I dreamt that I was lying in a field. It was warm and sunny and the wind was dancing through my hair. I could hear birds in the distance. One of them sounded like Gar. Another like John. They were calling my name..
Luccyyy….
I dug my head into the grass, pulling myself into its warmth.
Lucccyyy….
Drifting back into consciousness, I realized I was nuzzling myself into a foreign fabric. It was warmer and coarser than the pillow I had fallen asleep on. Finally registering where I was, I quickly opened my eyes.
The coarse fabric was purple. Looking slowly upwards, I found a familiar face grinning down at me. He leaned closer to keenly observe my reaction.
I was speechless and flushed. Such intimacy, so soon. He had been lying in bed with me. I had been sleeping on his chest.
"Hello there" he said in a low voice.
I couldn't get any words out. I just stared back at him. There he was, ever the same. His clown makeup mostly wiped away, revealing the scars and his strong jawline. His eyes glistened behind traces of black face paint, producing a look that shattered me into a thousand pieces.
"Looks like the west coast didn't treat you so well, did it, doll face."
I tried to sit up slowly, but as I did, searing pain shot through my shoulder. A small whimper escaped as lips and I fell back onto him. He clicked his tongue a few times to chastise me. Sitting up, he gently moved me to his side. I instantly craved his warmth over the chilly emptiness.
"Not even in Gotham for a few hours and here I am, cleaning you up."
"The Penguin-" I managed to blurt out.
"I'm aware" he interjected, "he's a simple minded bird with a big mouth. Like I've said before, and I'm sure you know by now, I have eyes and ears everywhere."
Standing abruptly, he went over to his table, where a package of bandages, tweezers and a bottle of brown alcohol lay waiting. I said nothing as he collected the items and brought them over to the bedside table.
"Well, Luce. You're already putting me to work. And here I thought we could spend the night together! Let's role play instead… I'll be the surgeon and you can be the patient." he said, holding a scalpel and some tweezers.
"What… are the tweezers for?" I asked hesitantly, not fully comprehending what was about to happen.
"There's a bullet in your arm."
"It's still… in there?"
I figured Garfeild or the Penguin had removed it. Silly to assume they had the skills for something like that. But apparently, and fortunately, the Joker did. Or so it seemed.
He handed me the bottle of alcohol, which turned out to be a cheap brand of whiskey, and sat down next to me.
"That's right Luce, and we have to get it out."
A "no…" escaped my lips in disbelief. His eyes lit up with delight.
I realized at that moment that whiskey would be my anesthetic. Having surgery without painkillers was… barbaric… medieval… insane. I was certain he could have gotten me something more effective to dull the pain, but it was obvious that he wanted to enjoy every moment of my misery. I wasn't sure why I had expected something other than masochism from the Joker. His favor to me was equally as satisfying to him.
"Drink up, darling, and don't scream too much… we wouldn't want to bother the neighbors…"
A part of me wanted to hit him. A part of me wanted to run. But neither of those options would have benefited my situation. Holding back the urge to scream, I asked for something to bite down on during the procedure.
Obliging my request, he wrapped a few bandages and gave them to me. I took a few big gulps of the whiskey and stuffed the bandages in my mouth, nodding when I was ready.
Without another word, he pushed me back down on the bed, throwing his legs over my waist, using his upper body to keep me from squirming. He did his best to restrain a chuckle as I looked up at him in surprise and horror.
Holding me down, he reopened the bullet wound with the tweezers and dug in. I screamed into the bandages, tears running down my face before I could stop myself. He shushed me as he pressed his body down forcefully onto mine. As I writhed underneath him, my thoughts swayed wildly between pleasure and pain.
. . . . .
The Penguin was fuming, pacing back and forth in his office, wondering how she had slipped through his fingers.
As he watched the snow falling outside, Oswald contemplated where Lucy could have gone. Back to Wayne Manor, perhaps? Outside his jurisdiction. Or to the Joker? Again, territory in the narrows that he had yet to claim. Either way, she was beyond his reach.
However, she had given him plenty of leverage to reel her back in.
