#There's more violence now that he is Joker though not against Reader

[jokeringcutio]

Hello! Sorry to bother you, but I just binged all of The Man Who Claimed To Be Yours and it's genuinely one of the best fanfics I've ever read. I'm just wondering when the next chapter will post or if you have any estimation?? ❤️

Hi, thank you for asking. I am currently working on the new chapters. I haven't an estimation for it yet. I want to have the story finished before Joker 2 airs.

[x-gabrielle-x]

Withered Cards | IV

Pairings: Jason Todd x Reader.

Warnings: Blood, gore, violence, murder, swearing, major and minor injuries, death.

Summary: Despite the many different problems you overcome with Jason Todd, you always eventually make it back to each other. Even after his death, how could you still love a man who changed so much? Even when you made a turn for the worst.

Series Masterlist

Your body still ached from the hits that Joker had blown at you only a week ago, the scab forming over your split lip leaving a metallic tang on your tongue. The bruises still had yet to heal, the purple blemishes littering your skin and serving as a fresh reminder of just how cruel and nasty the Joker really was. It had been a week. A week since your failed mission, and a week since you had last seen Robin.

You had found yourself mostly staying hidden away in your tiny room back in the warehouse, finding that it was much greater comfort than having to be around the tantalizing grin Joker always sent in your direction, like a lion baring its teeth to its prey. So of course, when you had heard a loud bang on your door with the Joker bidding you farewell, claiming he had 'unfinished business to attend', you were more than relieved to finally stretch your limbs and let your guard down; just a little.

Though even without the Joker there for the few days you had, your heart would leap into your throat whenever you thought to hear something similar to his maniacal laughter. You were constantly on edge even without him there, and Harley seemed to be mourning his absence just as much as you were enjoying it.

Sitting on a random rooftop with the glimmering city lights below did little to ease your running thoughts. The familiar chill of the freezing air pricked at your skin to which you folded your arms against your chest for a sense of warmth. Gotham had seemed to be a lot quieter tonight, a very rare occasion. Crime was low, and the usual distant sirens were quiet. You could even hear the occasional laughter and cheers from the bar just down the street.

You wished to bask longer in the silence, in your own company, but it was quickly gone when you heard the soft thuds of boots on the floor behind you.

You didn't need to look over to know that he was staring directly at you, observant and intrigued. In any other situation, you would have found yourself reaching for your knife and defending yourself against the charging enemy, fists flying and weapons drawn for blood, but this was different. Very different. There was no harshness to his steps, no attacks thrown at you, only silence.

The silence dragged uncomfortably long, and you kicked your legs back and forth over the edge of the building as you let out a long breath.

"I didn't think the Robin would be paying me a visit tonight," you kept your gaze trained below. "If I had known, I might have put on my better shoes!"

The pounding in your chest grew with each word you spoke, but if he had come to fight you, he would have done it by now.

He ignored your comment and instead came up beside you. It was then you finally turned your gaze up at him, noticing his yellow, red and green costume. The dominoe mask shadowed his face, though you could see little due to the dimmed lights of the city. He was staring right back at you, a little too much for your personal comfort.

He slumped onto the edge of the rooftop with a huff, maintaining the safe distance between you both. You had to resist from smiling a little to yourself at the silliness of it all. Robin, your enemy, the one who had made you fail your mission and make the Joker’s anger flare was currently sat five feet away as if nothing had happened.

He was playing a dangerous game, yet you were curious to see the reason of his arrival. If he wasn't here to start something, why was he here at all?

The tension was thick with something you couldn't place, but the feeling was oddly unsettling. Not because you were fearful, but because you were oddly excited for this coincidental meeting.

"Tough week?" he questioned in a tease, pointing to your split lip and the yellowish bruise poking out from under your mask. You merely scoffed at the boy before subconsciously licking the cut on your bottom lip.

"Maybe. It would have been a hell of a lot better if you had left me that vial, though," you looked at him, catching the smile that had appeared on his face triumphantly before he quickly disguised it with a bored look.

"What did the Batsy say when you handed it in," you continued. "It better have been good, considering the Joker wasn't too pleased when I returned without the one thing he had asked of me." You gestured to your eye again, his gaze lingering there for a few moments too long.

He tensed at the mention of Batman, lips twitching into a frown.

"Nothing you need to know," he mumbled out, irritation laced in his voice. You quirked a brow.

"I think I do," you laughed, though it was obviously fake. "Considering you're the reason I got my ass beat."

He ignored you, instead shifting himself so that his leg was now propped up on the edge of the roof. He tilted his head in question.

"What are you doing here, anyway? Another Joker deed or dwelling in your failure," he taunted.

"Having a breather," you were quick to reply in defense, and you noticed the way his eyes widened in surprise. He let out a soft laugh, something that surprised you considering you didn't hear laughter too often where you were, or perhaps too much from the Joker.

"Something that we have in common," he mused, and for the first time you felt a strange sense of welcoming with Robin. With anybody, for that matter.

The both of you remained at a safe distance, but his presence alone was one that confused you. Tonight, even with him a mere five feet away, you weren't worried about having to fight him, worried about hiding away, or worried about who you were raised with. It was nearly as if in this moment, you had somebody who didn't pose you as a threat. Or at least, not much of a threat.

Robin's movements were relaxed and composed, abandoned of any tension he may have held before regarding your presence.

“I’m guessing you don’t do this often,” Robin concluded. “If not at all.”

You frowned at him, slightly offended by his comment. “How would you know?”

The corner of his lip tipped into a smile, and he shrugged, flexing his shoulders in a way that caused for his suit to stretch.

“I’m here nearly every night, and I can positively say, I haven’t seen you out here once.”

“And I bet you wish you could see me, little birdy,” you fake pouted, watching him closely.

He breathed out a laugh, his eyes squinting under the dominoe mask that concealed his identity.

"Believe me, if it didn't end in you nearly breaking my nose last time, I might have considered it."

You just stared at him, your mind trying to figure him out. In all honesty, you don't remember the last proper conversation that you had with somebody. much less around your age.

"How old are you?" the question had slipped out before you could stop it.

Robin glanced back at you; a brow raised. "Not much older than you, I'd guess," he looked you up and down. "How old are you?"

"Thats not an answer," you deadpanned, ignoring him. "For all you know, I could be a sixty-five-year-old woman with insane plastic surgery."

"But you're not," he clarified. "No old woman would be able to jump off rooftops and work for criminals like him."

You cringed at the mention of the Joker.

Robin let out a low hum, and the city lights from below flickered across the right side of his face in what seemed to be like a dance.

You opened your mouth. "You're not-"

"Stop." He cut you off.

You paused. "Excuse me?"

He held up a hand, his gaze going past you. It was only then you heard the quiet grunts and rummaging from a nearby alley. You were already on your feet and moving toward the sound, steps cautious. Robin was right on your heel, and by the time you were both on the ground hidden by the shadows in the alley, you could see a hunched figure leaning against the brick wall, digging through what seemed to be a purse.

You turned to Robin, a mocking smile gracing your lips. You gestured an arm out.

"Well? After you, Wonder Boy," you said.

He frowned. "Is that some way you're going to get me distracted and then knock me out when my backs turned?"

You rolled your eyes. "No, do I look like a hero who fights purse thieves?"

He looked you up and down. "Honestly, no."

"You didn't have to answer, bird brain. Just go!"

The man who had been distracted for long enough suddenly snapped his head toward you both, snarling.

"What the hell?"

The man stood abruptly, stepping closer, though Robin was quick to move from the outstretched hand of the man. With a swift kick, the man was doubling over with a grunt and spilling the contents of the purse onto the floor.

The man growled in annoyance, lunging for Robin again, but he was quick to duck down away from the mans clenched fist before it could make contact. You, however, watched on with amusement.

"You could have been a bit more original rather than a purse thief," Robin called out to the man.

The grunts exchanged between the two continued, and you cringed at the few hits Robin had received. You had to admit, he put up a strong fight.

"Little rat!" The man yelled, holding his head where a punch managed to land before he stumbled out of the alley, disregarding the purse he previously held.

Robin huffed, brushing a dark stray of hair away from his face. He looked over, meeting your gaze as you clapped mockingly, stepping out from the shadows and closer to him.

He stooped down, picking up what looked to be an ID.

"Do you know a Lora Johnston?" He said, flipping the card in his hand.

"Can't you search that up on a special little gadget or something?"

He mumbled out something that you failed to hear.

There was a pause.

"I think you could improve on your movement," you said, and his eyes snapped to yours. Something changed in his features that you couldn't place.

"Teach me, then."

Your mouth ran dry. "What?"

"If you teach me, then ill teach you some stuff." He was quick to add, but you shook your head quickly.

"I don't need your help."

You went to turn, but you let out a yelp when you were suddenly tugged back and landed onto the hard floor.

"You let your guard down too easily," Robin teased. You only glared up at him with annoyance.

You stood back up to your feet and wacked him on the shoulder, pushing past him and walking toward the alley entrance to leave, but he quickly called out to you.

You ignored him, but he called out again.

"What do I call you?"

You stopped and turned to him, eyes wide.

There was a long pause. "Nothing," you said. "I can't give you a name."

"Well," he thought, a suggestive smile gracing his lips that you knew you'd see again. "I guess I'll just have to decide myself."

You turned again, waving a hand this time. "Until next time, birdy!"

He let out a chuckle. "Until next time, Princess!"

You remain silent the rest of the walk, your interaction with Robin nothing like how you would have imagined it. He confused you more than you'd like to admit, but oddly enough, tonight was a change, and you liked it.

You couldn't remember the last time you had spoken to somebody so casually, the sense of normality something you craved more of. Though the two of you barely knew each other, much less trust, you had hoped it wouldn't be your last interaction.

@annabellelee @stormz369

©x-gabrielle-x. Do not steal, copy or translate my works.

[hana-no-seiiki]

YANDERE BATFAM x MAKIMA! READER CONCEPT PROPOSAL

is something that i wanted to write for a long ass time now but never really got a full concept for until now so here’s like a bulleted list for the idea and why you should totally like and reblog this so i get the motivation to write a full fic

tw/cw: spoilers for chainsawman manga, yandere themes, violence. this fic assumes you know what makima is so-

in any case, enjoy.

All of this is semi-based on the batfam x makima! headcannons i made before but going more into detail

Basically reader starts off as Batman’s parallel. Less of a nemesis than Joker, but not completely his ally cause you’ll represent the other side of saving people. The ‘necessary evil’ one must make.

Also known as the deaths of many in order to assure a perfect world.

So while Batman’s motto is “Never Kill” yours is “Kill as much as necessary.”

Batman is essentially powerless against you, but you give him one chance. One chance to end your entire concept as a devil. Essentially ending all fear towards control.

This plan comes as Damian Wayne. You are to reincarnate and grow alongside his first born child and that child would choose your fate.

By that I mean he’s the only one who can kill you.

Literally making his ‘born to kill’ backstory even more prevalent.

I won’t spoil the ending ofc but that’s basically the gist of it, or at least the main plot mechanics.

ofc the other batboys appear as well, maybe even batgirl.

but as of now i don’t have that many plot mechanics i can throw at them but Jason Todd

I feel like he’d be a nice wrench in the mix considering he thought Batman’s policy fucked him over.

In any case, any suggestions, additions, changes and improvements are welcomed.

Let’s hope this blows up so I can write a full on fic or something.

OH! And we can also make an alternate version where Batfam aint Yandere if that’s what you guys prefer. Would still be pretty dark though.

[ravenna-reid]

Your Demons Know Mine (Part Two)

Jason Todd x fem!reader

Part One - Mentions of violence and some of Jason's trauma

“We got the files you needed, I don’t understand what the problem is –”

You were cut off by a stern voice. You’d never heard Batman so livid, and it was a cold sort of anger that you weren’t used to. It made you and Red fall silent.

“How many times am I going to have to discuss your antics with you Hood?”

Nightwing, who you assumed was the one to contact Batman, stood before you now alongside Red Robin, the pair of them quietly watching this argument unfold. 

You wanted to cast a glance over at Red. The anger was practically radiating off of his suit. “Almost beating a man half to death? Again?”

“You weren’t there! The prick had it coming!” Jason snapped back, his voice full of emotion now that his helmet was off and all he had was that domino mask. 

Batman merely scoffed at Jason in response. “That’s no excuse! You were all given one clear rule-”

“We fight crime, shits gonna get ugly sometimes! Yet you act like you’ve never hit someone that hard before!” Jason took a step closer to Batman as he yelled.

I've never seen you hit Joker that hard, and you hate him.

The words Jason uttered to Bruce so long ago simmered in the back of his mind. Back when he was bloody and bruised at the hands of his own ‘father.’

Batman stood, rigid and full of rage before his demeanour suddenly seemed to change. His body language telling you his attention had turned to you. 

“[Vigilante name].”

You wanted to grimace. 

“How did you gain access to that room so quickly? How did you know the pin?”  

Soon enough, everyone’s eyes settled onto you. 

Oh hell no. The last thing you expected after this shitty night was to be at the centre of the conflict. You did not think Batman and his little soldiers would end up interrogating you. 

You kept your arms crossed against your body, your glare meeting everyones before falling back onto Batman. 

“What?”

“The. Pin. How did you attain it?”

You fought the urge to fiddle with the knuckle duster that still sat on your hand. Fought the urge to shift your feet on the ground. You felt Red turn to look at you too. 

You nonchalantly shrugged. “I don’t just work for you. I have my own cases too, and I’ve been investigating here and there.” 

Nightwing and Red Robin’s line of sight switched from you back to the Dark Knight, but both he and Hood seemed unconvinced. 

Tension settled over the room like a weighted blanket. Still, you held your stance. Held eye contact even though all you were staring back at was a bat-like cowl with white casing over the eyes. 

“You work for them, don’t you?” 

Batman’s words sounded more like a statement rather than a question, and it made your skin crawl. How long did you really think you could hide your identity from the Bat? Nevertheless, the breach of privacy made anger ring like alarm bells in your head. Especially given one of the rules Batman laid upon you when he first met you; never try to discover anyone’s secret identity. Ironic.

“What do you mean? Why would I bring back these files if I were working for the bad guys?” You spat back, clearly becoming defensive. 

Batman responded coolly, “I never said you were working for the ‘bad guys.’

You swallowed hard, and it no doubt went unnoticed by the two stupid detectives standing before you. Your glare snapped over to Red Robin, but he seemed a little sympathetic. Like he was pitying you for what was about to go down. 

“The use of potassium? Your tendency to use chemicals instead of weapons when on patrol? There have been signs for a while.”

Now, you shifted on your feet. Whether it was because you were slowly becoming nervous or weary, you couldn’t tell. The only thought that brought you peace of mind was the fact that it seemed they still didn’t know your identity. Just where you worked. 

You supposed you could live with that. 

Batman continued, assuming he was indeed right.

“If that’s the case, our best bet is to have you work undercover.”

Your brows knitted together. “What do you mean?” You said once again. 

“We’ll try and gain access to the security cameras. Give you advanced contact lens’ so we can see what you see when you go into work.” 

Your guard dropped and instantly you were glowering at him. “Come again?”

This time, Nightwing responded. “It would help with the case [vigilante name].” He reasoned oh so diplomatically. “We could get inside intel and more.” 

“We can’t let this get any worse.” Batman interjected, adding onto what Nightwing said. 

Your mouth was agape as you stared at them both. “So you want me to willingly give away my identity?” You asked, astounded. 

Jason’s gaze hung onto you, taking in the betrayal that made its way into your expression. 

“No one would use it against you.” Nightwing said calmly. 

“No, but you would all go along with your day feeling safe behind your masks and I would be exposed. That’s not fair.”

“This is for the safety of others.” Batman’s voice grew stern again. “It’s not about you.”

You scoffed before stepping back, and it almost sounded like a bitter laugh. 

You couldn’t believe it. But a part of you also wasn’t so surprised either. Of course they didn’t trust you enough to allow you to keep your secret identity, just as they were keeping theirs. Of course they were acting like there would be no other way to crack this case and bring these people down. You would apparently have to reveal who you really were so that they could discover what your company was planning. And now all four bats were watching and waiting for you to remove your mask. You shook your head, heavy with disappointment.  

All you wanted was to be defended, to have someone have your back just once –

“You can’t ask her to do that.”

Your head immediately snapped to look over at Red. He was standing tall, his body language sure as he spoke those seven words to Batman and Nightwing. 

“Hood, stay out of –”

“No. That’s bullshit. We can do this without her removing the mask. We’ve done it a million times before.”

Those standing before them looked befuddled, and Red knew Bruce was probably swimming in rage at the fact that he was shitting all over his plan, but Jason didn’t care. In fact, the thought of it kinda made Jason happy. 

Red Hood turned to face you, dark hair falling above his eyes and demons apparently rid from his mind. He was his old self again. His usual self, but then again not so much. He was being…sweet? 

“You go to work, snoop around. Find out what you can and report back to us.” 

You gave a curt nod in return, grateful to have him sticking up for you. 

You quickly ignored that warmth that was beginning to spread through your chest and turned your gaze back onto the Bat. 

“So?” You asked, eager to see if Batman would agree with Red’s proposition. 

Bruce wasn’t happy, but he let it go. “Fine, get as much information as you can. We’ll discuss your encounter with that guard later.” He said to Red before leaving the cave. 

And you did the same. 

Jason watched as you instantly turned on your heel and headed towards your motorbike. Instinct told him to reach out to you. Ask you to wait a second. But he let you go. 

It was late. Later than you usually stayed out on patrol. But you were high on agitation and adrenaline, and you wanted to get it out of your system. The cold Gotham breeze brushed through your hair and against your skin, carrying the scent of rain. You sat atop one of the tallest buildings in Gotham, tilting your head back to look up at the cloud riddled sky. Maybe you’d be forced to go back to your apartment by the rain. You let out another annoyed sigh, flipping your dagger around in your hand before launching to your feet. 

You’d heard the footsteps from a mile away, and now they were close enough for you to confront them. The odds of it being a criminal or thug was low. You were expecting one of the men from the lab, maybe, but you were also expecting to see Nightiwng come and play devil’s advocate with you. 

Instead, you were met with another one of those bright, red helmets. 

“Someone’s a little tense.” He quipped as he still his movements so you realised he wasn’t a threat. He didn’t come to fight this time. 

You lowered the hand that held your dagger before easily slipping it back into its sheath. 

“You have a shelf full of those helmets?” You asked, nodding towards it. 

