This Work Day {Open to Do-Gooders}

[The Joker]

Vivid green hair, recently dyed and smelling of foul monoxides and fumes that work together so perfectly to create the right tincture for his hair, was tasseled carelessly around the Ace of Knaves head. At times it would tickle his ear or fall into his eyes, and most days this wouldn’t really bother him and in fact sometimes he enjoyed the tickles and the distractions. But not today. His irritation would reach its limit and he would knock over a snow globe or break a piece of furniture. Sometimes what he broke would be something he actually did have some sort of emotional (if you want to call it emotions) or need-based connection to. This would then lead him into another blind fit of rage which would consequently lead him to break something else. And the process would repeat itself – it was a vicious cycle.

In sum, today was NOT one of his better days.

Of course he had a delicious plan cooking like a yummy bag of popcorn just about ready to pop – but – it was the WAITING period that he was in now. The precursory time before the big sha-bang and after the actual bad-guy plotting. It was the set-up time, the back-stage roll call, and the preliminaries. And his own personal purgatory.

Sure he had fun mixing chemicals together, sleuthing around dark alleyways, or running over people who were unlucky enough to get within his driving range between points A and B – but these were just the bits and bolts of the operation that were ultimately insignificant to the overall DEUS MACHINA that he has creating. These small errands were what made it run smoothly, things that NEEDED to be done in order for everything to go ACCORDING TO PLAN. And having a much more vivid and brighter BANG at the end of his arduous rainbow, just within sight, made him ache and itch to get the smaller stuff over and done with. He was an impatient fellow – and when he gets impatient he gets irritable – and when he gets irritable…

His white grease paint was still fresh and creamy on his face, still very recently applied. His red lipstick was still carefully smudged into place over his lips and scars and retained its ferocious crimson color. Obviously he had gone out not to long ago to have warranted the fresh cosmetics. But it was his eyes, which spoke volumes of his less-than-perfect day. The black makeup around his eyes seemed even more abysmal, darker than a moonless night, and his acidic green eyes were bubbling and deeply sunken in to coincide with his gloomy disposition and days without sleeping.

But sleep was definitely not the problem. Sleep was for dreamers.

He began to buoyantly recall the evening’s events. He had indeed gone out that night, puffed with pride in himself with coming up with such an ingenious scheme. Already he was making head way into taking care of specific plans and locations and instruments , now all he needed was the final itsy bitsy drop – and then he would be revved up and ready to go! To commemorate his fine self, and to waddle away the most tedious part of his plans he decided to go for a little midnight stroll around Robinson Park. It was a warm Gotham night, thanks to the green house effect and CO2 deposits that the city emitted in waves even after all its factories were shut down once the catastrophic earthquake hit. He remembered the sweet smell of fried food and mulch wayfaring in the air. But where this fried food was – he didn’t know – but his stomach was more than eager to set up a search party to find it. He tentatively began rummaging around the perimeter, looking through every crevice, nook and cranny – there was no sign of this fried feast; that is, until he found the local garbage can.

It was filled to the brim with old decaying boxes of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

He felt his knees go weak and his left eye twitch. And before he knew it, he had toppled over the greasy mound with his withered loafers and began stomping on all the boxes, squishing the few pieces of chicken, bones, rats and roaches that nuzzled themselves within each box corner. All the critters began to scamper out of the dumpster and disappear into the night, most likely to go and find another pile of crap to inhabit. Once his anger and energy was spent, he kicked off bits and pieces of carcass from his shoe, shoved balled fists into his pockets and proceeded to briskly walk towards the direction of his Ha-Hacienda; just about ready to call it a night.

But as fate would have it – of course SOMETHING needed to happen to disrupt his already bubbling pot of frustration.

Here was a poor sap.

Sitting on his stoop, minding his own business. He was probably getting away from family problems, enjoying a nightly breeze, maybe even contemplating some unimaginable serum to cure cancer. Whatever it was- he wasn’t expecting a heavy blunt object thwacking him on the side of his head. Or to become the new punching bag for the Joker to pour out all his night’s frustrations on.

At first the poor chap actually tried to fight back. Apparently he was a lot dumber than he looked. When a lion attacks you – you play possum. So of course, he was met with the brute force of a lead pipe connecting to his elbow – which then broke his arm. There was yelling, but the Joker reaaalllyyy didn’t like that, and had to dislocate his jaw and crash his windpipe in. And soon the yelling gave way to moaning and the moaning became the soft and delicate notes of gurgling.