Lucy had escaped without her bag, leaving him with the most valuable of items… her mother's diary. What a surprise to know she was the Smiley-Faced killer's only offspring! Well, he certainly had a surprise for the both of them.
There was a knock at the door. Speak of the devil, he mused.
"Come in, come in." he beckoned, walking toward his carved mahogany chair, cushioned with rich leather padding that matched the blood red color of the wallpaper. Sitting down, he folded his hands on the desk, adjusting himself merrily.
The door opened and in stepped a taller, slender man dressed in a blue tailored suit. Clean shaven with salt and pepper hair slicked back in perfect strands, his eyes looked as blue and as cool as a desolate Russian tundra.
"Ah, Dr. Deimos, please come in."
He nodded as he glided in. For a man in his mid to late 50's, he was devilishly handsome.
"Mr. Cobblepot, what can I do for you?" he asked, his stare chilling Oswald to the bone. It had always made him uneasy to call upon the Doctor, especially now, for such a personal matter.
Dr. Deimos was a brilliant surgeon-for-hire, using his skills to hunt down and harvest organs for wealthy elitists who refused to be weight-listed at Gotham General. It earned him a pretty penny.
Not only was the doctor a brilliant surgeon, but also an infamous tracker. He was unnaturally good at finding the best donors for his clients, silently stalking his victims until the opportune moment came to slice them open. It had landed him the nickname of the Bloodhound.
"Apologies for taking you away from your work, but I have a job for you. An important one. The pay is double and the job is… personal. I knew you'd want it before anyone else."
"The black market is short on supply this time of year… to take me away from my work denotes a job of very high importance."
"Indeed" the Penguin said, pulling the leather bound journal out from his top drawer.
"A journal?"
The Penguin nodded slowly, pushing it towards him.
"Not just any journal…Read through it in your own time. Your job is to track and find its latest owner. Her name is Lucille Falcone. Doctor, I need you to bring me your daughter."
. . . . . . . .
My thrashing didn't seem to keep him from concentrating. He was meticulous with his work, removing the bullet with ease and applying alcohol as he worked.
I took in short gasps of breath as he finished stitching. His body was heavy against mine as he finally finished wrapping my shoulder. I felt like a puddle of blood and tears.
"There we are…" he cooed.
After a few moments, he removed the damp, saliva covered cloth from my mouth. I couldn't speak, only stare. Maybe it was the alcohol in my system or the delirium I was experiencing from the pain, but I couldn't take my eyes off his face.
"See something you like?" he said, leaning down towards me.
Another stray tear fell down my cheek. I felt so fragile around him. Never would I have let anyone hold me down like that and tend to me so intensely... not like I had a choice. But he was skilled at this sort of thing.
I could only assume he had lots of practice, getting better as the years progressed… learning from mistakes, learning from his own scars. He was accustomed to pain. It was a language for him, a form of silent communication. He was testing me, and he knew I could handle the pain.
Even though his hands had been protected by medical gloves, I didn't need the insight to understand that, as fucked up as it may have seemed, there was a caring side to him.
Maybe I was a little drunk. Maybe my eyes met him for far too long. But I leaned in towards him and kissed his cheek.
"Thank you" I whispered.
He didn't flinch at the intimate gesture, only chuckled as I fell back onto the bed, exhausted from the effort of lifting my head.
But the moment was fleeting as a knock at the door broke our silence.
"Come in" the Joker sang, jumping off the bed to greet a very bewildered clown. The man must have thought he was stumbling into a murder scene. My blood was everywhere.
"The, uhhh, the video is ready, Boss. What do you want us to do now?"
"Broadcast it" he said plainly, shooing the man away with a bloody hand.
The man nodded hesitantly and shut the door behind him. From the sound of it, the clowns had all returned to the hideout, readying themselves for whatever was to happen tomorrow.
Eventually, the Joker glanced back at me.
"You're welcome" he said, wiping his hands on his blood stained shirt.
I tried again to lift myself up, but he pushed me back onto the bed as he came to sit by my side.
"You… you knew I could… handle it. You did to me… what you did, to yourself…"
An image flickered in my head of a younger Jack, taking a swig of whiskey as he finished stitching the sides of his face in a motel mirror.