You couldn't see it, but he was smiling. “Yeah, I got Batman to make about a dozen of them. Him being rich and all.” 

Red walked across the rooftop, mirroring your movements as you began to slowly circle him. 

“I wouldn’t know how rich he is, I don’t go around trying to discover everyone’s identity.” Bitterness laced your tone, but Jason could understand why. 

“That’s just Bru- Batman.” He cleared his throat. “He’s paranoia and distrust incarnate.”

“Tell me about it.” You muttered, your eyes gazing back out to the skyline and city lights. 

Something turned in your stomach, fluttered in your chest. “Thanks for standing up for me. I really didn’t want to blur the lines between my patrol life and work life.”

Red nodded, “Yeah…it’s fine. I get that.”

Fuck, now what was he supposed to say? He was too hung up on the fact that you had thanked him to think of a way to carry the conversation. 

You both stood in silence, watching the city life below before you eventually side-eyed him. “So…how are you holding up?”

With the way he looked back at you, you just knew he had an eyebrow raised. 

Not knowing how to bring it up, you had your dagger in your hand again as it turned between your gloved fingers. “The crowbar?” Your voice was quiet. 

Oh, that. 

Red faced away from you. “Yeah..” He moved his large arms as if to stretch them before eventually turning to face you again. “It was nothing.” 

A part of you was so horrendously curious as to why the brash and fearless Red Hood buckled when he saw a crowbar, but you weren’t going to urge him. Push him to reveal something he so clearly didn’t want to acknowledge. 

You shrugged. “We all have something we would rather not face.” With the cool breeze picking up you crossed over arms over your body. 

Jason didn’t miss the affliction in your eyes as you stared out at that morbid city.  

“You?” He asked, his body ever so slightly inching closer towards yours. 

You looked back at him before looking down at his thighs. “Yeah, those things.” You said. 

He looked down at the guns strapped to him. 

Something ate away at Jason once he realised. 

So he was using the one thing you couldn’t stand? 

His main weapon was your crowbar…

“That why you would rather give people nerve damage with your chemicals?” 

You rolled your eyes. “Don’t even Red.” 

He gave a light snicker and it immediately made your head spin.

No, this was not how you two were supposed to interact with each other. 

You eagerly ignored that feeling in your chest. “Well, I have work to do tomorrow. Chemical testing, snooping, etc, etc.”

Jason caught the hint it was time to go your separate ways and call it a night. 

“Mm, come back to us with some intel and you might be able to earn some trust Dr.” 

You narrowed your eyes at him but a smirk dusted your face at the mention of his new nickname for you. It started out just being shithead, then he referred to you as a fox. 

‘Sly as a fox.’ 

Sometimes he’d call you alchemist, but now it was Dr. 

You flicked your hand at him as if you were swatting away a fly. “Yeah, yeah, cause that’s what I aim for in life. Earning the Bats trust.”

And in a blink of an eye, you had dropped down off of the rooftop. 

Now it was just Jason, the wind and car horns from down below. 

He drew in a deep breath, letting the coldness fill his chest as he thought about how your ‘friendship’ had taken such a turn.

But as Jason romanticised what could be, you couldn't help but feel you needed to re-drive a rift between this growing friendship. Not because you disliked what was slowly growing between you two, it actually made you a little giddy...but that was the problem.

lmk what ya'll think cause I might make this a series :)

[purple-obsidian]

I'm back in your inbox again. Hello 👋

Been thinking about your ak jason todd and you've mentioned that his men know about her. They're intimidated by him and for good reason. But, hear me out, is Jason still working with scarecrow in your story?

Maybe Scarecrow is looking for the weakness in what seems like the arkham knights flawless armor. Maybe one of Jason's men isn't so loyal, or maybe scarecrow uses fear gas to get it out of them.

But I'm thinking how badly Jason would react if the reader was even in the slightest bit of danger or even vaugley threatened by scarecrow, even in passing. (Or slade, or even one of his men.) I think there'd be a bullet involved before the sentence is even over. Cause no matter how he treats her, she's still his person.

hello my friend! <3

in my little au, my fics 'say it back' and 'let go' happen just after the events of arkham knight, so jason is no longer working with scarecrow. i imagine that gotham is still a wreck, and jason hasn't yet transitioned to being red hood. so he's 'found' himself enough to have helped bruce in the end, but he's still harbors a crap ton of resentment and anger towards him and the others, and is still not above using lethal violence against those he thinks deserve it.

in my mind, this time period here is extremely tumultuous for him as he struggles to redefine and analyze what his goals and plans are now. like, if you're familiar with ATLA, i liken it to prince zuko getting physically ill after letting appa free. a sort of crisis of his self image. joker spent so much time convincing jason over and over how batman left him, abandoned him, telling him that bats was the enemy. and jason believed it, but when push came to shove, jason didn't exact his revenge. this turmoil inside of him, along with the unprocessed trauma of jokers multitude of atrocities, is what fuels a lot of his anger and unpredictability. his hired men are left over from his militia, he kept a handful of his most trusted guys on his payroll to help solidify his authority in gothams underworld. however, in my version of events, jason and reader were reunited back when he and scarecrow were still working together.

so, back to the original question. if earlier on, scarecrow had found out about reader, [and you're right, he had to trust some of his men to help keep her safe, so they could of had the info squeezed out of them. or maybe they were loose-lipped and talking shit, who knows.] no way crane could've resisted the temptation.

i think we can all agree that jason would use lethal force to protect reader. his own sins against her be damned, just because he's treated her like shit doesn't mean he will allow anyone else to threaten her or even touch her.

if it were dr. crane trying to use his fear gas on reader, jason would kill him on sight. no questions asked.

if it were someone less dangerous, like one of his militia getting too comfortable with reader, i see a possibility of him taking his time. we saw in 'let go' that he has some dark urges inside of him to hurt others the way he's been hurt. don't know if he'd actually have it in him to brutally torture someone, but if reader was injured, assaulted, or seriously harmed, who knows.

an important thing, though, is that i think jason would feel guilty after. not for killing them, not if they hurt his person. he'll be able to live with that just fine. but anything that prolongs their suffering i think he would feel remorse for, later on, when he's had more time to heal. more than anything, it will scare him to look back on it and know he's capable of such evil.

there would be a rare moment of vulnerability between jason and reader after he's eliminated the threat and can check and make sure readers okay.

if reader were suffering from fear gas, he would take her somewhere private and hold her close, not letting go until the toxin is out of her system, even if it's hours. most likely blaming himself the whole time and triggering him to spiral further down his path of self-hatred.

in the case of his militia men, they would be knocked out, and jason would get reader to safety asap. if reader has severe injuries, he may chance setting foot in a hospital, even though it reminds him of arkham. if the injuries are less severe, he would probably lock her up somewhere safe while he 'takes care' of the perpetrator, later returning to reader with bloody hands and eyes full of fear.

no matter the outcome, poor jay would be extra protective over reader for a while, second guessing who he trusts to leave her with and who is vetted enough to guard his safehouse when she's inside.

gahhhhh you're making me want to replay the games to brush up on the lore. its so tragic, jasons story. my heart hurts for him.

i would apologize for such a long-winded, unorganized response to a simple question, but i know you're just as obsessed as i am 😈

xoxo sid

[gothic-aesthetic-gal]

Old Scars (Part 3)

Ledger!joker x reader

Fem!reader is kidnapped by the joker and his henchmen while just trying to get a moment's reprieve from her boring, soul-destroying job ✨️

Tw: I mean, we all saw TDK, right? I'd say this is on the same level/rating. Kidnapping, violence, mentions of minor characters (not J) being misogynist/threatening SA, reference to past traumatic injury. Beyond this i'm not sure, i'll update these when I write more.

��🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏

Part 3 -

The old apartment block still had its original chimney stacks, so the joker set about haphazardly making a fire. He piled up bits of broken furniture and wood into the brick fireplace and then tossed some kind of accelerant, I wasn't exactly sure what, over the top. Then he patted his pockets, before turning to me.

I realised what he was getting at and slid my hands into the numerous pockets of his jacket.

"Uh, you want the bottom left," he instructed

My fingers closed around a metal lighter which I withdrew. I crossed over to him and instead of handing it over, grabbed the old newspaper from the table.

I bent down by the hearth and began to screw up balls of paper and toss them on top of the wood pile. Once I was satisfied, being very careful not to set fire to my dress, I flicked open the lighter. My thumb sparked the flame on the first try of the wheel, which I was secretly quite pleased with myself for. Leaning forward, I lit the newspaper and watched as it began to catch. Once it did, whatever he had added quickly went up too.

I stood up and extended the lighter to him.

"Starting a fire is easy, but if you don't do it right, it won't last," I offered in explanation.

"Poetic," he mused.

Our hands met as I handed off the lighter; my fingertips brushed against his open palm. I was struck by how human his hands were and couldn't help but stare for a moment in morbid fascination.

He was watching me with an unreadable expression on his face, as he flicked the lid of the lighter closed with a flourish.

He put the lighter into the pocket of his suit trousers and sat down by the fire. I found myself doing the same; I was so desperate for warmth. The flickering orange glow of the flames played across our faces and I wondered if I didn't look almost as disturbing as him right now, between my developing black eye and my rain-streaked makeup.

Something about the total absurdity of the situation struck me all at once. Here I was, with the joker himself, sat next to him and draped in his coat. I began to laugh. I'd survived the accident, and all the mental anguish that followed in its wake, and other than that, I was a total nobody. I was a loner, with a shitty job, a shitty apartment, and no money, adrift in the sewer which was Gotham city. No family, next to no real friends. And now, to top it all off, I might die here and no one would know. Would anyone even notice I was gone?

I laughed until my ribs ached, and then my amusment was quickly replaced by despair. I began to cry. I was cold to my bones, in physical pain, totally dishevelled, and far from home, and all of it was too much. My companion was sat with his back against the side of the couch, elbows resting on his knees as he fidgeted ceaselessly with his hands.

It was like he was constantly ticking over, like he was driven by some kind of machine. He watched me wordlessly as my outburst gave way to silent tears. My mind combed back over the sequence of events that brought me here, and suddenly I remembered the terrified shop girl. She had been kind to me.

"Those people, in the store, I know you don't care, but are they even... alive?" I asked, finally.

He seemed to think on it for a moment.

"Well, that depends really..." he offered, casual in tone.

"On what?"

"On whether the GCPD disarmed them... or dis-armed them," he wheezed with laughter, clearly finding dark humour in my question.

Even though I knew what he was, to be reminded so obviously was still shocking. Jarringly, he sprang to his feet, causing me to flinch.

"If you want to know so badly, why don't we turn on the news, hm?"

He dragged the old miniature tv set over and swept a big cloud of dust away from the screen. After some fiddling with the aerials and the crackling in and out of static, the voice of the newscaster broke through and the picture mostly cleared up.

The news report included security camera footage of us leaving the store. It felt surreal to see what I had lived through playing out in third-person perspective.

"As you can see here, one of the people inside is still missing. This unknown woman was taken hostage by the gang of armed men. Police are urging anyone with information to come forward, as they are concerned for her safety," the newscaster said from her desk.

I couldn't help but huff in disbelief at the idea that the GCPD were really all that concerned with tracking me down. I knew the more likely scenario to be that some middle-aged detective, who thought he knew better, had assumed I was dead by now and was concerned with "more pressing" cases. They would be expecting a body in a purple dress to show up sooner or later.

The joker shot me an interested look.

"You don't have a lot of faith in the good old boys in blue?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Next to none," I murmured.

"But they're going to come and rescue you!" He exclaimed, his voice cracking, mocking in tone.

I pulled the heavy coat tighter around me as I finally began to feel a little less like I was going to die of exposure.

"No, they're not. They don't even know, or care, who I am," I muttered darkly, approaching the TV set.

I saw in the back of the newsreel that the shop girl was being wrapped in a blanket and treated for shock by EMTs. She looked otherwise fine. I sighed in relief and turned the picture off.

"So, Jane Doe, who are you, really?" He asked, in his sing-songy voice.

As his eyes met my own, I thought about how someone had once told me in hostage situations you had better chances of survival if you made your captor more aware of your life, your personality, and your place in the world. The idea being that they will find it harder to kill you if you have fleshed yourself out as more of a 'whole person'. I thought about how this advice was entirely useless with someone like the man stood before me right now.

The joker was not going to be swayed into sympathy for me because he was, most likely, a true psychopath. He would have very little use for an empathy pathway, other than to better appreciate the pain he inflicted and to better manipulate the pawns he saw all around him. What I could do though, was try to make myself more interesting. He clearly had a fascination for me of some kind, and if I could tap into it, maybe, just maybe, I could buy myself enough time to escape. For survival, I was prepared to play the long game.

"Y/n," I answered, only offering up my first name, a compromise between telling the truth and not giving over everything to him.

"Y/n," he echoed in his gravelly voice, "I like that".

"What about you, you must have a name?" I pressed back.

One corner of his mouth twitched upwards into a half-smile.

"You can call me anything you like, doll," he said with a wink.

"So, if you don't have a name, nobody owns you, is that it, or is it just for practical reasons?" I thought aloud.

His cold stare met my own again, sending a fresh chill through my body. He didn't give an answer; it wouldn't be that easy.

"Okay then, I guess I'll just call you J. Keep it simple?"

He nodded as if to say he had no objections.

Not knowing what else to do, I crossed over to the kitchen cabinets and began to investigate their contents. The room was open plan, more of a studio layout type of deal. I found half a bottle of vodka, a tin of peach slices, a fork, and a pack of paper towels, and a few basic medical supplies, which looked suspiciously like they had been swiped from a hospital. I returned with my little magpie haul to my spot next to the fireplace and began to nurse my various wounds.

I tore what was left of the tights so that they stopped at the ankle, and grimaced as I used the cotton swabs and vodka to clean the dirt from my grazed soles.

"What size shoe do you wear?" The Joker asked, watching my latest endeavour.

I felt a strange sense of déja vu, and gave my answer matter of factly. He shuffled off into the other room and I again wondered if I should take the knife from the table, but the same issues still stood in my way.

He soon returned with a pair of black boots in hand and dropped them onto the floor beside me, followed by a pair of thick socks.

"Thanks," I murmured.

When I was done disinfecting, and sticking band aids over the worst of my cuts, I pulled on the socks and army style boots, which were a little on the roomy side but not to the point that it was an issue moving around. Once they were laced up, I set to cleaning my eyebrow, and tried to apply closure strips to hold the skin together. This was very hard to do via touch rather than in a mirror and I began to get frustrated.

"Get up," Joker commanded.

Caught off guard, I slowly got to my feet as he sauntered over.

I flinched as he extended a hand toward me, half expecting to feel a knife slip between my ribs. He roughly grasped my forearm and took the tape strips from my hand, his face conveying a kind of "really?" - Judgement for the way I'd shrunk back from him. I somehow forced myself to relax a little under his grip.

"Look at me," he instructed, once again being a lot more hands-on than anyone with a normal respect for boundaries would.

His free hand tilted my head back so that I was forced to look directly at his painted face. With a look of intense concentration he placed the strips across my split brow, taking care to line them up properly. His actions confused me.

"That guy wasn't wrong, it's probably going to leave a mark," I sighed, "so much for my good eyebrow..."

"It won't be as deep as the others, it will still be your good eyebrow."

"Gee, thanks, that makes me feel so much better," I mumbled sarcastically.

Not entirely knowing what came over me, I tentatively reached out a hand toward his face. He was unusually still for a moment, seeming to allow it. In a kind of morbid fascination and awe I gently touched my finger tips to the left side of his face. I could see that the right side was much cleaner cut, with a neater scar, but the left was a jagged mess. I couldn't imagine the pain an injury like that must have caused, even with my own experience.

"You wanna know how I got 'em?" He asked, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

Of course I did. That was my knee-jerk reaction. The human brain seeking understanding, feeling entitled to know... but almost immediately after it, all the times people had rudely asked me what happened to my face quickly flooded into my head. What they didn't think, or perhaps in some cases didn't care about, was how it made me feel. They decided their curiosity was more important than my privacy and comfort. They decided that I should expect to keep telling that story, because how could I blame them for asking when my face looked this way?

In the end, for fun, sometimes I just made it up. How would they know? Even if the story was outlandish, they wouldn't, and I got to keep the pieces of my soul that I was expected to just give away freely each time.

"No," I responded finally, retracting my hand.

He seemed taken off guard by this, and looked me over with a suspicious squint, before he simply shrugged and returned to his place on the couch, undoing and removing his tie.

I sat back down and cracked open the tin of peach slices. I fished them out with the fork and began to eat them slowly, savouring the sweetness.

"Well, I wonder how long it will take my boss to notice i'm missing," I thought aloud.

"Not long, surely?"

"It depends on how long it takes before she expects me to do another stack of her stupid paperwork. It could be a couple of days."

"That's terrible management".

"Well yeah, welcome to the life of anyone on minimum wage in this cesspit of a city".

"Little cogs in an absurd machine."

I nodded slowly, he wasn't wrong - but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

"I suppose, at least being taken hostage means I won't be dragging myself in to the office tomorrow. Although, I'll probably be fired for the no-show, no-call."

"What is it that you do exactly? It already sounds incredibly dull."

"Admin work mainly, sometimes reception duties. It really is mind-numbingly boring."

"Ah, the cubicle farm? I'll bet it makes you just want to blow your brains out!" He laughed imitating doing just that.

Again, he wasn't entirely incorrect and as much as it felt wrong he had teased a genuine smile out of me. To try and hide it, I ate another peach slice.

In a very fucked up way, there was something oddly liberating about this. It made no sense, as how could being trapped against my will be freeing? But, it was true that I suddenly had no reason to stress about not showing up for work - what was the point when it was out of my hands?

"So," he suddenly clapped his hands together and straightened his posture, "tell me, don't you ever fantasise about setting the place on fire? Blowing it up? How about teaching your boss a lesson?"

"Well, yeah... sometimes. But that doesn't mean i'd actually do any of those things."

"What stops you?"

"I have a conscience, AND it's not worth going to prison over".

He shifted in his seat.

"But, theoretically speaking, if you could do it without consequence, would you?"

"No, I don't think so. Aside from maybe scaring my regional manager 'A Christmas Carol' style... and telling my line manager to go fuck herself."

I got a grin of amusement out of him at this.

"Are you sure?" He asked, drawing out the final syllables.

"No, of course not!" I snorted, "I'm human. No one can say with certainty what they would do, until push comes to shove, but for me it'd have to be a monumental shove to tip me into that sort of criminality."