The bashes and the gashes didn’t stop till a warm spurt of blood splashed onto his hands and a deafening SQUISH cracked into his ear drums. He figured he had beaten the human car wreck till the “white-meat” showed. He didn’t particularly want to KILL him. Who knew when they might bump into each other again and his services of anger-venting would need to be used once more. Besides, his back was starting to ache because of bending over to prod the fetal-positioned curd with his blunt object.

Tossing the lead pipe off to the side, he looked down at his purple leather gloved hands only to be thoroughly disgusted with the red sticky matter that speckled and spotted his favorite pair of gloves. He huffed, kicked the still body in the ribs and finished the disastrous night with him now lounging around in a light purple wife beater, smiley faced boxer shorts and the sock garter belts that held up his black dress socks. He had plopped himself in front of the TV, leaving his make up on, and stared into the small wooden thing that needed it’s antennae to be constantly pulled, turned and poked. Thanks to the lack of electricity, he had to forget the digital boxes of the twentieth century and go back to the good old days of video and radio wave connectivity. Usually he would have his Hench men hold up the antennae till they received a more or less still transmission, sometimes even Harley would do it, but she was terrible at it, but right now, Bob the antennae holder was doing it.

Now exactly WHO is Bob?

Bob is none other than the slimy little twit that decided stepping Clown Prince’s property without permission and trying to steal his food and electronics was the way to go in life. Wrong. How very, very wrong. And now he had to shiver their like a trembling little leaf caught in the updraft at the mercy of the Almighty Joker, holding his hands as steadily as possible above his head to get the best reception. Of course he could always put it down and run away, but most likely he wasn’t going to run faster than a bullet.

Though watching the flickering images on screen and feeling the eerie ghostly glow of the television did put the Joker’s mind at ease. The nagging feeling of just – WAITING – still perturbed him. And the reason he was waiting: he needed the Bat-freaks to take him back to Arkham.

Probably one of the craziest ideas for a crazy person to ever want. But it needed to be done. There were – things there – personal things he needed to patch up his cooking plans. Of course he could stroll right into Arkham and ask them to take him in – but that would cause for some severe alarm that he wouldn’t get a moments peace or get that paranoid Bat-stink-eye away from him. It needed to be done the old fashion way – probably done at a much quicker fashion than most tussles – but still retain the same essence of cat-and-mouse. After mulling over his random act of violence, he realized that it really was all for the best, a warning sign for those do-gooders to be on the look out for HIM. The idea of his outbursts contributing to his overall plans unbeknownst to him filled him with extreme delight, even subconsciously he was a busy genius bee, he nuzzled himself more calmly into his couch, glad he had beaten that random pedestrian half way to hell.

But if those Bat-freaks didn’t start stepping up their game soon; he was going to have to (unfortunately) add Bob the antennae holder – as another piece of bread crumb for the belligerent Bat-folks to follow.

[Barbara Gordon]

Being paralyzed had its draw backs, both obvious and unknown to the public. Not being able to walk was a day-to-day struggle. Barbara never liked asking people for help, even before she was paralyzed, and she hated it even more now. More often than not, she'd struggle through the simplest of tasks instead of accepting help. She was not weak. She was Barbara Gordon, Goddamn it! She was Batgirl! Not being able to put back on the cape and cowl and prowl the city, to hunt down every boogeyman that haunted Gotham...it killed Barbara. Not literally, but it was damn close.

One of the only perks, besides having more time to improve her hand-to-hand skills, was getting to play God -- well, Goddess -- to Gotham. Bruce may not have approved of this belief, but what did he know? He'd never been forced from the vigilante game so violently. He'd never had to relearn how to live in the way she had. If she wanted to play Goddess and hotwire the entire city, dump every cell phone, and hack the orbiting satellites to further the protection of her city then, hell yes, she was going to do it. It didn't matter that it was unethical and it didn't matter that there was a chance she'd get caught.

A very slim, microscopic chance.

As Oracle, and a close personal friend of Bruce Wayne, Barbara's equipment was of the highest quality. She needed the best to defend her city and she not only demanded perfection, she expected it. Oracle was, quite literally, the eyes and ears of Gotham. Sure, admittedly, it was a heavy responsibility to shoulder and she got very little sleep but the rewards of her new positions far outweighed all the bad. The reward of still being able to help people, even when she couldn't help herself, that was probably the only good that came of her paralysis.