"These unspoken secrets, Luce, they define our relationship. I'll keep yours and you keep mine."
He sat back down, leaning closer to inspect his handi-work.
"And what about the favor you asked of me?"
He smirked.
"I have something very special planned for Gotham. A Christmas Day spectacular… with special guest appearances. You're my date, toots."
"Will you kill more innocent people?"
He growled, staring me dead in the eyes.
"You have to let go of the heroic trash that bat stuffed into you. We're all equal here. I play a fair game. No one's innocent, Luce. No one."
He sat back down in the chair next to me, raising the bloody scalpel and tweezers as if he was about to conduct an orchestra.
"Gotham's a city built to fall… It's filthy rich sit in their penthouses day and night watching bums search the gutters. There are too many highs and lows. At a certain frequency everything comes crashing down. My job is to make it all Even-Steven. I'm leveling the playing field, darlin'. It's not about killing people… it's about sending a message."
Whether it was a demented sense of Justice or an excuse for madness, he couldn't be swayed in his beliefs. It made me think of Bruce. Batman was just as stubborn in his desire to deliver justice. Perhaps that's why the Joker had maintained such an obsession with him. He had met his match. Whatever had driven the Joker to Gotham in the first place was replaced by a lifelong motivation to test if Batman's ideologies were as steadfast as his own.
I only nodded, as he brushed a hand against my face.
After a few more moments of silence, he jumped up abruptly.
"Now, let's find something for you to wear besides that bloody shirt. Although, you do look good in red…"
He skipped towards the door, opening it, then quickly slamming it behind him.
…
John, Garfield and Dick were still in the batcave when the broadcast aired that night. The message played on every major network.
The screen was dark at first. But slowly, a spotlight illuminated a single man in the center of a stage. It was the same hostage as before, the Santa Claus suit now ripped and tarnished from relentless beatings. He was tied in rope, sitting atop a pile of cellophane wrapped presents, at least twice his height.
"Once upon a time in Gotham" said a voice from behind the camera, "The mob was in charge of pulling the strings. Making puppets out of politicians, and sucking the life out of a once bustling economy."
Money began falling all around the man like snow, creating a layer of paper over the pile of boxes.
"But eventually, they were tested by a mighty force. A dark knight. Never falling prey to the schemes and villainy that oozed from Gotham's towers. Batman… our savior!"
The Joker now stepped into the view of the camera, flicking a lighter on and off in his hands.
"Where is Batman? Why has he forsaken the people of Gotham?"
The Joker picked up the camera now, moving it closer to the pile of presents.
"Tomorrow, during the Christmas Day parade, as a gesture of my appreciation to the good people of Gotham, I will resurrect our ghost of Christmas past."
He zoomed in on the squirming man, then panned back down to his hand that was holding the lighter.
"So let's trade good ole Saint Nick for our dark defender… From the ashes rise the phoenix!"
His purple gloved hand lit the bottom of the presents, igniting a huge flame that spread quickly to the top of the pile. Fits of laughter erupted as the Joker placed the camera down, and began throwing gasoline onto the flames. Despite a partial view of the man's writhing body, his legs and torso were still visible in the frame, now engulfed in flames.
John, Dick and Garfield couldn't bear to watch the rest of the footage. As John switched off the television, the muffled screams of the man were abruptly silenced.
For a long while they were deathly quiet.
"Well, Fuck."
John and Dick both turned to look at Garfield.
"There's no way Bruce is going to give into his demands" Garfield thought aloud.
"Of course he's not." John said, turning away from them to stare at the black screen.
"We've got a handle on this," Dick said optimistically, "he's given us a location, a demand… his motive is clear-" but his optimism was quickly cut short.
"Nothing is ever that easy with the Joker. He won't ever reveal his true motivation. That's the most dangerous part about him."
"So then… what do we do?" Gar asked, leaning against a table, still trying to get his bearings on what he had just witnessed.
"We play along," John said, twisting his head to look at Bruce's suit, housed in a glass display case towards the far side of the cave. "We give him what he wants… Bruce or no Bruce."