"You would be surprised how little it takes for so many."

"Disappointed? Sure, but surprised? No. Espescially when money's involved, I see it everwhere. Cops, judges - the mob. If you got money, you're exempt from the rules which govern the rest of us," I shrugged, tapping the fork against the can.

"I like you, peaches; you're awake. Moral code or not, you're a realist. You see things. Like me."

I wasn't sure what to make of the nickname and the fact that he thought we were in some way similar...

"Can't say I ever thought of comparing myself to, well, you... but I will admit we have some common ground," I replied, hoping desperately that this rapport we were building was not just a cruel trick.

Link below for the other chapters:

[k-howlett]

H(ear)tline Prologue | Bruce Wayne [Batman] xF!Angel:reader

TW: Possible religious insensitivity, Fallen Angel, Canon-breaking OOC, eventual smut(not in this specific installment)

Rating: Gender Specific (Female Reader), Eventual Smut (Teen+/mature), SFW (Prologue), eventual fluff

A/N:

Thank you so much for your continued patience! I am unfortunately knee deep in moving. Breaking and Entering is on Hiatus at the moment because of my inability to appeal a report (I've been too busy to check my email and missed the 24 hour deadline. Thank you so much(/s) to whoever FALSELY reported my artistry and now cost me hours of setbacks. I don't know if I can repost and change the tag but I did file a complaint with tumblr admin and am awaiting a resolution), in the mean time, please enjoy this concept I came up with half-awake whilst packing boxes!

With love and healing,

-Lark

𓂋

𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢˚₊‧꒰ა ♡ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢

Bruce Wayne was not one for religion. If there was a God, the creator must’ve had a particular disdain for Gotham City and everything in it. The place was a living hell, overrun with the likes of Scarecrow, Bane, Joker, Penguin—an endless parade of villains. It felt as though God had abandoned him, leaving the city to rot.

When a group of young people stopped him on the street, offering free Bibles, Bruce briefly considered lashing out, tearing into their beliefs with the cynicism that years in Gotham had sharpened. But he held back. Despite his doubts, he couldn’t deny the comfort religion provided to those who believed. He recalled attending Sunday school as a child, his mother’s gentle voice praising the beauty of the world around them, her unshakeable faith even in the face of Gotham’s darkness. In her final moments, she had reached out to God. Who was he to strip these kids of that same hope?

Wordlessly, he accepted the leather-bound Bible. It was crafted with care, though the materials were clearly cheap—the gold lettering was already flaking. He considered tossing it when he got home, or maybe donating it to a shelter. He might not believe in God, but he knew that his own moral compass had been shaped by something greater than himself. Not everyone had that foundation; maybe some people really did need saving.

He sighed as he carried the Bible to his office. The last thing he needed was for anyone to think he’d found religion. He had a carefully curated, morally ambiguous playboy persona to maintain. What if the media thought he was turning over a new leaf? What if they took it as a sign he was ready to settle down? The thought of more women throwing themselves at him—especially devout ones—made him shudder.

He tucked the Bible under his arm, the gold lettering pressed tightly against his side. Maybe someone would mistake it for a journal. A glance at his watch made him scowl—somehow, the walk from the coffee shop to the office had eaten up more time than expected. Lucius would undoubtedly have something to say about it later; they had a meeting, and now he was going to be late—again.

Dragging a hand down his face, Bruce felt the exhaustion deep in his bones. The late nights and early mornings were catching up with him, eroding his focus, fraying the edges of his mind. For a moment, bitterness welled up—a rare flicker of resignation. Did it even make a difference? Gotham’s streets were never truly free of crime. Petty theft, gang violence, the constant churn of the underworld—it never stopped. And the ones he managed to lock up? They always found a way out. Arkham was a revolving door, a sick joke of a prison.

For a fleeting second, he entertained the idea of quitting. The notion of a full night’s sleep was almost unimaginable, but his body ached for it. Was there really no reprieve? After all these years, the despair felt like it was swallowing him whole. Gotham was a sinkhole, and he was drowning in it.

But he shook off the thought, setting his jaw with grim resolve. He would not break, and he would not allow himself the luxury of weakness. He’d let his body rot from the inside out if that’s what it took to see his mission through. It wasn’t just an obligation; it was a promise. And though no one would blame him if he walked away, though they might even understand, he wouldn’t bow down and admit defeat. He’d fought for fifteen years—he could fight for fifteen more.

𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢

Bruce tossed the Bible onto his desk and sank into his leather chair, his eyes heavy as they flicked to the desktop screen. Logging in, he was greeted by a flood of emails—requests for meetings from the legal branch, shareholders bickering over stock distributions, and the usual complaints from board members about his lack of attention to this year’s Gala preparations.

His assistant had already informed him of the missed meeting, explaining that Lucius had been pulled into another matter. The issues were piling up, and for a brief moment, his hand trembled as he reached for the mouse. Wayne Enterprises was his father’s legacy, and Batman was his—but right now, the mission would have to wait. He needed to get this under control, and fast.

Four hours of back-to-back phone calls and troubleshooting. Bruce was now lying under his desk, trying to replace a faulty cable. The entire office was down, and with IT swamped, he had no choice but to handle it himself. He needed to review the quarterly reports before the bonuses were announced, and he knew the company had been slacking—summer interns flooding in and Tim away at college had left him without the structure he relied on.

When he finally sat up from the floor, his head collided with the corner of the desk, sending a sharp pain through his skull. The Bible tumbled from the desk, hitting him squarely on the head before flopping open on the ground, a business card slipping out.

Bruce picked it up, squinting at the bold print: "1-800-ANGEL." He frowned. What kind of absurd, erotic phone service was this? The card was nearly blank, save for a single line:

"May you find your faith."

Real funny, he thought, for a number probably meant to fleece desperate souls. They probably charged by the minute. Bruce rolled his eyes, dismissing it as yet another scam targeting the gullible.

Bruce thumbed the card, skepticism tightening his grip. Surely, no one was desperate enough to actually call. He wondered about the legitimacy of the number, and after settling back into his chair, he opened a new tab. Thankfully, the replacement cable had done its job, and his screen blinked to life. He typed in the number, but nothing came up—not even a link to some sketchy website. He tried the motto next, but all he found were articles on religion and local church recommendations. He raised an eyebrow. For a scam, they were doing a remarkably poor job of marketing it.

Picking up the Bible again, he considered the possibility that the kids handing them out might have been given faulty copies. But as he inspected it, the Bible seemed legitimate enough. He cross-referenced it with an online version to be sure, but everything checked out. The only oddity was the card. Flipping through the pages, he eventually found a strange marking on the back cover, stamped with the words "ales et lux."

"Wings and light?" he muttered, dropping the Bible back onto the desk.

Curiosity gnawed at him. Without hesitation, he dialed the number. Whatever this was, he intended to get to the bottom of it. Maybe he’d caught it early enough—he could pull a few strings with the FBI and shut it down before it preyed on anyone vulnerable. But as the line connected, the voice on the other end made him stop cold.

“So you’ve received the calling card of heaven. We’re so glad you have found your faith. Please note this card is for one-time use. For inquiries about time of death, press 1. For prayers and answers, press 2. For information on Christian denominations and healing, press 3. For nondenominational options, press 4. For Native, Inuit, Norse, and Pagan beliefs, press 5. Unsure what category your beliefs fall under? Press star for a list. For all other healing-related questions, press 6.”

Bruce’s scowl deepened as he listened to the automated menu. The damn phone hadn’t even rung—this had to be some kind of twisted scam. He was about to hang up when the final option made his breath catch.

“And finally, to speak to your angel, press 0.”

His angel? A guardian angel? He doubted he had one. If he did, they’d done a piss-poor job watching over him. The loss of his parents, Jason Todd, and Alfred—the man who had been the closest thing to a father he had left—proved that. Anger flickered in his chest. He wanted to speak to this so-called angel, to confront them, to demand answers for the pain he’d endured. What kind of angel lets their charge suffer like this?

He pressed zero, the cold, rational part of him momentarily overridden by the seething anger and hurt simmering beneath the surface—the hurt little boy he’d buried deep inside threatening to unleash all that unprocessed trauma.

He wasn’t expecting such a soft voice to greet him, nor the surprising calm that washed over his mind as it did.

“Bruce? You really called.” The voice on the other end was feminine, light, almost breathless, as if she had been waiting for this moment.

“...Who the hell are you?” His voice was sharp, defensive.

“Well, my official title doesn’t really have an accurate translation in mortal language, but I’m more or less your protector.”

“Protector?!” He growled, the word scraping out like a curse. “You couldn’t even protect me from a goddamn paper cut, let alone a laundry list of loss. You didn’t protect anything—I protect this city, I protect people. You’re not even real! You’re probably just some credit card scammer, phishing for my personal data. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Data mining. Your entire operation is fraudulent at best, and—”

He cut himself off, his voice shaking with anger. It wasn’t just fury at this supposed "protector"—it was fury at the years of pain, at the endless nights spent fighting a war that never seemed to end, at the world for daring to keep spinning while he bled in the dark. How dare anyone call themselves his protector when every person he’d ever loved had been torn away from him? How dare they try to soothe him with some ethereal nonsense when he was the one in the trenches, the one facing down Gotham’s nightmares every single night?

The silence on the other end of the line was almost unbearable, but he wouldn’t back down. He’d heard enough lies in his lifetime to know when someone was trying to sell him false hope.

“…It doesn’t work like that,” the voice finally replied, a hint of sadness woven into its softness. “I can’t interfere with your life in the way you think. Those losses… they were unfortunate, and I know they fuel the anguish that haunts your mind, but my role isn’t to shield you from pain. My job is to keep you alive. Every close call, every moment when death was just a breath away—that was my divine interference. I won’t let you die, Bruce. Not until the time is right and your body is ready to rest.”

Bruce clenched his jaw, anger and disbelief warring within him. He wanted to tear into her, to lash out at the absurdity of it all. This so-called protector, claiming to watch over him, to keep him alive—where was she when his parents were murdered in front of him? Where was she when Jason died, or when he stood over Alfred’s grave, feeling the weight of yet another life lost because of him?

“Don’t patronize me,” he spat, his voice low and dangerous. “You think I need your protection? You think those near-deaths were some divine favor? I’ve survived because I’ve fought, because I’ve clawed my way out of every hellhole Gotham’s thrown me into. You had nothing to do with it.”

He could almost hear her smile through the phone, a soft, resigned sound that seemed to fill the silence between them.

“You’ve fought harder than anyone should ever have to, Bruce. You’re the purest soul I’ve ever had the privilege of encountering. No matter how much you try to front or deflect, it’s clear you care. You care more than anyone else. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have taken in those kids, or dressed up like a bat to fight crime night after night. You’re like Sisyphus, eternally pushing a boulder uphill. And while you may not want praise or acknowledgment, you need to know—despite everything, you are a good person. You’re a good man. And in many ways, you’re the closest thing to God’s image I’ve ever seen.”

Bruce’s breath caught, anger and disbelief momentarily overshadowed by the weight of her words. How could she claim to know him so well, to understand his pain and sacrifice? Yet, the very notion of being compared to something divine—despite how hollow it felt—struck a chord deep within him.

“Spare me the sermon,” he growled, trying to regain his composure. “You think you can soothe me with this celestial rhetoric? I don’t need your validation. I need results. I need to keep this city safe, and I need to know that those I care about are protected. Save your platitudes for someone who believes in them.”

There was a pause on the other end, as if she was choosing her words carefully. “I’m not here to validate you, Bruce. I’m here to remind you that even in the darkest moments, you have a purpose. And while you may see yourself as a flawed instrument of justice, remember that even in your struggle, there’s a reflection of something greater—a beacon of hope for others, whether you realize it or not.”

Bruce didn’t respond, his mind a storm of conflicting emotions. The rational part of him dismissed her words as manipulative flattery, but a flicker of vulnerability, long suppressed, threatened to break through. He forced himself to focus, pushing those thoughts aside.

“Enough of this,” he said, his voice cold and final. “If you’re really here to help, then stay out of my way. I’ll handle things my way.”

He hung up the phone, the echo of her voice lingering in his mind. As he turned his attention back to the stack of paperwork and problems awaiting him, he couldn't shake the uneasy feeling that perhaps, in some twisted way, she had touched a part of him he had long buried.

𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢

Bruce landed another punch on the goon, watching as they crumpled to the ground. Fighting at the docks was his least favorite—slippery surfaces and treacherous footing made it harder to maintain his balance. He glanced at the wall, the dim streetlight casting an eerie glow on the dilapidated brick.

In the periphery of his vision, he thought he saw the shadow of wings, a fleeting, phantom-like presence. When he snapped around, though, all he saw were the goons he had already beaten. They lay scattered and unconscious, bloodied and bruised. A quick scan of the area revealed the familiar wreckage of a confrontation: discarded weapons and broken crates.

On the ground, a few feet away from a goon he didn’t remember hitting, lay a gun glinting in the faint light. Next to it was a single white feather. The goon in question had no visible injuries, no sign of the kind of violence Bruce had just inflicted on the others. There were no swollen bruises, no blood—nothing to suggest that they had been involved in the scuffle.

Bruce frowned, his mind racing. He hadn't hit this one, nor had he seen anything out of the ordinary during the fight. The feather seemed out of place, its presence unsettling. It wasn’t like anything he had come across before—an odd detail in an otherwise straightforward altercation.

His instincts, honed by years of vigilant observation, told him this was no mere coincidence. There was something strange here, something beyond the usual street brawls and petty crime. The feather could mean something, or someone, had intervened. And if that was the case, Bruce needed to understand why.

He crouched down to examine the feather and the gun more closely. His eyes narrowed, scanning for any other anomalies or signs that could explain the goon’s sudden unconsciousness. Whatever the cause, Bruce knew he couldn’t ignore it. Not with the pattern of oddities and divine encounters that had begun to surface recently.

He straightened up, the feather clenched in his hand, his mind already shifting gears. There was more at play here than just a fight—something, or someone, was influencing events from the shadows. And as always, it was up to him to uncover the truth.

˚₊‧𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢 𓏲𝄢‧₊˚

Approx. Word Count: ~2,746

pt I: Coming Soon(?)

This is a soft-launch of this series, if you guys would like more parts, please let me know in the comments <3 It helps motivate me to write!

//Series Tag List: Available Upon Request!

Status Page 2024: Here

[book-place]

Promotion Rejections

Warnings: violence, mentions of weapons/ gasses, let me know if I missed any :)

Pairings: Bruce Wayne x reader platonic

Request: Bat family x friend! reader! S/O is a newbie GCPD officer who’s also a meta human, possessing the powers of force fields and healing. She can protect civilians and/or officers from attacks or property damage, heal them up, trap enemies inside fields, and more,like sealing up Joker gas. She doesn’t care about fame or promotions, doesn’t want to be a secret hero, and will happily stay a low-ranking officer her whole life, wanting to use her powers to help. Side effects may be nausea and tiredness

Request by: Anon

*not my gif*

Summary: There is a sense of respect

between you and Batman

A/N: Another short one for y’all

Please don’t plagiarize my work, you may reblog if you like but I’m asking that you don’t steal my hard work

Your hands were shaking from the amount of sheer strength it took to hold it up.

If this fight went on for longer than another minute, you didn’t think you would be able to keep it up. You would collapse from the exhaustion alone.

Luckily though, Batman got the upper hand against a hoard of Joker's goons, taking them down one by one. Though, it was a painfully slow process.

With one last sickening thud, the last goon fell into an ungracious heap on the ground, just in time for the last of the Joker gas to simmer out.

You dropped your hands, breathing loudly and allowing the force field you had placed around the deadly substance to fall along with them.

Nearby civilians that had been watched in horror at the sight before them burst into cheers and applause all at once, a couple of the nearby officers in your unit even joining along as well.

Your entire figure was shaking as you let your body lean against a nearby brick wall and you allowed your eyes to flutter shut for a moment as you tried to catch your breath.

“Are you alright?” A deep voice startled you, making your eyes fly open.

Batman stood a mere couple of feet away, looking at you with that emotionless expression of his, though you knew he of all people wouldn’t be asking if he didn’t actually want to know.

The two of you had worked together on many different occasions. And- dare you say- you very well might have earned his trust and respect over time. And along with that, seemed to come his- rarely ever shown- care.

“I’m alright,” You confirmed, breathing the words out in a way that gave you away to still being tired.

He nodded once and opened his mouth, as if to say more, but was cut off by a different voice.

“Officer L/n!” The deputy of your department called boisterously, striding over and clapping you on the shoulder, “Well done as always!”

You cringed a bit, “Thanks,” You mumbled.

Being the only metahuman in your division- let alone on the whole force- you came in handy many times- whenever a force field was needed, that is. Which was often. And because of this, there were always lots of cameras around, trying to snap the latest shot of the officer that always saved the day.

Promotions were quick to line up as soon as you started working, but you declined every single time. You always hated the spotlight. The only reason you became a police officer was to help people, not for the fame that was dragged along with it.

“Now, about that promotion-“ He spoke again with a wide grin.

Batman was quick to cut him off, clearing his throat, “Deputy. We have some things to discuss about the case at hand.” His tone was final and left no room for argument.

The man hesitated for a moment, grin faltering, before he nodded and tried to redeem himself, “Yes, of course.”

You threw the vigilante a grateful smile, to which he responded with a single nod once more, moving to lead the deputy away.

Maybe not much words were spoken between the two of you, but you could tell he had your back, just like you had his. Even if it came to rejecting promotions.

The Superior Robin ❤️- @ineedmorefanfics2 @sambucky8 @spidyyparker @i-writes-things @ladyagagaslefttoe @xbergiex

[a-bad-case-of-the-stephs]

Yaaaayyy I love your answer. Do you think Bruce sees cas as better than him, as in he has a flaw he should be working toward correcting, or himself as better than her, and her needing to learn more about the world/not be naive when it comes to how Cas’s “nobody dies” code is more absolute than his in that it extends to people given the death penalty?

And yeah, I really like taking the situation at it is (no nuance and he doesn’t get to pick himself) but the only way I can imagine it is some kind of horrible set up with a mind reader reading Bruce’s thoughts and using those to come to a decision, or Bruce is on some kind of drug. I don’t think it could ever be him actively, with a clear head, saying a name out loud. Just does not compute for me. Thinking about the aftermath is it’s own horrible thing

So glad you asked about Batman no kill rule because I think there are a lot of misunderstandings in the fandom space about it!!

