bruce for making this happen," the doctor said. "That is normal."
The Joker leaned back onto his couch.
"The first time he came here," the Joker said to the doctor about Bruce. "We talked about Adriana."
"Mhm," the doctor said attentively.
"He asked me if I had feelings for her," the Joker said. "If I wanted her, basically."
"And how did you respond to be being asked such a personal question?" the doctor said.
"Told him the truth, " the Joker said and shrugged. "What else?"
"I'm sure he appreciated the honesty," the doctor said.
"I don't want her to come here anymore," the Joker said.
The doctor paused. "Oh? May I ask why?"
The Joker went from his reclined position to sitting upright.
"Why?" he asked. "How would you feel if it were you? It is not a pleasant feeling. Adriana and her...husband...here for hours. And she's sitting right by me and..I just need her to keep away from me. It was easier before somehow. She would come and go. When I was in the medical facility. It was easy. But now...those six hours feel like six minutes. It's never enough time. I want her here and I don't want her to leave. And that is not a good way for me to be feeling. I think it would be best if she just...kept away."
"Well, Jack," the doctor said. "I was aware you still had feeling for her but I wasn't aware that it was to this extent-"
"Bruce Wayne has given me a lot," the Joker said. "I intend to be decent. Appreciate what he's given me. I can't..take everything he's given me and also sit there wanting his wife. It is not right."
The Joker looked at the doctor as if he was was expecting something.
"Jack..." the doctor said cautiously. "You're asking me to talk to them?"
"Yes," the Joker said. "Or to one of them. Bruce would understand this."
"And then...what?" the doctor asked ."Bruce would ask Adriana not to come back here?"
"Okay, it sound cold and standoffish when you say it like that," the Joker said. "But I don't know any other way to be with her. She hasn't displayed any interest in me since we started this work here, thank heavens. That would only make it worse. Don't allow Bruce to think that she has..she has not."
"Jack...I'm afraid I cannot do this for you," the doctor said.
"Tell Adriana instead then," the Joker said. "Tell her Bruce and I will handle the rest. We're more than half way done."
"You can tell her that," the doctor said. "Are you afraid to?"
"Yes," the Joker replied immediately.
"Then you must face your fear," the doctor said. "Are they coming tonight?"
"Yes," the Joker replied. "8:30."
The doctor nodded. "You can do this."
.
.
.
"I need another piece of tiramisu," Adriana said and rubbed her eyes.
The Joker glanced over at her. She and Bruce had been at his apartment for nearly four hours. The hours were flying by, for him at least. He could see that she was tired. There were at least two news stories on earlier in the day of Shade's vigilantism.
"I'll get it for you," Bruce offered and kissed Adriana on the cheek after leaving his computer and before going into the kitchen
"Thank you," Adriana said and he left.
It was the first moment the two of them had alone. The Joker considered just blurting it out. Telling her that she needed to leave because the longer that she sat by him, the more he wanted her. And he could not allow himself to want her. It was becoming a torture.
He watched her lean forward, resting her forehead on her inner palms for a moment before looking over at him. She made eyes contact with him for a second.
"Something wrong?" she asked.
"What?" he replied.
"I don't know.." she said. "You look like you're nauseous or something."
All this time, he had been the strong one. Now he felt like the roles had been reversed.
"I am," he said to her.
"Really?" she asked. "What did you eat-"
He cut her off. He needed to just rip the bandaid off.
"It's not what I ate," he said. "It's looking at y-"
"Here you go," Bruce said and gave Adriana the plate with a hefty slice of tiramisu on it.
"Wow that's a big piece," she said as he sat next to her.
"We'll share," he said. "That's why there are two forks."
"Okay," Adriana said with a smile. "Hey Jack...you should take a break."
"Huh?" he asked, still not recovered from how his confession had been derailde.
"If looking over all this footage is too much, we've got it," Adriana said. "You could take a rest."
She thought he was about to say that he was nauseous from looking at all the footage of him committing crimes. The man he used to be. But maybe this was the solution. Leaving them to do it. But that didn't feel right either. All this work was being done for his sake and he did not feel good about leaving them to do the heavy lifting.
"It's fine," he said and stood up. "Going to get a drink."
He stood up and left. Adriana shrugged while looking at Bruce and a few seconds later there was a knock at the door.
"Who's that at midnight?" Bruce asked the Joker, who had only walked a few steps.
"Don't know," he said and walked over the front door and looked out. "Neighbor."
The Joker unlocked the door and opened it.
"Hi Jack," Adriana heard a cheery young woman's voice say. "Sorry I know it's soooo late, but can you open this for me?"
The Joker opened the door a bit wider and held it open with his foot and took the jar the petite slim blonde woman handed him.
"Oh..you have company," she said and saw Bruce and Adriana at the table.
Both of them had dimmed their monitors and the woman was probably wondering why they were sitting in front of dark computers.
"Famous company," she said, recognizing Bruce and Adriana.
"Ah..right," the Joker said and handed her opened jar of sauerkraut back to her. "Friends."
The girl took the jar and tilted her head, waiting to be introduced.
"Bruce...Adriana..." the Joker said. "This is my neighbor Rina."
"Hi," she said and waved at them and they waved back.
"We're a bit busy," the Joker said to her.
"Oh..well I'll get out of your way," the girl said and smiled at him. "Thanks so much for opening that, I was really struggling with it."
"Any time," he said.
"Thanks," she said. "You're very sweet."
Rina looked at Bruce and Adriana.
"Goodnight guys," she said. "Goodnight Jack."
Once she was gone Bruce and Adriana smiled at each other.
"We may need to relocate our operation," Bruce said. "I have a warehouse nearby we could work out of."
Adriana nodded.
"Relocate," the Joker said.
"We don't want to risk neighbors seeing what we are doing here," Bruce said.
"Right," the Joker said.
"She seems nice," Adriana said and smiled at the Joker.
The Joker didn't understand why Adriana was smiling so much.
"She obviously likes you," Adriana said.
The Joker looked over his shoulder at the closed door. Yes it was very obvious but he had never truly acknowledged it.
"Eh," the Joker said. "Probably."
"Probably most definitely," Adriana said, still smiling.
Bruce remembered the Joker's words when he asked her about his feelings for Adriana. He said that he would never want another woman, and Bruce wondered if that was really true. He was a young and attractive man who could have almost any woman very easily. Perhaps seeing someone else would help him get over Adriana.
"Most certainly," Bruce agreed.
The Joker took a breath.
"Well, that was enough of a break for me," he said, changing the subject. "Back to work."