Quick Disclaimer, I will be talking pretty much exclusively abt preboot, and drawing heavily from Bruce and Cass’s relationship in Batgirl (2000)

For one, Batman is against the death penalty. Probably.

One of the first comics I read that got me really interested in Batman as a character and his fucked up psyche was Detective #630 “And The Executioner wore Stiletto Heels”.

Hugely recommend reading this to get a grasp on how Batman doesn’t actually have a “No Kill” rule, he has a “No Death” rule. Obviously this is backed up by more than just this comic, (I take his resuscitation of the joker in last laugh as another solid example of this), but I find Det #630 super interesting because it does in fact examine Bruce Wayne’s thoughts on the death penalty, which he is against, enough so that it’s implied he allows the escape of an assassin who otherwise would have been put to death.

That said, I don’t think Cass is more extreme than him with her “nobody dies” thought process.

To get into how I think Batman sees Cass I’m going to ramble a bit on how I think their relationship works.

The reason Batman clicks with Cass so much is their analogous backstories.

When Bruce was 9, his parents died in front of him, and he feels guilty about it, even though there was obviously nothing a 9 year old child could have done differently to save his parents. No one else expects him to have saved them, but himself. He feels like he failed them, and that feeling of powerlessness and guilt drives him to save lives, to prevent more tragedy.

When Cass was 9, she killed a man. She instantly also experiences this guilt reaction, and again, it’s unreasonable to blame Cassandra for her “failure” at this age. Who could expect the 9 year old to understand what murder was when she was never taught? She was raised by an abusive father and her only form of communication was violence. She had no way of knowing what she was doing, but she still managed to grasp afterwards how wrong it was and despite having no frame of reference for where she was headed or what was out there in the world, runs away from the only family she’s ever known. As I mentioned, that original guilt and helplessness haunts her, much like it does Batman.

(Cass’s resolute belief that everyone deserves to live stems from her own overwhelming guilt for the life she took at age 9. Her resolute belief that everyone deserves a chance to be good and change comes from her desperation to believe that this applies to herself as well, that she has changed and is now good.)

They have super similar, but also simultaneously directly contrasting backstories. 9 year old Bruce Wayne is a victim who watches a murder helplessly, while 9 year old Cassandra Cain commits a murder.

And when it comes to how Bruce sees Cass, I think it’s this similarity in driving original motivation which he approves of. He’s smugly happy with how similar Cass is to him even (some would say especially) with his self sacrificial tendencies that they share.

He sees them as totally the same, she is a reflection of him, the Batman part of him specifically.

When he disapproves of Cass, it’s almost always because she is proving him wrong by acting like an independent and separate person (which she is).

When she has a social life and briefly dates Superboy, for instance.

Or when she stops following orders exactly and checking in, for example.

Or, most notably, when he finds out she killed a man when she was 9.

The first two examples hinder his whole “cassandra is exactly the same as me” mindset. He doesn’t like confronting the fact that Cass is able to have a social life and healthy relationships while he has to believe that he cannot and does not need them. Likewise, he doesn’t like when she doesn’t listen to him because if they were the same she would understand and obey him.

But that final distinction, the murderer Cass commits as a child, is this huge final wedging point for Bruce.

He has built so much of his identity around this Batman does not kill rule, this huge statement about who he is and what he stands for.

Cassandra cain can, in no way, be the same as him if she killed a man.

It breaks his premise.

Which is why, when he finds out she killed someone, he immediately and fervently denies it, even in the face of video evidence.

All this to say, Batman seems to see Cass generally as “as morally good” as him so long as she is acting in a way he can see in himself, and seems to disapprove of her when their differences are pointed out to him.

So I don’t think he thinks she is “too extreme” with her “no kill/no death” stance, I think his main approval/disapproval is around her similarity to or difference to him.

Sorry if this is really rambly, hope this answers your question!!

[narrators-journal]

Hiiii me again. Gonna yoink a lil sign thing at this point.

I actually want you to pick the kinktober prompt. We've been asking you to do themes, but I wanna see one u want with my blorbos, so. Any number, yandere akechi, with maybe yandere joker.

🐦‍⬛(this looks like a crow for me)

This one was another one that I flip flopped on. There’ve been a few kinks on this list that I wanted to try, like used panties, sensory play, and crossdressing so I picked a FEW prompts here lololol. But, for this one, I ended up struggling to capture the yandere energy u requested, so I had to widdle down which ones I really wanted to try. Which, I hope didn’t negatively impact this little ditty at all, bc I think I did pretty well with some light experimentation and variety again lmao. I also decided to swap the yandere focus here, tho whether Akechi is one too, is up to the reader. I hope you enjoy! Thanks for asking so much, btw, I’m glad you like my works so much.

Kinktober prompt list: Here

Kinktober masterlist: Here

CW: Voyeurism, stripping, and temperature play are the more overt kinks here. Masturbation is the main bit of spice here, Yandere behaviors as well, tho only stalking mostly. No direct violence this time.

The cold bit at Akira’s fair skin like a dozen needles while he sat under the shadowy cover of one of the trees in Goro Akechi’s sideyard. But, he bit down the powerful shivers that may have shaken the branch he perched on and simply watched the shadowy bedroom through the window he’d found. Until the light of the detective prince’s bedroom flick on so that the brunette could see go about his usual routine.

Okay, so it’s nine o’ clock now, and his nightly shower should be done within the hour. With any luck he’ll be asleep by midni- oh? The stalker’s thoughts about slammed to a halt midway. Because, as he thought them, Goro Akechi stepped into the view of his window. The only window that didn’t have the curtains pulled shut to keep the bitter cold that attacked Akira out. Wait...so, does he know I’m out here? I knew it was odd that only one of his windows didn’t have the blinds down… The ravenette thought with a bit of a grimace, even though the possibility already had his cock pressed to the fabric of his pants.

Though, Akechi didn’t do much, even as he stood within his line of sight. He cleaned the dirt out from under his nails, examined them for any signs of blood, and began to empty his pockets to prepare for his shower. Not a glance nor a smirk tossed out to the phantom thief that sat out in the cold with his pants now undone and his semi-hard cock in his palm. Meanwhile, the dark-haired stalker mused, Surely he doesn’t know. I mean, he’s a cop, he wouldn’t let me just stalk him, would he? He’d frame me for something to get rid of me. To himself, even as he began to slowly stroke himself just to keep his dick warm, some spit applied so that the friction was a bit smoother.

Yet, with each loosened button of the detective’s crisp, white shirt, Akira’s grip on himself grew tighter and his strokes a bit faster. The ease granted by his own spit swift to dissipate beneath the heat of his palm. Even if the winter air around him should’ve countered the warmth beneath his skin. But, even if it didn’t, the contrast of the cold air on his achey cock against the warmth of the rest of his body did something all on its own to the ravenette.

Which, mingled and mixed with the thrum of electricity that zipped into his veins when Akechi finally let the expensive button-up fall to the floor of his room. The detective’s well-muscled, lightly tanned chest exposed to the stalker as if to purposely feed into the fantasies that swirled through the ravenette’s head. Together, the two sensations seemed to co-conspire to draw out a lewd moan and give the phantom thief away to the brunette. Yet, that didn’t stop the show. Regardless of Akira’s state, Akechi continued to undress with the unzip of his pants and the slow, careful fiddling of the button of his pants.

Oh come on, how do you not know how to undo your own pants? Akira thought at the brunette while he watched him struggle so helplessly to get the metal button through the small opening. His hand’s steady strokes firm and slow as he waited, only sped up when the detective finally got his pants loose and let them slip ever so slightly down his hips to reveal the waistband of his boxers.

However, before he could drop them entirely like he had his shirt, Akechi must’ve remembered something, because he left the view of the window to head towards his closet with nothing for the eager ravenette to cling to but the few centimeters more of boxer that he could glimpse before his darling left his sight. And, for a long, painful moment, Akira feared that he’d opt to change out of sight so that the stalker would be stuck with a chilled hard-on and the flu. But, thankfully, Akechi did return, and while he was missing his pants, the ravenette could still milk his anticipation just a bit longer because his boxers were still on.

So, while he’d missed the slow reveal of his darling’s lightly scarred skin, he could still edge himself just a bit longer in the time it took for Akechi to talk on his phone. He could still take the time to study the subtle, mesmerizing curves of the muscles in his arms, or the many, many scars that the detective had earned from his job and his hobby. Or, maybe he could just admire the vague outline of his darling’s cock in the fabric of his cliché, boring ass blue boxers, the way that the breathable fabric hugged his asscheeks. All the while, his hand never stopped its movements.

It was almost enough to make Akira dizzy. The restless thrum of need, the tight squeeze of his fingers around his twitchy cock, the near sadistic chill that swept in to wash away whatever warmth his palm gave, it made the dark-haired phantom thief’s breath quicken like a dog’s. All while Akechi did little more than sway from foot to foot with his back to the stalker, completely oblivious to the man’s lewd game while he talked away on his cellphone.

God damn it, will you hang up already, motherfucker? Before I orgasm? Akira thought with a glare to the brunette. Who seemed to hear the impatient thought, because not a moment after he’d strung the words together, he did finally hang up the call and tossed his phone back towards his fancy bed. Once he had, his thumbs hooked into the elastic band of his boxers.

In that instant, Akira’s heart leapt into his throat. His hand forced to a stop so that he didn’t orgasm at something as slight as a mere inch more of Akechi’s flesh. That way, the stalker could thoroughly drink in the slow, teasing reveal of the man’s well-defined ass and the way that the fabric slid down the detective’s lightly tanned legs, even if that left his erection to freeze in the winter night. After that though, he let himself return to a slower pace with a gentler grip on himself. Something just firm enough to return some warmth to his twitching cock, but not enough for the sudden shift in temperature to instantly shove him over the edge before he even got a glimpse of Akechi’s dick.

Which, the detective, again, took his sweet time to reveal. Which, again, made the ravenette debate if his darling knew he was being watched, because it wasn’t normal for him to linger so long in front of an uncovered window without so much as turning around. Come on, please, please, please hurry up. I can’t wait much longer. Especially if you know I’m fucking out here, Akechi! The phantom thief plead, a small shiver seemingly a confirmation of that thought. Yet, this time, the brunette must’ve ignored his psychic signals, because all he seemed to do was fiddle with his shoulder-length hair or something that Akira couldn’t see on his face.

So, it wasn’t the view of his darling’s cock that shoved Akira over the edge, it was the continued tug-o-war between the temperature of his erection. The warmth of his strokes, then the sadism of the winter’s chill, then the returned salve of warmth on such tender, engorged flesh until the next tidal wave of heat to zip up his length was his orgasm instead of his hand.

While the dark-haired man managed to swallow down his moans, the sheer force of the release? The rush of oxytocin and seratonin that seemed to wash reality away? He had a harder time against that onslaught. So, when he came down from the high to find himself in the snow between the roots of the tree with Akechi giving him a smug wave and grin from his window, Akira wasn’t entirely surprised. Still gonna kill that bastard one of these days, though…

[darling-i-read-it]

Laugh

Joker x fem!reader x Bruce Wayne 

Word Count: 2.2k 

Warnings: violence, guns, fear, kind of a hostage situation. I am probably missing something lemme know 

Author’s Note: this was inspired by the harleen comic which is fantastic if you haven’t read it already! I wanted to make both the Joker and Batman ambiguous to whoever you wanted to picture! I hope you all enjoy my impulsive joker fic lmao if you want a part 2 lemme knowwwww. okay back to requests lol

Summary: Bruce is always out doing god knows what. The night you get fed up and leave you get ambushed by the Joker in the streets of gotham 

Genre: ????

I don’t own these characters. They belong to author/director/creator

(not my gif)

Bruce wasn’t home. 

When was Bruce ever home, you wondered with dismay. Too often you came over to see him and it was just Alfred there. At this point, you saw him more than you saw Bruce. You should have known when you started a relationship with the infamous Bruce Wayne that you wouldn’t see him as much as you wanted to. You had tried so much to be understanding. 

He just wasn’t there. 

Ever. 

“I think I’m gonna go home,” you muttered, running your hand through your hair. You hadn’t even bothered to get changed. Usually you waited until Bruce came back from business but you were slowly losing patience with him. Alfred could feel it in the way you stood up. 

“Let me call you a car,” he offered. 

“No, it’s alright. I’m really not that far away.” Alfred pursed his lips. He was still wearing his day clothes. You often wondered how much sleep he actually got. It was essentially superhuman.

“Master Bruce wouldn’t want you out walking this late.”

“Well then he should’ve come home,” you muttered. “Plus,” you said, scoffing. “The Bats out.” You pointed at the sky. The light was illuminating in the otherwise dark and gloomy night. 

Alfred consistently had a hard time not telling you where Bruce actually was. But he knew it wasn’t his place to say. Bruce had to open up and tell you himself. But he could feel you slipping away every night, a little bit more as you reverted into yourself. 

“Are you sure I can’t call you a car? For my sake.” You shook your head. 

“I’m alright Alfred, really. Thank you.”

“Will I see you tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. You rubbed your eyes and grabbed your bag, shoving it in your pocket. You were so angry. Bruce claimed he loved you every time he saw you. He was loving and he was tender and then he was gone all over again. You were never sure when he was coming back. You would always be second to Wayne Enterprises. 

It was cold outside. You felt the shiver on your skin. It felt like Gotham was never going to get warm in the summer but the second it did it would start to roast the trash in the alleyways and make the whole city smell. You walked quickly. You were starting to regret your anger denying Alfred. He had just been trying to help. 

You glanced behind you in the darkness, trying to push Bruce out of your mind. 

Still, you imagined him coming home to realize you weren’t there. How would he feel? Would he be angry? Unhappy? You imagined the distaste in his face in his stupid suit and clean pressed hair when he goes to bed alone. A part of you relished in it. He deserved to feel the way you consistently felt because of him. 

How dare he. How dare he make you feel like this. You didn’t deserve it and he knew it. You deserve someone who would protect you and not let you go out at night like a crazy angry person like you were right now. You deserve someone who cared-

Bang!

You turned around quickly, almost falling over. 

Bang! Bang!

Gunshots were ringing off the side of the building you were leaning against. You scrambled back, your heart racing in your ears as you tried to find the source of the noise. 

Out of the natural Gotham smoke emerged the Joker himself. You recognized him instantly as though you had seen him in person before. You knew he wouldn’t hesitate with that gun he had in his hand. His laughter seemed to be echoing through the streets like he was bigger than he was. He could scale buildings with that laugh. 

You slipped on your own shoe and fell over. Fear colored your face as you leaned against the wall, hoping he wouldn’t see you. 

“He’s wasn’t very funny anyway!” the Joker exclaimed to a silhouette behind him. You breathed heavily but all you could hear was a funnel to his voice. Where was Batman when you needed him? 

“Boss!” 

You had been spotted but you couldn’t move. Someone was pointing a gun at you leisurely, gesturing at you. You put your hands flat against the wall behind you, trying to force yourself to get up. You needed to leave. You needed to run. 

Joker walked up to you carefully, holding his gun to your forehead. You made no attempt to slip away. You felt the cool metal against your skin. 

You stared up at him. He stared down at you. 

His smile flickered into amusement. Like he wanted you to squirm and beg. You were silent, not even tears escaping your eyes. You just looked at him. 

“It’s the cops!” one of his henchmen called. He dropped the gun to his side, leaving you completely unharmed. He looked at his men and then back down at you. 

“Better scram sweetheart. Gothams full of dangerous people.” You pulled yourself up and nodded. He flashed you a smile and you were about to back away and finally run when there was a loud crash behind Joker. For some reason, the crash scared you more than he did. 

Batman had arrived. 

“Bats! I was starting to think you wouldn’t show up,” Joker said, an insane smile on his face. “We aren’t gonna do this in front of the lady are we? Bad manners!” 

You couldn’t feel yourself breathing anymore. The looming figure of the Batman was staring at you. You slinked behind the Joker like he would protect you. You didn’t have time to rationalize your morals at that moment. All you knew is that the Joker had not shot you and it sure as hell looked like Batman was here to fight. 

“You don’t get to play knight in shining armor Joker,” Batman said, voice gravelly. 

“Oh I didn’t plan to be. I just got distracted! You’re all dark and brooding Bats, kinda hard to miss ya!” You stood evenly on both feet, trying to decide if you needed to run or not. You looked towards the looming alleyway for a moment and then back at the antagonists. Joker pointed a gun at Batman.

You slid away and booked it.

You had run for what felt like forever when you realized you had no idea where you were going. You had just been trying to get away. You could feel your chest heaving now as you leaned against a wall, closing your eyes. You felt far from safe but there’s no way anyone could try and rob you after that! The world was cruel but not cruel enough. 

You looked desperately at the street signs. You were lost. Every street looked the same in the dark. 

Your phone rang but it sounded far away. You struggled to get it out of your pocket, tears pricking your eyes. You had almost just died!

“Y/N?”

“Bruce,” you breathed. You wanted to cry but held it together. Your anger from earlier was all but gone. You just wanted to go home and take a very long and very deserved shower. 

“Where are you?” he sounded remarkably serious which made your anger come back a bit. You had just gone through that and Bruce had the audacity to be mad at you for leaving? You knew it wasn't’ rational, there was no way he could’ve known, but still. 

“I don’t know,” you said honestly. 

What you didn’t know is that Bruce was jumping across buildings to find you. He had left Joker, actually left him, to make sure you were safe. The clown would surely live to fight another day. When Bruce saw you his heart sank into his stomach. You shouldn’t have been there. He should’ve been with you, back home. 

“What street signs do you see?”

You peaked around the alley corner just to run right into someone. Your phone dropped and toppled, cracking. As if this day couldn’t get any worse. A white hand grabbed your arm and moved you in front of them so that you were both against the alleyway corner. 

“My phone,” you whispered to yourself, pathetically. You looked at the man and met the familiar eyes of Joker. 

“Fancy running into you again!” he said, smiling comically large. 

“What happened to Batman?”

“Fled! I know, crazy huh.” He peaked around the corner. He had lost his gun back there. All he had now was some smoke bombs and a knife. He was too far away from the compound to head back there in the dark now. He had to shelter for the night. He pulled his knife. “You got a place sweets?” 

The world really was that cruel.

“I don’t even know where we are!” you whisper screamed. 

“I’ll get you a GPS.” You grabbed your cracked phone. Bruce had hung up in his attempts to find you. You wished he was still on the phone. 

Joker had no actual plans. That made it all the funnier! 

You stumbled around the streets. At some point he had dropped the knife completely and just followed you. You got home in remarkably good timing. Your place was one bedroom and a mess but a part of you was glad to be in a familiar place with an unfamiliar person.

“You got a pullout?” he asked, laughing through his teeth. 

“Why should I help you? You’re the Joker! Don’t you have people for this?” He rolled his eyes, gesturing with his hand. He sat down on your couch.

“If you can find an untapped phone in Gotham, be my guest!” he put his feet up, his hands behind his head. He really believed you weren’t gonna hurt him. His eyes were shut like he was cozying in for bed. 

“What, should I offer you water or something?” you asked, your voice mixing with amazement, fear and anger. 

“If you got one! I could use something sparkling. Long run after all!” He peeked one eye open and that smile returned. 

“I could call the police on you.”

“Are you gonna? If I remember, I didn’t kill ya. I’d say you owed me one.” You didn’t even have a response to that. 

“If I take a shower are you gonna kill me?” you deadpanned. Both his eyes opened up. 

“No. Be my guest. I could use one myself.”

“You broke my phone.”

“Save me some hot water sweetheart.” 

“Y/N.” He smiled brightly. 

“Jay.” 

And you left the room. Your phone was broken. You hadn’t signed up for any kind of home phone. Who even uses home phones anymore? Maybe Bruce would be by to apologize. Maybe he wouldn’t. 

You stripped off your clothes and you took a shower.

When you got out Joker was on the kitchen counter, drinking a glass of water. 

“That was a long shower.”

“It’s all yours,” you muttered. 

“How will I know you won’t call the cops?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

You laughed in his face. He gave you a confused, slightly infuriated look. 

“With what?”

“Point taken!” He slid off the counter, slamming the glass of water down. He walked up to you as you were ringing out the water in your hair onto the ground. He had to squeeze into the small hall that led to the bathroom. He made no attempt not to touch you. His chest brushed yours fully, his lanky hand on your elbow as he moved you aside. You stared at each other, directly into your eyes. 

It felt kind of…electric. 

He went in the bathroom. You had left him a towel. 

“You have a good laugh!” he called through the muffled wall. You smiled a bit to yourself and looked down at your broken phone. You tossed it aside onto the counter. Bruce could worry a little more. 

Part 2

DC Tag List: @karasong @elisaa-shelby, @alexxavicry, @demigirl-with-problems, @chaotic-fangirl-blog, @caswinchester2000, @gxrlwithluv, @lov3vivian, @blkwayne, @wandering-poetess, @softiekayy, @navs-bhat@shownuflakes

[jokeringcutio]

Could u please do reader x joker 2019?

Reader protects Arthur (before he turned into joker) from when his sign was taken and she beat the kids up and he won’t ever forget that moment. But now,Arthur turned into the joker, he returns the favour by saving her from bad guys?

And when he saves her, he walks elegantly towards her 😫✨ and says “I missed you, doll” 🫣🫣🫣😭✨

Title: Savior Fandom: Joker 2019 Pairing: Arthur Fleck (Joker)  x Reader Rating: Mature for safety. Warnings: Violence, (attempted) sexual assault, Crude Language, Clown beating, Blood, Murder. AN: I wrote two versions of this. A sweeter tale, after which I realized the prompt specifically said that the Reader beats those bad boys up – so I rewrote it. Now I really struggled with how the Joker saved the Reader in this. I’ve written several different scenarios, but none of them felt right. In the end, I decided to base it on personal experience and went along with something that happened to me and frightened me a lot while I was in university. And that was passing this certain school and the young men that tried to sometimes sexually assault you there. It never went as far as in this fic, though, thank the lucky stars. But I had to push the situation a bit more to get a more satisfying end to their lives >D

Be warned, the boys in the second part try to attempt to rape the reader (I won’t go as far as clothes being torn off etc, but they do try to drag her into an alley and scold her).

So if any of this triggers you, please, do not read and hold out for the sweeter fill of this prompt that I will be posting later on &lt;3

~ Savior Fill : I Can Handle Myself ~

The boys ran past you with such haste, it was as if a train passed you. You followed them with your eyes, frowning, and inwardly cursed how rude they had been to nearly trample you on their way past you. But you didn’t have long to think angry thoughts, because a man rushed by, clearly in pursuit. A clown, you thought, eyes now wide. A clown with a green wig cap adorned with curly fake hair and ridiculously big shoes. It must make his steps that much harder. How did he manage to keep up, you wondered.

“Hey, stop them!” the clown shouted. But the boys were shouting back profanities and crossed the road. The clown was nearly hit twice by a car as he followed. One glance around you told you that no one had bothered to run after them. Though some people stood and watched, most seemed to ignore the weird scene. You didn’t hesitate a single moment, though, and ran.

It had been hard to cross the road, but once you were on the other side, you came to a halt and your eyes darted from side to side. Where had they gone to? Then you spotted the clown as his feet slipped from the pavement and he caught himself with his hands. He’d nearly fallen but scrambled up to his feet again before he dashed into one of the alleys. He disappeared out of sight, but you had memorized the spot and made your way over to it as swiftly as you could.

At the entrance of the alleyway, you stood still to observe something you had hoped you would never see. Five teenagers stood huddled around the clown. His bright yellow sign lay scattered upon the floor, broken as if smashed against something. The man was quiet but conscious. You could see how he tried to shield his body from the incoming blows. And your mind went haywire.

You didn’t even register how you moved in on the boys, you suddenly just stood behind them. One high kick was enough to hit the first one on his shoulder. The tall teenager turned around, clearly confused, but you gave him little time to retaliate. Instead, he met your fist eye-first, and stumbled backward, nearly tripping over the clown’s shivering frame.

At this point, the others boys had noticed your presence and they stopped their assault on the man. Instead, they turned to you. Eyes all dark and glowering, teeth shown. Like rabid dogs, you thought. But there was no time for thinking now.

You held your arms up in front of your face, hands curled into fists. A little hop to your step as you sprung side to side like you’d seen boxers do on the television.

“How about it, boys?” you whispered. You had wanted to sound cool, but something in your voice broke. It didn’t come out sad though, just a little husky. The boy whom you had dubbed their leader because he was taller and seemed to be the one to take initiative took a step closer to you. His eyes widened at the sight of you.

“Leave the clown alone,” you demanded, then ducked when the anticipated attack struck you right after. The boy’s knee was up to hit your chest, but you had seen it coming and darted out of its way. A fist was launched at your face, but either by sheer luck or good reactional skills, you managed to block it with your arms.

The move seemed to surprise the boy as much as it did you, because he took a second to recover before he tried to hit you again.

The others boys now joined in, the clown forgotten behind them. They inched closer to you with fists raised until a second boy launched himself at you, and all of a sudden, hands and legs were swung in your direction like a flurry.

You didn’t manage to dodge all of the blows, but you made a lucky move when you crouched down to avoid them, then kicked out your leg. Your foot hit an ankle, and one of the boys fell, taking the boy next to him with him by accident. With two down, you sprung up again and hurdled yourself at one of the remaining three. It was one of the smaller ones, an easier target. You tackled him to the floor in a tight hug, then let go of him the moment he lay down. Seated on top of him, you smashed your fist against his cheek, a blow that pushed his head into the dirt and the crumbling asphalt below. Then you moved off of him.

Just in time, it seemed. The two boys who still stood rushed forward to you. In a fit of panic, you reached next to you. The road was littered with garbage that had been torn from the many uncollected garbage bags, and your hand closed around something sharp. What the hell was it?

It didn’t matter. This was your life you were concerned about. With eyes closed, you flung the sharp object away from you, only to hear a gasp come from the boys. Had you hit one of them?

But when you opened your eyes, you saw they were unharmed. But they were gasping at something, eyes raised to the sky. You looked up to see your shot had cut one of the electricity cables that hung above the alley. The cable dangled dangerously above your heads, a crackling sound and sparks erupted from the cut end.

“Come on,” one of the boys then shouted, “Let’s go, let’s go!” The boy still on the ground jumped up to his feet. Blood seeped from a gash on his cheek. He threw you an accusing glare, but made no comment, before he turned away from you and the dangling electricity cable, then ran off.

The other boys followed until you were left alone in the alley. Alone apart from the shivering clown.

You ignored the cable above your head, as you did the shouts of someone in one of the apartments who was cursing that their television had stopped working. Hurriedly, you crawled over to the hunched form of the man, and then slowly bent over him. He kept his hands between his legs. Must have taken a few hard kicks to the balls, you thought. You felt pity for him.

If only you could have chased them off earlier. If only you could have spared him this fate.

“Hey,” you carefully started, your hand on the man’s shoulder. He didn’t shrug your hand away, but he did flinch when you first touched him. But then, as he heard your voice, his eyes opened and he looked up at you. Your heart nearly stopped beating, because the eyes that locked with yours were the brightest green you had ever seen. So pretty. Accentuated by the clown’s makeup and his hair, certainly, but ever so beautiful.

You could have asked him then if he was okay, but that would have been a superfluous question. Of course he wasn’t. He was beaten up, and bruised, his sign shattered. There was nothing you could do to help his bruises, you knew that. But perhaps there was a chance to bring him comfort, to soften those mental wounds he must have received so they wouldn’t scar as badly.

“Let me help you,” you whispered, again. Your hand slid to the man’s white-painted cheek.

He smiled.

2.

You’d nearly forgotten the man you had once saved. The mysterious clown who hadn’t given you his name and hadn’t accepted any offers to help him. It had been as if he was scared of you. The way his shoulders raised when you spoke to him and how he avoided looking into your eyes. You had caught him looking at you though. Whenever you looked away his eyes would be upon you, and there’d be awe within them. As if he couldn’t believe that you were real.

But that was months ago.

When you met him again, you were on your way home. This particular street led you past a community college building, a place where young men often loitered about, hands in their pockets, leering at you when you passed by. You’d gotten used to the whistles and the comments. You thought it was normal until one of your fellow female students pointed out that they never called after her.

Passing this street didn’t always make you feel safe, so when you were particularly tired, you’d go the long way around to the train station. But today, you wanted to take the shortcut. A choice you instantly regretted.

“Oi, pretty girl,” one of the boys wearing a hoodie, hands in his pockets like they usually had, shouted the moment he saw you. He came heading your way, a weird lilt to his step. You instantly knew this wasn’t going to be okay. “Oi, come here,” he said.

Behind him, a friend of his emerged out of the shadows of the building. A crooked smile upon his face and an evil glint in his eyes. “I think you have a little time for us, don’t you?” the boy said.

Two more friends emerged and you quickly scanned the area. Somehow, you were all alone. No other students were behind you, just in front, but they had just rounded the corner and were long gone.

The streets seemed empty as it was already getting late. The setting sun shone over the street tiles, making them shimmer. With hands flexed, you made to turn around, but the first boy managed to corner you.

“Uh-uh, I don’t think so,” he said. You wrinkled your nose in disgust when you saw he had grabbed you by the arm. His grip was tight and unpleasant. You started to feel scared for being surrounded by these young men who clearly wanted a thing from you that you were unwilling to give them. “Here, baby, don’t be difficult. Now, you’re gonna be good to me and my friends?”

You flinched, certain of one thing. You were not going to make this easy for them.

With as much strength as you could muster, you pulled your arm back sharply. An attempt to bring your arm back to your belly, but the boy’s hand remained attached. It hadn’t worked.

With gritted teeth, you flung your knee up to aim at either his chest or his balls. You hoped to hit the latter. But once again the boy was too swift. He used your own arm to block the attack, which hurt darn much. You winced and bit back a cry at the pain you felt. Stupid, you thought. You probably had bruised your own arm.

Another attempt from you to twist out his hands, but the second boy gripped your shoulders from behind and forced your body still. You cursed, loudly. “Let go of me,” you said as loudly as you could. “Let go, or I’ll scream.”

This threat instantly triggered a third boy to cover your lips with his palm. “You try and fight back bitch, and we’ll fuck your cunt into a bloody mess.”

With eyes wide of shock, because how dare they scold and denigrate you like this? You noticed how the four of them started to drag you into the narrow alley next to the building. An alley, you knew, would mean the end of it. Because how many people passed this street? And how many of them would think to look in that alley on their way? Your chances to escape would be zero to none.

No, your mind screamed. No, this can’t be how it goes. This can’t happen to me.

You struggled with all your might, even if it were hardly possible to move within their arms. All it earned you was a hard whack against the head, and a kick against your shin. More bruises, you thought, panicking. You had to get out.

Just before they could pull you into the alley, you had the mind to bite the boy whose arm had circled around your shoulders and who covered your mouth in the hand. He cried out. Then suddenly his hands were gone, and he fell face-first next to you. His head inside the alley. His body was limp.

You looked at him confused. Had your bite done that? But then a second boy, this time to your other side, called out. A high-pitched yell of pain. Arms flailing, he fell down to the ground as well, leaving only the two boys behind your back.

Their hands let go of you, and finally you were able to turn around. There they stood, both boys with their backs turned to you. Their attention all upon a new man who had appeared behind them. A man in a red suit, stylish, if not for the many spots upon it. Had he spilled coffee, you wondered at first. But no, it would have been a lot of coffee. The spatters were too many and too far apart. Then what could it be?

The man stood face down, a cigarette held between his lips and fingers, the tip glowing. You could not see his face, but something about his posture seemed familiar. Like a distant memory was awoken upon the sight of him. You’d seen this man before, but where?

His other hand rested inside his pants pocket, lazily, elbow hooked. Nothing about him indicated what had just been done, so you didn’t notice it at first. Not until he blew a small cloud while the cigarette left his lips, and he finally looked up at you all. You saw the paleness of his face. Not natural, but made by makeup. Familiar, you thought again. But it couldn’t be him, could it? The blue triangles near his eyes. The green tangled hair.

This man was dressed as a clown, you realized. A clown you’d seen pictures of before on the television, and on the wanted posters all around the city. A villain recently sought after by Wayne and the authorities.

The Joker.

No wonder you had thought you recognized him. A man known to be ruthless. Cold needles spread all over your spine and you froze up with fear. You knew you had to go, to escape, to run fast and as far as you could before he ended your life like had the lives of so many others. His reasons were often left unknown. Not just Wayne’s men had been murdered, dozens more.

But then your eyes turned to the two boys on the floor and you realized the clown must have a gun. Red had started to spread, leaking from the chests of the boys down onto the street tiles below. Their clothes were stained with the red liquid that was now rapidly spreading.

They’d been shot.

Then the stains on the clown’s suit weren’t made by coffee at all. They were blood as well.

You looked up again in fear, eyes wide. But the Joker’s gaze was not upon you. It was fixed firmly upon the boys in front of you. His hand rested lazily in the pocket of his red pants. Probably where he is hiding the gun, you mused.

“I think you have something of mine there,” was all Joker needed to say for the boys in front of you to start stumbling backward. What was it? You wondered. What did they have? What had you found yourself entangled in? Their screams echoed throughout the alley as they turned on their heels to run. They made it past you, into the narrow street, but only made it in several paces before one by one, they were shot in the back. Cowardly, you thought, but they oh-so deserved it for what they had tried to do to you.

They fell forward, their bodies slumped. You didn’t know if they were instantly dead, or if their life was slowly slipping away from them. You didn’t care to watch. Instead, you turned your head back to the Clown Prince of Crime, a title given to him by the most ruthless and the most influential of all men in Gotham.

The Joker stood where he had been standing. The only change was his now raised arm, a smoking gun aimed at where the boys once had run. Your heart nearly stopped of fear, and you hardly dared to keep your eyes upon him. Surely, he would shoot you next. Whatever this was, whatever this had been, he would probably assume you were part of the group. Had they stolen something from him? Did he want it back enough to kill them for it? Why should he spare you?

With your eyes averted, nearly closed while you trembled in fear, you heard his steps upon the tiled street. His soles slipped upon the glistening tiles, still wet from the rain earlier today, before the sun had started to peek through the clouds.

You heard how he walked towards you, taking his time, a cigarette in his hand, still burning. Then he brought it to his lips and took a long drag before he exhaled slowly. Little clouds of white swirled up from his lips to disappear into the early summer sky while he tilted your head with one finger, forcing you to lock eyes with his own.

They were the purest green you had ever seen. It was within that instant that you recognized him as the clown whose life you had once saved. Eyes that had once been filled with terror and disbelief, but had been ever so green that they had drawn you in. Eyes that had once looked at you as if he could not believe you were real. The gaze in them was the same. That look that told you he had a hard time believing that you existed.

But why?

This man had once been hunched over, frightened for his life, trembling. But now it was you who was in his place. And something in his gaze softened. You saw the recognition in his eyes and thought he must have spotted yours.

His fingers upon your chin tightened. The way he studied you while he moved your face with his hand, tilting it from side to side as he took you in the sight of you, made something in his eyes change. His gaze became more intense, darker.

Then his head dipped forward and his lips were planted against yours. The taste of bitter smoke and something unique to him invaded your senses. It felt pleasant. Unexpected, but heartwarming. A butterfly rose in your chest and wanted to fly, hot flames licked the insides of your belly. And this man had done all that with just one kiss.

And then he withdrew, but his eyes remained focused upon your lips. As if he was hungry for more, a craving you shared with him. He seemed to be catching his breath, his chest moved rapidly up and down, while his fingers finally slid free from your face so he could place his hands on your hips. You placed your hands on his chest and looked up at him, lips parted in a silent sigh, a quiet invitation for him to kiss your lips again. The Clown Prince of Crime happened to be your very own clown.

“I missed you, doll,” he murmured, voice hoarse and low. He had no idea how much you had missed him. "I think you'd be a lot safer in my arms, don't you?" he hummed, and you didn't think to go against him.

The newspapers reported you missing the very next day.

[mzminola]

Love Preboot Jason Todd being a narrative vehicle for the discussions of:

1. what vigilantism entails, the lines around different levels and kinds of violence, what’s the overlap between the Bats and the organized crime they’re up against, etc.

2. the ethics of having child sidekicks.

Like...with #1, the no-kill rule is vital and shouldn’t go away, but when writing normal humans fighting other normal humans, instead of metahumans punching robots or monsters, on a sliding scale of realism (yay different titles in same universe) asking “Should we deliberately kill?” leads to the question of “Should we be using violence that could kill?”

Robin 1993, aimed at a younger audience, asks “Should we be doing this at all?” when Tim causes the death of Young El; the other teen wouldn’t have died if Robin hadn’t chased him. It wasn’t a “fight that went wrong”, it was Tim giving chase and Young El fleeing into a structurally unsound building. The death causes Tim to re-examine if he’s doing the right thing as Robin.

Bruce Wayne/Batman is presented as hypercompetent most of the time, so his titles don’t lend as well to that kind of arc. Enter Jason Todd in Under the Red Hood, where Jason shoves questions about Batman’s ethical stances into Bruce and the readers’ face again and again and again.

A comic aimed at little kids with cartoon violence does not have to worry about the hero punching too hard and killing someone. Comics aimed at older teens and adult do. It can be an editorial decision that no, nobody is gonna die like that, but the characters need to be aware of the possibility (thank you Nightwing beating the Joker to death, for putting that on the table) and if the comics never have them wrestle with the possibility, never have them decide if it’s a risk worth taking, the character ethics feel disappointingly flat.

Jason works really well in this role of saying “Hey, your methods haven’t fixed shit, so why not change them. What’s the big difference between potentially fatal moves and deliberately fatal moves?” because Jason isn’t a random new character, he’s not a pre-existing villain just claiming to be working for good now, he’s Robin.

Jason is someone who was a hero, who did play by all of Batman’s rules, who did and still does desperately want to help people, and he saw how this plays out for the victims by being one.

Jason’s points can’t be dismissed out of hand. No one can say he doesn’t understand how difficult and complex the Bats’ work is, no one can say he doesn’t understand the stakes.

Which swings us around to #2, child sidekicks, because Jason’s death had two big factors which was one, he’s Batman’s sidekick so the Joker had it out for him specifically, and two, he was a child, which put him in a more vulnerable position than an adult sidekick would be in.

Jason was a fifteen year old kid failed by several parents and directly betrayed by another. A Gotham Rogue who Batman personally locked up multiple times and keeps escaping murdered him.

Jason’s death is on Bruce’s hands as much as it is on Gotham’s corruption.

If we take the interpretation* that Jason died again at the end of Under the Red Hood and went through further resurrections, that drives home the point that Bruce’s methods are lethally flawed.

Because Bruce fucking kills his son directly this time.

Jason sets up the confrontation, Jason arranges a no-win scenario where he insists that the only way to save Joker’s life is to end Jason’s (though he’d prefer his dad to kill his murderer for him) and Bruce tries what he thinks will get around it. Bruce throws a batarang at Jason’s gun hand, but the angle is wrong and it slices open Jason’s neck. He’s last seen curled up in a pool of his own blood right before being caught in the middle of an explosion.

This is the big ethical Bat dilemma written out in a very close, personal moment. If no one stops him, Jason is going to kill the Joker. There’s no back-up coming. Shit is way too personal for de-escalation to work. Bruce has spent years making violence into his primary tool. The only way he can stop a murder from happening in front of him is to physically hurt Jason.

So Bruce does. And because he’s a normal human with no powers, because years of training isn’t magic, it goes wrong and his son dies. He kills his son.

Jason has spent this arc insisting that Bruce’s methods don’t fucking WORK.

If Bruce had hit his hand, if like so many other Batman stories he Finds The Third Option, it would be a simple boring rebuttal of “Yes they do!”

Instead we get a batarang to the neck, and the question shifts from crossing specific lines of violence to “Is this worth it? Is the risk worth it?”

Because it was never a choice between “do nothing & someone dies” or “do something & everyone lives” it was always, always, a choice between “do nothing & someone dies” or “do something & risk killing someone yourself.”

Gotham’s justice system and city government is corrupt, there’s a fuckton of mafias, a growing number of costumed villains, and if everyone just keeps their heads down not only will things never get better, they’ll get worse.

The Bats do a lot of non-violent work; they do forensics, witness interviews, break into places for evidence, wiretapping, etc. They’re detectives. But they also, because this is a combination of noir and the caped superhero genre, do a lot of violence. They get into physical fights all the dang time.

Which means they’re taking the risk that Bruce did here all of the time.

They all have to ask themselves if that risk of someone dying by their hand is worth it to potentially stop other harm.

Jason driving the narrative to this question makes it as personally painful and impossible to ignore as it can get.

*Joker survived despite also being right on top of the bomb, but he also wasn’t bleeding out, so...

[imagine--if]

Could you write something for keoghan!joker, maybe he finally meets his queenie face to face when they break out of Arkham? 😊

A/N: Last part of the Arkham Joker series thing I seem to have created 😂 hope you guys like it, I'mma keep writing imagines/headcanons for him so feel free to request more!

Pairing: Keoghan!Joker x reader (The Batman 2022)

Warnings: Violence, the Joker living up to his name, bit of a crazy reader, suggestiveness and SuPeR fluff near the end 😜🃏

Words: 835

The amount of anticipation you had to hold in for those few days was ridiculous. But it was well worth it.

It's early in the morning, early enough for the guards to be half-asleep and unfocused, the sun only starting to rise into Gotham's naturally gloomy skies. You know exactly what you have to do.

You creep over to the cell door, shuffling towards the small barred gap where the main lock is secured. Producing the lockpick, you feed it into the metal slit expertly. You know what you're doing. J made sure of it, long before Arkham.

It takes no longer than a couple of minutes to hear a soft click, and you smile to yourself, grabbing the lock before it falls and tossing it onto your bed. That's one down. The others are easy to pull down and tug loose, and then the heavy door gives way. You slip out, quickly closing it again, before you glance at the number scribbled with green on the lockpick. It's where his cell is, right on the other side of the building. Typical.

It's dark in the building where the criminally insane are kept, making your job of sneaking around and staying in the shadows easier. You got to the cell as quickly as you could, but the door was already ajar.

A hand clamps over your mouth as someone pulls you back against a corner, muffling a gasp of surprise.

"Ssh, ssh ssh ssh..."

You roll your eyes, turning around to face the giggling maniac, grinning fondly at you.

"That's not fair, I was going to save you," you whisper-shout in mock annoyance, and his smile widens.

"Save me? Aw, doll, I can go back in and you can give it a go?"

"Do we really have time for that?"

"Nah, not really."

He grabs your hand, and he leads you down a series of corridors, into a guard's room, where emergency weapons for defence are kept. The guard that's supposed to be looking out is asleep in his chair, and you raise a brow incredulously. They're hardly guards, though. They're ordinary people who need a day job. Give it a year or two, and they could be the ones behind bars.

You grab a couple of guns, checking they're loaded, and the Joker glances at you from snatching a few of his own.

"If you run out of ammo, queenie, knowing you, you'll just chuck the gun at their heads."

You stop yourself from laughing before anyone can hear it. "Shut up."

The guns snap as they're ready to be fired, and J gives you a knowing smirk before you head out, shooting the unsuspecting guards and running back down the halls to the nearest exit. The alarm harmonises with the screams and yelling that are cut short by shots, and you do it all with ease, the rush making you grin as you watch the Joker bludgeon a guard who tries to fight back, roaring with hysterical laughter. One attempts to pounce on you, and you push him off, kicking him back and slamming his head against an iron door.

You sigh in satisfaction, pushing open the doors to the exit. The Joker beams, looking down in amusement and the body that'd smashed into the door.

"Mm, that's my girl."

You smile back, and he grabs your hand again as you both head over to the long, gothic gates, a few of his goons on-site to break them open. A car's waiting, too, and you're hurried inside before it speeds away. You laugh breathlessly as the Joker does, looking back at the ghoulish building as it gets smaller, chaos and alarms catching the attention of the people wandering around the streets.

"That was fun, huh?"

You smirk, nodding. "Definitely. So what now?"

"Ah, well when we're done, there's a new friend we're gonna meet. Likes puzzles, apparently. Meticulous..."

"Oh, the one Bat was stropping about?"

He giggles, nodding. "Uhuh. Sound good?"

You nod. "What do you mean, though, 'when we're done'?"

A roughish smirk makes his blue eyes twinkle. "What, you want me to talk you through it?"

Your eyes widen in realisation, and you burst out laughing. "Shut up."

"No, no, you asked," He chuckles. "It's been ages, hasn't it? Seeing you kick ass like that, dolly, it does things to me-"

"Shut up!"

"B-but why?" He laughs, pulling you closer to him from the spacious back seat of the large car, pressing sloppy kisses onto the skin of your neck. "We got all day, and all night... didn't you miss me like I missed you?"

"Course I did, J. I love you."

The last few words slip out before you can stop them, and you bite your lip anxiously, worried that you've said it too soon, put him off.

It does nothing of the sort.

He hugs you closer, humming as he plays with your hair from behind, murmuring something back so quietly you almost miss it.

"Love you too, queenie..."

[cherienymphe]

Joke’s On You (Joker x Reader)

WARNINGS: DUB-CON, NON-CON, ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP, knife play, blood play, murder, violence, 

IF ANY OF THIS OFFENDS YOU, PLEASE DNI

➥ {page breaks done by @whimsicalrogers​}

summary: you’re a part time thief who keeps getting in the Joker’s way. What starts out as rivals quickly turns into something hot and heavy, and before you know it, you’re J’s girl. Whether you want to be or not {based off of this headcanon}

~

The first time you ever come face to face with the Joker, the clown king himself, is during one of the first night’s you first started to execute your grand idea. You went through a klepto phase when you were a kid, but you never expected you’d return to it, and definitely not on a bigger scale like this.

It wasn’t like you were homeless or right on the poverty line. You had money, quite a bit in fact. One of the perks of being a stripper in the most popular club in Gotham, but there came a certain thrill from stealing from the rich in this city. Sure, you took their money on the stage, did everything you could to make them empty their pockets, but taking their money right out from under their nose was different.

You’re not sure when you came up with the bright idea, but you knew that if you wanted to keep this up and stay out of prison, you had to get smart about this. That was where the Joker came in. That clown ran this city, and you knew that with him around, no one would dare to even notice you. If you made your hits the same time as him, you could get in and out to no one’s knowledge.

It was a solid plan.

Until it wasn’t.

You almost ruin his plans to send a bank up into flames, and your eyes briefly meet his cold green ones before you’re taking off. You half expected to hear the sound of gunshots, even expected to get hurt or worse, but you can hear him telling his thugs to stand down. He doesn’t seem the least bit bothered by your presence, no real threat, and you’re unsure if you should be offended or not.

You had never seen the man himself up close before, and you’re shocked to realize that he’s taller than you imagined. More intimidating than you imagined. Despite the fact that he barely paid you any mind, you can’t help feeling like he’s going to break into your apartment and slit your throat. You’re a petty thief, nothing like the big criminals in this city, and your run in with him spooks you. It takes a long time for you to fall asleep that night.

You quickly put it behind you though and tell yourself that you just have to be more careful from here on out. It soon becomes obvious that that’s easier said than done. You hadn’t meant to get in his way when he was taking the mayor hostage. It was an honest mistake when you almost kept him from breaking some other danger to society out of Arkham, but the nail in your coffin finally comes when you do prevent him from robbing a bank truck.

You barely ducked in time as a bullet came flying past your head. You’re shaken up, but you manage to force yourself to get the hell out of there before the cops showed up and before the Joker took another shot. You should have known that he was going to be expecting you. The Joker was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

You walk right into a trap, and you’re in the bank vault, hands full of money when you feel a sharp tug on your hair. You swallow down a yelp as you’re yanked back into a bare chest, and your eyes widen when a hand curls around your throat. You may not be the best villain in the world, but you’re one that can defend yourself, and the walls of the vault shake as you fight back.

He’s stronger than he looks, but you’re stronger than you look, and you both realize this when he has a gun pressed to your forehead while you have a knife at his throat. Your heart is hammering inside of your chest because not only are you once again face to face with the Joker himself, but he’s seconds away from killing you. You feel like you’re about to throw up, and he’s clearly amused.

He tilts his head at you, red lips parting to reveal a shiny grin, a laugh bubbling in his throat as he presses the barrel of the gun even further into your skin. His purple coat hangs off of him, pale chest heaving and that’s how you know that despite his grin, he’s irritated. Maybe even mad.

“…and what do they call you?”

His voice is deep, and that takes you by surprise. A lot of things about the infamous criminal are taking you by surprise.

“What does it matter? You’re going to kill me anyway, right?”

He hums, stepping closer with a sneer.

“I haven’t quite figured that one out yet…maybe I will when you tell me your name…”

“Well, I haven’t quite figured out what I want to be called,” you honestly told him.

No one but him and his goons knew about you, so you had never counted on anyone else knowing about you either. The thought of an alias never crossed your mind.

“Trying to steal my shine or something? You want to be the big dog around here?”

“Oh, please,” you scoff, and if he had eyebrows, you were sure he’d be raising one at you right now with the look he gave you.

He narrowed his eyes, and in one movement, he ripped your mask from your eyes, making them widen. He looked down his nose at you, taking in your all black attire before finally resting his eyes on your face.

“…or don’t tell me…you’re one of those girlies who thinks she can run around with me?”

You frowned at him, and he continued.

“I take it you’re a big fan.”

His tone was mocking, and you had the urge to spit in his face, but you knew that would surely put a bullet in your head, so you simply rolled your eyes.

“Hardly. With you around, no one will even look my way. Your taste for the dramatics allows me to stay below the radar,” you told him.

He hummed at that, tilting his head from side to side as he weighed your explanation in his mind.

“That’s smart, and I gotta hand it to ya, I didn’t think you were smart.”

Your frown deepened at his backhanded compliment, but it was quickly wiped from your face when he tightened his hold on his gun, and your eyes widened.

“Smart, but not smart enough to stay out of my way-.”

He was interrupted as the building shook, and you both turned as gunshots reached your ears. While he was distracted, you slipped out of his grip, ducking in time to miss a bullet before turning the corner. A recognizable shadow passed over the walls, and you ducked into a nearby hallway just as the winged vigilante himself met the Joker as he stepped into the hall.

The air hitting your face reminded you that your mask was gone, and you quietly made your way to the back exit as the sound of fighting and gunshots grew fainter. You released a sigh of relief when you made it outside, and although you didn’t have anything to show for your excursion, at least you had your life.

A thin layer of sweat clings to your skin as you step down off of the stage, feet aching in your heels. A coworker of yours winks at you as she takes your place on the stage, and you wish her luck. Customers were being a bit stingy today, and considering your last heist granted you with nothing, your lack of cashflow today had you more annoyed than usual.

Sure, it was a Tuesday afternoon, but it was still the hottest club in Gotham. Customers of all types of backgrounds frequented the place, and although the old money crowd practically lived here, you had a love hate relationship with their kind. They tended to be the stingiest with their money despite having more than you could ever dream of.

“What time are you off?”

You turned to another girl who worked at the place, Mandy, and threw her a grim look.

“12.”

She grimaced, blue eyes filled with pity as she shook her head.

“Sheesh. Well, that’s what happens when you’re the best dancer in this place,” she said with a shrug. “Your demand is high.”

“High demand and low pay. What a treat,” you sarcastically replied.

She chuckled, but she quickly swallowed it down, eyes glancing past you. The club was already loud, but there seemed to be an uptake in noise, and you turned to find the cause. You froze where you stood, eyes wide and lips parting at the group of people who just stepped into the place.

All of the men varied in size and shape, all dressed in black as they made their way inside like they owned the place. You supposed that in a way they did. Anyone following the footsteps of the Joker probably felt like he could get away with anything. The man in question led the bunch, strutting past patrons with a dark look in his eye, green hair contrasting against his dark red shirt.

You quickly turned back around, squeezing your eyes shut as Mandy let out a low whistle.

“I haven’t seen him step foot in here in forever,” she commented.

You looked to her with a confused frown.

“What?”

“Oh, yeah. You’ve only been here for what, half a year? The Joker used to come in here all the time. They’d get a bit rowdy but what is that when he’s the highest paying customer?”

She shrugged, reaching for a tray of drinks, completely unaware of your internal dilemma. It was almost time to get back on stage.

“Have fun,” she purred, walking past you.

You took a deep breath, forcing yourself to calm down as you stewed over what you should do. Sure, you were a thief in your spare time, but you couldn’t lose this job. As much as you wanted to, you couldn’t walk out of here, so you straightened your shoulders and made your way back to your stage.

You kept an eye out for pale skin and green hair, and you were thankful to find him far on the other side of the room. He and his crew were occupied by another dancer, Mandy serving them drinks. You were thankful and carefully stepped onto the stage.

As usual, you attracted a nice sized crowd, and you made sure to keep your face turned away as you moved around the pole. You were pleased to find that this crowd was more generous with their money, but your satisfaction was short lived when your turned to find your boss gesturing for you to come off the stage. You were confused but did so anyway. He nervously scratched his dark beard as you approached, and you had a sinking feeling in your gut for some reason.

“What is it?”

He grumbled and jerked his head towards the other side of the building, and you hesitantly looked over his shoulder. The Joker’s goons were having a good time tossing money at the dancer on stage, a few of them clearly drunk. The green-haired man, however, wasn’t partaking in the festivities. His unreadable gaze was focused on you, and your heart sank when he didn’t break the stare. You were forced to when your boss spoke.

“He wants a private session with you,” the older man mumbled, and you’d be dumb to miss the fear and concern in his voice.

You internally cursed.

“You’re kidding…”

“…’fraid not. He was very clear in his…request,” he responded.

You both knew that it wasn’t a request. The Joker never requested anything, and you briefly closed your eyes, positive that this was going to be your last night on earth. Your boss placed his hand on your shoulder, gaze sympathetic…and pitying.

“Just do what he says, alright?”

He wasn’t just telling you that to make more money, but to keep you from becoming the clown’s next victim. You didn’t have the heart to tell him that your fate was already sealed. With a nod, you strutted past him and made your way to the other side of the room. The Joker’s expression didn’t change as you approached him, and you nervously swallowed. His cold green eyes seemed to follow the gesture, and you took a deep breath.

“Someone request a private room?”

Again, he said nothing, simply tilting his head to the side as his trailed his eyes over your scantily clad form. Some of his posse was still enamored with the dancer before them, but the rest had turned to not so discreetly eye you. They all looked away when the green-haired man stood, and your eyes fell to the sliver of skin that peeked through the top of his shirt, unable to hold his gaze.

“Right this way…”

You didn’t hear his footsteps, but you could feel his presence behind you as you led the way to the back where the private rooms were located. The walk was quiet, thick with tension, and you wondered if it was too late for you to start saying your prayers.

You went in first, blinking at the red glow of the room that came from the neon lights. You were shaking, stomach churning as the door clicked shut behind him. You turned to tell him to get it over with when his hand wrapped around your throat, forcing you to swallow your words. You let out a pained squeak, eyes watering, but his lips swallowed any other noise you threatened to make.

Your eyes were wide as he roughly kissed you, shock coursing through you while his mouth moved against yours. You stumbled back in your heels, but he quickly followed, teeth nipping at you so violently that you tasted blood. You wanted to tell him that this wasn’t that kind of club. This was not in your job description and was not allowed, but you remembered your boss’ words and wondered if he knew that this was what the man wanted?

Even still, you couldn’t go through with this, but his tattooed hands were ripping at your attire before you had the chance to voice what you wanted to say. Your lips were finally free to tell him off, but the only thing that came out was a yelp when his teeth sank into your shoulder. The pain you felt was quickly overshadowed by the pleasure that warmed your stomach when his fingers brushed over you.

You pushed against his chest, but his other hand grabbed your wrist, spinning you around so that your back was pressed to his chest. It happened so quickly that you didn’t have time to ponder what was happening until he was already inside of you. One hand was tangled in your hair, face pressed into the seat of the sofa as broken moans escaped your trembling lips.

His free hand was pressed into the skin between your shoulder blades, holding you down while his hips snapped into you over and over again. He was far from gentle, but every harsh stroke only seemed to stroke that fire inside of you. Your lashes were fluttering as he thrust into you, eyes rolling while you tried to make sense of everything.

You could feel his nails pressing into your back as he pinned you down, and your own scraped against the fabric of the couch while choked moans climbed out of your throat. This was far from how you expected your day to go. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that this man was trying to kill you. You fluttered around his unrelenting cock and tried to remember why that was a bad thing.

He let out what sounded like a growl above you, the fabric of his pants pressing into your skin as he ground against you, and his hand in your hair moved to the back of your neck just as the tightening in your stomach snapped. You came around him with an embarrassing scream, going limp beneath him as he fucked you through your climax, diving headfirst into his own.

You collapsed the minute he let you go, vision blurry and throat sore as you heard him zip his pants. You were still shaking, and he was already gathering himself together like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t just fucked you delirious. You moved to stand, ready to give him a piece of your mind, but you collapsed back onto the couch.

If you didn’t know any better, you’d say you heard a low chuckle in his throat. Either way, you didn’t get to ask him because the sound of the door slamming shut reached your ears seconds later.

The next time you ran into that stupid clown, you took great satisfaction in striking him square in the face. You didn’t care that he was surrounded by his band of hired muscle nor that you were currently standing in the middle of a jewelry store, alarm blaring in your ears almost painfully.

He gestured for the men around him to continue looting the place, seeing as they had paused to take in the scene. You knew they would have killed you without hesitation had he told them to. You glared at him as he grinned at you, bat perched on his shoulder.

“We’ve gotta stop running into each other like this,” he lowly said.

“That was for the last time we ‘ran into each other’,” you sneered. “I don’t care who you are, you don’t get to-.”

“Consider it my way of letting you get off easy.”

He chuckled at his play on words, but you weren’t amused in the slightest.

“Get off easy? Are you even crazier than everyone thinks?”

His grin was gone in a flash, and he stepped towards you, tapping his bat against his shoulder as he leaned in. His lips were parted as his eyes bore into your own, and you forced yourself to stand your ground as the scent of him invaded your nose.

“If you recall,” he slowly began. “You’re supposed to be dead.”

You swallowed, jaw clenching as he tapped his finger against your nose.

“The plan was to put a bullet in that pretty little mouth of yours. Does that…ring any bells?”

You pressed your lips together, glancing away as he let out a breathy chuckle.

“Fucking you brought me more satisfaction than killing you ever could,” he deeply said.

You felt heat rise to your face, and he tilted his head, lips brushing against your own as he spoke.

“So…I suggest you keep me satisfied…”

His coat flew behind him as he spun away, stomping towards one of his men to bark orders at them. Anger and humiliation coursed through you as you stomped outside, and you narrowed your eyes as the sound of police sirens drew nearer. With a sneer, you grabbed the knife in your holster before slashing the tires on his van.

That kept you satisfied throughout the rest of the night, but you paid for it dearly the next day at the club. This time, he hadn’t even waited until you were in the room. His hand had curled around the back of your neck as soon as you got to the door, forcing you inside as soon as he opened it.

You had stumbled in your heels, falling to your knees, and he was there before you could even rise. His hand was on your neck the entire time he slammed into you, the carpet scraping against your back. You could hardly breathe, let alone moan as he had his way with you, and you knew that he was genuinely angry this time, and you wondered how he managed to escape the police.

He was punishing you for your little stunt, but God did you love it. Your hands fisted into his bright red button down as he slid into your soaked walls, trying to pull him closer. You heard him hum every time you clenched around his throbbing member, the sound of your arousal reaching your ears. You should have been embarrassed at how wet you were, but the Joker seemed to enjoy it just fine, and besides. You saw no reason to pretend.

Like the last time, he was righting himself as soon as he was done while you lay on the floor, still trying to catch your breath. You let out a soft chuckle as he slammed the door behind him, and you wouldn’t be surprised if you weren’t even able to talk in the morning.

This little game between the two of you became something of a regular occurrence. You’d make your hits when and where he did his to avoid exposure, and sometimes things would go wrong on his end. Some mishaps were genuine accidents, but you’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy the way he’d take out his frustration on you.

He fucked you like an animal, and you loved it because sometimes you couldn’t even form words afterwards. And best of all, he wasn’t trying to kill you anymore…just your vagina.

One day, he didn’t leave as soon as he was done. He stood over you, watching as you fought to control your breathing. When you realized that he wasn’t making any moves to leave, you peeled your eyes open to look up at him from your place on the couch.

“…what?”

You nervously sat up as he dug into his pocket, eyes widening when he pulled out the shiniest bracelet you’d ever seen. He dangled it in front of your face, a low hum escaping him as you admired it.

“Saw this shiny little number in the display. It had my little thief written all over it…”

He jerked it away when you reached for it, so you reached higher, gasping when he closed his free hand around your wrist. You watched as he snapped the expensive piece of jewelry around your arm, and you brushed your fingers over it the minute he let you go.

You were forced to pull your eyes away from it though when he harshly gripped your chin, pulling your head up so that you were looking at him. His green eyes bore into your own, face unreadable as he pressed his red lips together.

“You like it, doll face?”

You couldn’t hold back your grin, and you nodded.

“I love it,” you told him, unaware of the implications behind the gesture.

You started showing up to work with all kinds of new things. A new pair of earrings, a necklace that wasn’t that before, even some new heels that didn’t hurt your feet as much. You figured it was just a perk of fucking the king of Gotham, of keeping him satisfied.

You didn’t know that it went beyond mere satisfaction and thankful gestures.

It was a late night, or early morning depending on how you looked at it. The club was almost at its peak, the early hours of the morning being your busiest. You hadn’t seen J in a few days, but it wasn’t unusual. The man was basically running an empire.

You were servicing a client, a regular who could never stick to one dancer. He had a habit of hopping between the ladies at the club, and it looked like this week, he’d chosen you. The loud music filled your ears as you slid your hands over his shoulder, thighs brushing his as you danced on him. The bass from the music made your body vibrate, and your eyes fell closed as you fisted one of your hands into your hair, chest pushed forwards.

The man had already given you a handsome sum of money, and you knew that if you put on your best show, there was plenty more where that came from. The loud music prevented you from hearing the rise in voices as a new patron entered the club. It also prevented you from taking note of the worried chatter that had only just started to emerge, but it didn’t drown out the sound of a gunshot that you flinching.

However, you didn’t open your eyes because of the gunshot. You opened your eyes at the feel of droplets landing all over your face, hair, and clothes. You faintly registered the sound of screams surrounding you as people fled from the club, tripping over one another. You stumbled back, frozen in place as you stood up straight, hands raised in front of you as you stared at your dead customer in shock.

He was dead.

That much was more than clear, but you were having a hard time wrapping your head around it. Heavy footsteps slowly made their way over to you, and you hesitantly looked over, terrified eyes connecting with familiar green ones. His eyes were wild and crazed, green hair pushed back away from his face, gun swinging back and forth on his finger. He looked good in his all white suit, not a spot of blood on him.

You wished you could say the same.

“Are you insane?” you screamed, legs trembling.

“Well, that’s what they tell me.”

You frowned at him as he threw his head back and cackled, and you shook your head, fighting to clear it.

“Why did you do that? What’s wrong with you?”

He abruptly stopped laughing, slowly lowering his head to gaze at you. His lips parted into a mocking grin.

“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with you? I leave town on business for a few days, and I come back to find my girl practically screwing some punk for the whole club to see,” he slowly said, voice low and threatening.

Your anger kicked you into gear, and you stomped towards him, a frown on your face.

“I am not your girl, and even if I was…this is my job! You know this is my job-!”

Your words were cut off, and you winced as he tightened his hold on your neck. Your feet were barely grazing the floor as he walked forwards, forcing you back. You dug your fingers into his arm, hitting at him with your free hand, but he acted as if you weren’t even fighting back.

“Those nice earrings you’re wearing says you’re my girl…”

Your stomach churned as you began to realize the serious meaning behind his gifts.

“…that pretty little bracelet on your arm says you’re my girl…”

You looked around in fear, realizing that the club was completely empty save for you, the Joker, and his thugs. You kicked at him as he forced your back onto the stage, his firm body pressing down on yours. His hold was still tight, and you felt tears spring forth as you fought to breathe.

“…and I say you’re my girl. Understand?”

You gave a shaky nod, but it wasn’t enough for him. He lifted you by the neck before slamming you back down, making you wince, and a slow grin spread along his face, revealing his shiny teeth.

“I’ve got a whole lotta toys, sweetheart. I earned those toys. I took those toys. Those toys are mine…”

You watched as he pointed his gun at the dead man still slumped in the chair.

“…and I don’t like people touching my toys.”

You didn’t get a chance to ponder on this turn of events before his lips were harshly pressing against yours. He slammed the gun down next to your head, hands pulling at your attire, and the tears finally spilled over as you fought against him. You weren’t alone, and this was a new level of humiliation that you weren’t okay with.

A man was dead. In fact, you were still covered in his blood, and the Joker’s men were just behind him, intently listening to everything, no doubt. His grip was harsh as he took hold of your wrists, slamming them down beside you. He let one go to grab his gun, pressing it into your lips as you shook.

“You gonna be a good girl? Or do I have to use this again?”

His voice was calm despite the violent implications behind his words, and you shakily shook your head.

He was rougher with you than he had ever been before. Biting you, choking you, and holding you far too tight. Part of you felt like it was done on purpose, not only so you’d get the idea, but so that the rest of his crew would get that you were his too. You cried as he pressed your cheek down onto the stage floor, hips snapping against your backside while harsh grunts left his lips.

You couldn’t handle staring at the Joker’s latest victim while he forced himself into you, so you squeezed your eyes shut. His other hand dug into your hip so harshly, you knew it was going to leave a bruise. As the minutes drew on, it seemed like his ministrations were becoming rougher, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say the sound of your sobs were egging him on.

His grip on your hair when he came had more tears springing to your eyes, and you flinched when his lips brushed your ear.

“Clean yourself up…”

Having only been half on the stage, you collapsed to the floor when he let you go. Your hair and makeup were a mess, and you miserably stared up at him through tear-filled eyes as he tucked his shirt back into his pants, swiftly pulling on his white suit jacket.

“…the cops will be here soon, and you gotta pull yourself together. Huh, doll face?”

He forced your head back as he gripped your chin, and you reluctantly nodded. He roughly dragged his thumb over your lips, smearing what was left of your lipstick before taking his leave, leaving you alone with one dead body, and one bruised one.

You shuffled upstairs, arms aching and eyes tight as you made your way to your apartment. It had been weeks since you’d been back to the club. Your boss, someone you were ever grateful for, told you to come back when you were ready. After all, you’d had someone’s brains blown out right in front of you…on you.

You were fortunate that no one stuck around to see J’s possessive display of ownership, so no one knew what his impromptu murder was really about. Everyone speculated that the customer had crossed the Joker in some way, a business deal gone wrong, but only you knew the truth. Only you knew that the man’s only crime had been paying for your time.

You took a break from stealing from the wealthy too. Not only did you lack the energy, but you couldn’t chance running into the Joker. Had you known what all of those gifts had meant, you never would have accepted them. You didn’t want to be the Joker’s. The last girl who got seriously tangled up with him had ended up almost crazier than he was.

Granted, you heard Harley Quinn was doing better these days, but God. Look how long it took her to get there? The thought of telling him to his face that it was over was a scary one, so you settled for just hiding away in your apartment. He was the Joker, a man who had a lot on his plate, and like he’d said, you were a toy to him. There were plenty of toys out there, and he could easily find another.

You dropped the groceries to the floor as soon as you made it inside, and you groaned as you straightened. Your shoes clicked along the floor as you made your way through your dark apartment. You turned on the kitchen light so that it would be on when you returned, and you made your way through your living room, looking forward to getting out of these clothes.

However, when you turned on the light in the living room, you were startled by the sight of a familiar green-haired villain standing in the corner like some statue. You barely swallowed down the scream that bubbled in your throat, and your eyes were wide as you took him in.

He was wearing a tux, a nice one with a white bowtie and a matching boutonniere. His hair was slicked back, and you weren’t sure where he came from, but you wanted him to go right back.

“I was enjoying a night out on the town…taunting Batsy as I like to do…”

He walked away from the wall as he slowly begun, cold eyes roaming over your apartment.

“…when I realized that I hadn’t seen my little thief for days. Weeks even.”

“What are you doing here?”

He didn’t respond, instead opting to make his way around the living room, running his gloved hands over your furniture. You didn’t realize that he was gradually closing the circle, nearing you.

“You haven’t been at work. You haven’t been in my face while you ruin my plans. You’re not hiding from me…are ya, doll face?”

You clenched your jaw, swallowing down your fear as you crossed your arms over your chest.

“I’m not hiding from you. We’re just through,” you told him.

He froze, glancing over his shoulder at you before continuing to look around.

“Did you hear me? You and I are done. Take your jewelry back, take everything you gave me and leave,” you continued.

He continued on as if he hadn’t heard you, and you stomped towards him.

“I’m serious, J! Do I need to call the police?”

That made him turn, and he wagged his finger at you like you were a misbehaving child.

“Careful,” he purred. “…because I personally know a certain thief they’d love to be informed about.”

You frowned, swallowing before pushing past him.

“I don’t care. At least in jail, I’ll be away from you-.”

You were cut off by your own scream, reaching for his hand as he pulled on your hair, forcing you away from the phone. He pulled you against him, and your eyes widened when he pressed a knife against your cheek, a hair’s width away from your lips.

“You have no agency in this arrangement.”

He threw you to the floor, and you scrambled away from him, nails scraping along the wood as he pulled you back. He cut your clothes away with ease, the torn shreds falling to the floor to leave you bear before him. The knife that grazed along your skin kept you from screaming as he undressed, but you did wince when he pressed it into your thigh, like a warning of what could come.

He took you behind the couch first, holding your thighs so tightly that the skin burned when he finally let go. Your table was next, but unfortunately, it didn’t withstand his rough treatment. The wall shook as he fucked you against it, every thrust rattling the pictures you had hung up to make this place a tad cozier.

Broken glass and broken pieces of wood littered the floor by the time he forced you into your bedroom. His knife remained in between his fingers the whole time he fucked you against your sheets. Your scalp burned from his harsh hold, and your throat hurt every time you swallowed, and you just knew that you’d wake up with finger shaped bruises in the morning. His deep voice was a constant in your ear, calling you ‘his little thief’, tsking at you like you were a confused child, telling you how much he was going to straighten you out.

When you clenched around him for a final time, your legs were thrown over his shoulder while your hands were pinned above your head by one of his. His free hand had fun cutting little nicks into your skin, greedily licking up the blood as tears continued to dampen your cheeks. He continued to push himself into you even after he came, and when he finally pulled out, your legs fell to the bed, chest heaving with shallow sobs.

“Now, wasn’t that a whole lotta fun?”

You glared at him as he sat up, a thin layer of sweat clinging to his fair skin, and your eyes traced the ink that decorated him. His green hair was in disarray, a smug grin on his lips as he pushed the strange colored locks away from his face. You could hardly even move, and you feared that attempting to would hurt worse.

You watched as he leaned over to his discarded pants, pulling out some sparkly piece of jewelry that you couldn’t care less about. You swallowed as he held it up, nearing you.

“…and here I was out shopping for something to compliment those new earrings, and you’re talking about leaving me. That’s a bit rude, but I’m willing to look past it.”

More tears spill over as he slides it around your neck, and it feels more like a noose than a necklace.

“You look like a work of art,” he says, lips brushing your cheek. “…all pretty and marked up by yours truly.”

His hair tickles your face, and he slowly leans away, dragging his fingers over your lips. You wince when he roughly grabs your jaw, pressing his fingers into a tender spot that you know is already forming a bruise.

“Now, I’ll be back in a couple of hours, so don’t do anything stupid.”

He tightened his grip at the end of his sentence, and you flinched. He grinned at you as he lightly patted his other hand against your cheek, grin widening when you recoiled.

“Let’s not do anything like that again, alright, sweetheart?” he purrs. “I’d hate to have to really hurt ya.”

~

tags: @harryspet @sherrybaby14 @darkficreposter @xoxabs88xox  @opheliadawnwalker3 @honeychicanawrites @honeychicana @nickyl316h @captainchrisstan @sebabestianstan101 @readermia @villanellevi @lokislastlove @notyourtypicalrose @coconutqueen21 @hurricanerin @buckybarnesplumwhore @quaksonhehe @nerdygirl8203 @mandiiblanche @cocoamoonmalfoy​

[gothic-aesthetic-gal]

Old Scars (Part 5)

Ledger!joker x reader

Fem!reader is kidnapped by the joker and his henchmen while just trying to get a moment's reprieve from her boring, soul-destroying job ✨️

Tw: I mean, we all saw TDK, right? I'd say this is on the same level/rating. Kidnapping, violence, mentions of minor characters (not J) being misogynist/threatening SA, reference to past traumatic injury. Beyond this i'm not sure, i'll update these when I write more.

🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏🃏

Part 5 -

After brushing his teeth, he roughly tossed a towel in my direction. The fact he even owned a toothbrush surprised me given that his teeth honestly looked yellow, but then again, the amount of chain smoking he was doing probably had something to do with that. Plus, red lipstick was notorious for making stained teeth look worse - I guess red paint was no different.

He seemed to find it amusing that I dragged a chair from the kitchen into the bathroom to jam under the door handle. I didn't care what he thought of it; I wasn't crazy enough to trust him. Not one bit. What if he took it upon himself to faithfully recreate the iconic shower scene from psycho? I didn't want my blood spiralling down the plughole as I breathed my last.

Once I was barricaded in the bathroom and under the hot water, my tense muscles began to relax a little. My black eye still stung, tinged purple and the edges turning sickly yellow as my body began trying to heal it. Thankfully my scraped up feet were faring much better, one of the few positives of being stuck here was that I hadn't been on them much as they were healing. I let the water wash over my body, seeping into my scalp and over my face. It felt as though it might wash off some of the strangeness of the last couple of days. I closed my eyes and imagined this was all just some sort of break from reality, one that I could snap out of and be back in my own apartment. Maybe I was just in the shower before going to work - but then again, part of me was still relieved that wasn't the case. Nothing could make me miss that job.

I grabbed the cheap 3-in-1 bodywash, shampoo, and conditioner, laughing a little to myself at the ridiculousness of men's shower products being like this. I missed my own separate counterparts, but at this stage anything would do. Despite the havoc it would probably wreak on my hair, it did at least smell nice. I did my best to comb it through with my hands and rinse it all out.

Finally satisfied with my efforts, I turned off the water and stepped out into the cold. Hurriedly drying myself down and getting dressed again, feeling very vulnerable in my nakedness, I threw my head forward and gathered my hair up into the towel. I twisted it and tucked it in. Then I pulled my socks and boots back on, my feet already feeling the cold. At least there had been hot water. Removing the chair and stepping out of the cloud of steam, I made my way back into the main living space.

I was met by the sight of J hunched over a mirror at the table. His back was to me as I approached and I coughed to announce my presence. He turned in his seat, revealing his half painted face for a moment. His surprisingly tanned skin was peppered with patches of white paint.

Part of me felt disappointed to see his real face vanishing. Although, maybe to him, this was his real face now... I approached the table slowly, chair still tucked under my arm. I set it down and sat on it facing the wrong way - so that the back of it was against my torso, and my arms folded against the top. Propping up my head with one hand I watched him as he continued to rub the white paint onto his face.

"You need something?" He grumbled.

"No, I'm just observing. I figure no one else sees this..." I gestured.

He gave me a look, which I found difficult to read (maybe that was part of why he put the makeup on in the first place.)

I couldn't deny the part of me that felt drawn in by the spectacle. I knew it was fucked up, but it was like morbid fascination again. I watched his every move as he put down the white and picked up the black. How fitting that the smile would be the last part... He was using his fingers and a grubby little paintbrush to apply it all, leaving white and grey smudges on his hands. In a sort of trance-like desire for understanding I reached out a hand for the cracked white paint. The logo of any brand had long since rubbed off, leaving a broken disc of chalky paint with a cracked lid. I absent-mindedly traced the cracks with my finger tips, not realising I was now the one being watched.

I became aware of it when he reached out and his fingertips brushed against my temple - the place where the metal plate was holding my skull together. Involuntarily, I recoiled at him touching such a vulnerable spot.

"Sorry," he muttered.

This shocked me more than anything else had yet and I blinked in confusion. Had he just... apologised to me?

"It's just a reflex," I responded flatly.

He said nothing as he continued to black out his eyes. I carried on tracing the broken mosaic of the white paint.

"You know..." I began, "in Japan there's a long history of repairing broken pottery with precious metals..."

I put the white paint down and carried on my little monologue.

"I'm pretty sure that they used medical grade titanium on me, and given what that's done to my health insurance prices, it may as well be a precious metal," I chuckled a little under my breath.

"Mhm, and why'd they do that?"

"I think, because they find new beauty in it. The pot is changed forever, and instead of tossing it out, they embrace it. The metal really highlights the cracks. I like the idea."

He turned to face me.

"I meant why did they put a metal plate in your head, and why does that mean you pay more to live? Don't you see, that's crazy..." He said slowly.

"Oh." I blushed feeling kind of stupid.

He grinned.

"But, I like the other thing," he said, leaning forward with the black paint brush.

He began to apply paint to my face, tracing my scars. Despite his animated body language, he had a surprisingly steady hand - something which was probably useful when you dealt with explosives, I thought. It was strange to see his face, so close to my own, and missing the signiature splash of red. His dark eyes looking down the bridge of his nose at his handiwork, his tonge sticking out a little in the left corner of his mouth... If I didn't know who he was, I would have found it endearing.

He leaned back in his chair with a pensive hum in that rumbling voice which had become so familiar to me now. I couldn't see what the result of his artistic exploit was, and was a little afraid to find out. He manually turned my head to the side as he returned with the paint brush.

"You know you could just ask rather than cranking my head around like that. I'd like to keep it attached," I muttered, a little pissed off.

He found this very humourous, bouncing around in his seat with laughter.

"Stop it, I'm serious!" I snapped, irritation rising.

He stopped laughing fairly abruptly - becoming very still in a way that raised the hair on the back of my neck.

"You should never be serious, doll, it's so boring."

Before I could come up with a response, he put down the brush and turned the mirror towards me. My eyes fell on my reflection and the web of black cracks he had highlighted for me. My reaction was visceral, a mixture of self-loathing and yet, somewhere in there, an appreciation for the artistic look it gave. It really did make it look like a fork of lightning.

The idea of drawing attention to something I so often tried to hide, or at least shrink, to blazenly emphasise something I attempted to distract from, often for other peoples' comfort more than my own... I felt a surge of emotion and my eyes stung with tears. He watched my body language intently.

"You don't like it?" He asked.

"I, I don't know how I feel about it..." I shook my head.

"I think, it makes you even more beautiful... And you are beautiful," he urged with an intensity that scared and thrilled me in equal measure.

No one had ever really told me that, not even before the accident. I always thought I was unremarkable, in every way. I felt overlooked for my intellect and any asethetic value I did have. It felt just as gut-wrenching as when the kind shop girl had said she thought I was pretty.

My world was so quiet these days, and so devoid of any kind of praise. Hot tears begin to brim in my eyes. It was hard sometimes not to feel so angry at the way people treated me. Sometimes I felt like i'd died that day, the me I knew certainly had. As much as I'd struggled to like whoever that girl was, I wasn't sure who I was anymore. I felt like a ghost. No one even knew I was here, and that was painful... but also oddly liberating.

I laughed a little hysterically, as I picked up the red paint pot. The negative words of my co-workers, people on the bus, random men in the street, all flickered through my mind. Ordinary people could be so cruel it astonished me sometimes. And here I was. Sat opposite a man who was supposed to represent the worst of the worst. And he was telling me I was beautiful. It's a funny world we live in...

He watched me with a kind of intense fascination as I wrestled my inner thoughts. It struck me that perhaps I was hard for him to read.

Suddenly, something clicked. I let go of my panic and confusion, resigning myself to acting on impulse instead. I didn't weigh up the risks for once: constant calculation was exhausting. Sometimes I wanted to just do things - I decided I could deal with the potential fallout later.

I grasped my hand under his jaw and forcibly turned him to face me. His eyes flashed with a kind of fire, though whether it was rage at me returning the favour of manhandling him like that, or something else, I couldn't tell. I wasn't sure I needed to know which.

I dipped a finger into the red paint and began to put the missing smile back on his face. Turning him this way and that, I felt giddy with the feeling of power it gave me, however fragile that power might be. Somehow, knowing just how dangerous he was only heightened the feeling...

As I covered the last of his scars with the red, I moved my finger to his lips. His eyes fluttered shut as I carefully applied that part more like I would my own lipstick, keeping it neater and mostly within the lines. I felt him let out a little rumble of approval, the vibration of his voice through his lips against my index finger.

I withdrew and looked him over, smudging out both his smile and the dark circles with my other hand.

He raised an eyebrow.

"Blending is your friend," I joked in a sing-songy voice.

A strange kind of smirk crept into his features.

"You surprise me," he purred.

"I know," I said back, with a smirk of my own. It was true, I had worked out that much.

When I was satisfied at the job well done, I wiped my hands on some paper towel, removing the worst of the paint residue. He was still watching me intently, like he might burn a hole right through me.

"You got a staring problem?" I chided, crossing over to the kitchen area.

I opened the cupboard which I had found the vodka bottle in and perused the various other old dusty bottles. I pulled a couple out and set them on the counter trying to read what they were.

"What are you doing?"

"Well I figure, since i'm stuck here... and shit is getting increasingly weird, I'm gonna need a drink," I shot back.

Some of the bottles weren't even labelled.

"What is this... moonshine? Drain cleaner?" I chuckled.

"Well, you could always do a taste test: everything is drinkable... some things only once," He erupted into laughter.

As much as I hated to admit it, he'd made me laugh too. I opened one of the bottles without a label. The smell was so strong I wondered if it was pure ethanol.

"Whoah, I feel like this one could burn my eyeballs out just with the fumes," I exclaimed.

I picked up another bottle, this time one with a label in Russian. He grabbed the bottle from my hand and held it up in the light.

"Overproof, not legal but, uh," he gestured melodramatically to the various other less-than-legal apparatus strewn about the place.

"It's not even open, I wonder why," I said sarcastically.

With a flourish, he pulled out a butterfly knife, cut the metal foil from the neck of the bottle, and popped the stopper.

"Are you actually going to drink that?" I asked in horror.

He sniffed it and screwed up his face immediately.

"No."

I took the bottle from him and felt my eyes water at the vapour. Overcome with impulsive curiosity I put it to my lips and took a swig. J's eyes widened in amusement and anticipation.

For a split second I thought it would be fine, and then it started to really burn. I coughed and choked for a moment before managing to regain a little of my composure. My face was red hot. It definitely was vodka, the strongest I'd ever tasted.

"I think you might have a few screws loose, doll," he grinned.

"Maybe," I spluttered out, between more coughing.

"Careful, they might ship you off to Arkham," he teased.

"Well, I think you could use that as drain cleaner, even if it's not meant to be," I said finally as I drank cold water straight from the kitchen faucet in a desperate attempt to stop the burning.

He laughed again at my antics.

When I had recovered I stood up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. My stomach growled, reminding me again how hungry for some proper food I was. I decided to test the boundaries of the little bond we seemed to have made.

"I'd like some real food, and a toothbrush," I blurted out.

"Oh you would? Is that a demand or a request?" He asked placing a hand in his pocket.

For a moment I thought i'd fucked up and he might be reaching for the knife, but much to my relief he pulled out a mobile phone.

"A request. Please, I need a square meal and something other than vodka for mouthwash," I urged.

He looked me up and down for a moment, that calculating look on his face again. I was being scrutinised and shifted a little on the spot. His gaze was so intense at times it was almost like I could physically feel it.

Finally he punched in some numbers and let the phone ring. When the line clicked and someone answered he turned away and paced by the window. I couldn't make out the conversation other than the odd snippet on our end. I took a seat at the table.

"No,"

"Don't ask why, just do as I tell ya,"

"Just get some different options..."

"Oh and I want a toothbrush."

"Are you hard of hearing?" He growled the final line as the guy on the other end seemed to be asking too many questions. After hanging up he sat down opposite me, elbows resting on the table and his hands forming a steeple.

I was looking again at my face in the mirror with the same mixture of conflicting emotions as before. I was starting to feel a little sad and it showed in the eyes of the girl staring back out at me.

Suddenly, a deafening crack rang out and the mirror exploded into a pile of fragments. An involuntary shriek escaped my mouth. He had six shooter a pistol in one hand. I was frozen in shock and fear for a moment, trying to get to grips with what had just happened.

"You... shot the mirror?!"

"We have a winner" he said mockingly.

"But, why?"

He rolled his eyes as though it should be obvious to me.

"It made you frown, problem solved".

"What the fuck? You could have hit me! I thought you said you didn't want to kill me!"

My heart rate was still pounding away in my ears and chest.

"I'm a very good shot," He said, waving the gun around all too casually.

I was dumbfounded, with nothing else to say as my brain scrambled to keep up.

"You don't trust me?" He urged, leaning across the table.

The habit he had of his tongue flicking out to the corner of his lip made me think of a serpent. Even when he seemed docile, there was always the threat of a strike. I still couldn't find the words.

"Doll, I didn't shoot you. Have I harmed a single hair on your pretty little head?"

"Well no, not since I got to the apartment, but -"

"See?" He cut me off, leaning back in his chair with his hands behind his head as if to say 'I rest my case'.

"Well... won't someone have heard that? What if they call the cops?"

"On this side of town? No. Besides, pretty much this entire neighbourhood is abandoned," he shrugged.

I frowned, still returning slowly from the startle response.

"Look," he slid the gun across the table to me, "you can shoot that in here and nobody will know."

He was testing me again.

I shakily reached out a hand to touch the gun. I felt like it had to be some kind of desperate hallucination but no - I grasped it and slid my finger over the trigger. It was cold to the touch. There was no way he would have handed me a loaded gun, I had to see for myself and checked for bullets.

"You... you just handed me a gun with three bullets in it?" I scoffed in disbelief.

"Mm-hm. Question is, what are you going to do with it?

Could I shoot him? Maybe non-fatally? And make a run for it? My head was reeling. If I did it, I could finally get out of here.

He watched eagerly, soaking up the moment of crisis I was experiencing.

"This really makes you tick doesn't it?"

"I'm a dealer of simple choices," he grinned.

I felt compelled to talk it through to myself.

"I guess you think i'm either too afraid to shoot you - maybe that I don't have the guts to do it - or, that on the slight chance you've made a terrible miscalculation, I do shoot you, and prove you right about us being the same."

"You're right on the money, I can't deny it."

I snapped the chamber back into position and took aim at him, trying my best to recall what little practice I had with guns. I'd shot a rifle once or twice as a teenager, but only the kind used for sport. I lined things up the best I could, squinting while I did.

I watched his reaction carefully. If he was afraid, it didn't show in the slightest. My finger felt heavy against the trigger as it hovered there.

"So what's it gonna be?"

I figured if the shots were heard and anyone cared, maybe they would send the GCPD to investigate. Or, if no one heard or no one cared, then it didn't matter if I fired the gun. Could I actually shoot another human being though? Even one this twisted? I thought about his unpainted face and at the last second, I let my hand drift so that my mark was less than a metre to his left. With a squeeze of the trigger I fired a shot straight past him and into the wall. I didn't flinch. He did with a laugh.

For good measure, I offloaded the other two bullets into the wall as well: better not to hand him back a loaded weapon. Then I slid the empty gun back across the table. I hoped the point I was making was understood well enough. The point being:

'No. I can't - or I won't - shoot you. Not right now, but that could always change.'

We stayed locked in a stare-off as I waited to see what he would do next.

"Did you mean to miss?" He asked, sounding strangely excited.

"Of course..." I said, trying to sound nonchalant about it rather than pleased I hadn't accidentally fucked up and painted the wall with the contents of his skull.

"Well, consider me grateful you didn't accidentally shoot me then, you don't seem the type to have have had much practice with firearms."

I shrugged, hoping he wasn't secretly holding it against me that I had somewhat endangered his life. In my mind, it was more than fair at this point.

Suddenly the electronic factory setting ringtone of a phone cut through the air and he stood up to answer it, peering out of the window. By now it was rapidly getting dark again, and raining heavily outside. He cut the call and slid up the old sash, latching it in place. Before long, one of his men appeared on the fire escape and handed him through several plastic bags.

"You forget something?" J asked sounding unamused.

"Oh yeah!" He exclaimed, patting down his pockets and withdrawing a packet with a toothbrush inside. He handed it over sheepishly and quickly retreated down the ladder again.

J shut the window again and put the bags on the table, setting the toothbrush down in front of me pointedly.

"Thank you," I said inspecting the toothbrush inside it's little plastic prison.

I began to rip open the plastic bags and was met with the smell of chinese takeout. There was a pretty obscene amount of food in total, but I figured if i'd been the guy tasked with getting it, I'd have gone overboard too - and he was told to 'get some different options'. I decided to turn on the old tv set again, to see if there was anything good on it.

It flickered to life part way through an old movie, which I recognised after a while as Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. From what little of it I could recall, it was almost at the final sequence. I left it on as we sat and ate. Since he wasn't likely to care, I deliberately abandoned my own table manners.

One thing I could say about his company, was that it drew attention to all the unwritten little rules I followed without question. Maybe there was a less extreme way in which letting some of the rules of 'civilised society' go could be a good thing. So many of the smaller ones were objectively pointless.

The man and woman on the tv screen were locked in a struggle, climbing a bell tower. The man, having found out the woman he loved didn't exist, that the woman opposite him had been impersonating a dead woman all along, was losing it. As old and melodramatic as the film was, I was on the edge of my seat. The tension was almost unbearable.

Eventually she either slipped or jumped from the tower, to her death. I had forgotten about the food in front of me, locked in a stupor watching the action unfold.

"You like this movie?" J asked.

I nodded.

"It's not bad, I've seen it once before, but a long time ago. Do you think she jumped or fell?"

"Hmm, do we know he didn't push her?"

"Mentally sure, but he didn't physically push her, I think she panicked when that nun appeared."

"Why'd you think she panicked?" He asked between chewing.

"I think it was the guilt. She thought the woman she helped to murder was back for blood. I kinda wish that was the case, actually, I love a little bit of poetic justice."

"Isn't that a little... cliché?" He said, hitting me yet again with a raised eyebrow.

"What's so wrong with cliché?" I shot back.

"It's predictable. It's, ah, it's boring," he said, waving his fork around wildly.

"Sometimes, sure, but the way I see it, you need to have your expectations met most of the time - otherwise there would be no surprises when something doesn't play out as expected. The unpredictable would become... predictable," I mused aloud, going back to eating my noodles. He seemed to be chewing on my words for a bit.

"You are right about that. People like the predictable, it makes them feel safe, people are happy when things go according to plan," he said with that wicked sort of half smile.

"Even you and I," I added, "We all have expectations of people. It's hardwired into us I think. Human brains are all about pattern recognition and replication. It's a double edged sword for us all..."

At this he made a kind of excitable sound and pointed across the table to me.

"I like you, I like that I can't always predict what you're gonna do. So many people are just too consistent."

"But see, without the predictability would you feel that way? Can't have one without the other! But that might be the alcohol talking," I chuckled.

I caught myself smiling at him. What was I doing?

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