A shrill beeping alerted Barbara to unusual activity in her city. Quickly rolling over to the screen blinking red, she went to work on the keyboard and saw that the disturbance was coming from the Monarch Theatre. The old fashioned movie house wasn’t far from the Park Row district, but it had closed its doors years ago and was a dilapidated mess. Confused, Barbara pressed a few more keys to bring up the footage from the network of traffic and local business cameras. There was no movement during the day but, fast-forwarding showed that there was a lot of movement at night. A few more strokes of her keyboard, she zoomed in on the dark, shadowed figure moving around inside. Cleaning up the image, she waited a mere 1.5 seconds before her computer brought up a crystal clear image of the figure inside: The Joker.

Barbara froze. She stared and stared at the picture, unable to move or even form a coherent thought. She had him. She finally had him! Well, not yet but at least she knew where he was now. That was more than she ever had before. She had been tracking his exploits ever since she was released from the hospital. Dick had once called her obsessed and maybe she was, but that didn't stop her from dedicating a wall of her bedroom just to Joker. His targets were so desperately random that Barbara was certain they weren't random at all. Despite all the maps, articles, pins, notes and connective strings taking over her room, she couldn't figure him out.

And neither could her computer's scenario system, which pissed her off to no end.

Joker wasn't a genius! Homocidal and insane, yes, but not a genius. At least not like Barbara was. All her previous attempts to find him had fallen short and, yet, here she was starting straight at him. Whatever he was doing, she couldn't get a clear look at but it was never good when it came to Joker. But what to do? It wasn't as if she could flip a switch to open a secret passge behind her wall of books and suit up. Not anymore, thanks to him. Sighing, Barbara ran her hands through her hair in frustration. This was completely possible to solve, it had to be.

Determind, she quickly marked the cameras around the Monarch as hot spots for 24/7 surveillance and rolled to another series of computer. Next to them, her cell phone. She had been in the middle of searching her list of various vigilante contacts to seek assistance when the phone made her realize that she had some good contacts in-town. Picking up the phone, she started to dial a number and stopped. She tried a different one but stopped as well. Thinking about, she realized how utterly alone she was in Gotham. Dick and Bruce were MIA, and she couldn't exactly call her father, and she couldn't trust any of the other GCP detective -- most were pretty crooked, despite Bruce's best scares -- and Helena! Well, Helena usely blew her off for one of her own personal vendettas.

So what was a girl to do?

Well, first thing first, she needed a camera and mike in that building, ASAP!

[The Joker]

…We go together like peas and carrots…

Click.

…This one time at band camp, I stuck a flute in my…

Clickity-Click


…I don’t think she’s a lesbian, I think she just ran out of men…

Clickity-Clickity-Click.

…In an ideal world I would have all ten fingers on my left hand, so my right hand could be a fist for punching…

The Office was playing and The Joker set the remote off to the side arm of the couch he was laying on. Bob, had conveniently disappeared when he had figured he could place the TV onto a shelf on the high wall. There was a trail of blood on the rotting and dusty floor boards that lead out of the room and stopped at the door that lead to the basement. According to the pain, and suffering, and formaldehyde sedatives, he should be out long enough for The Joker to enjoy his evening watching on of America’s favorite television shows.

Besides the fact that it was pretty high brow (as well as low brow) comedy for the masses, it also gave him the immediate parody of the blue collar working class that translated his thoughts so perfectly onto the screen. Except his minor tweaks and censors on the true idea of what he thought of the common man – it still held true to the basic idea of what he believed all people were like. The idea of accidental virtue, vice and wisdom and how people mainly gain through experience rather than seeking it out for its own ends but as an ends to a mean. How petty desires and conflict lead us into some of the worst case scenarios. The ethics of race relations, the problems and trials of being rational, the perils of wage labor, the abuse of authority, class struggle, and the list of meager mortal dilemmas goes on and on.

It made him feel he was actually sitting there and soaking it in with the common man at the water cooler. Made him connect with his audience (and most of the time stage props). Though he already knew of this information before the show ever came on the air; people weren’t technically the most complicated specimens on the planet, he was now able to relish in the fact that people were all sitting at home watching the same show too. People trying to repress that animalistic and revolutionary instinct to fight the system and deprivation, and instead, exchanging it with levity. It always easier for people to swallow the truth when it’s with a joke.

And that’s what he was doing here, him and the creators of The Office, were both doing the same thing. Except, The Office was using their governmental support and TV broadcasting to subdue the masses, The Joker was trying to rally up the masses – to upset the established order. And though their jokes were funny, a few chuckles here and there, they definitely weren’t as funny as his. It wasn’t as real, as raw and as improve-ish as his. They needed screen writers on back stage penciling in all their jokes, they need preparation time and camera angles and make up and practice before they were able to deliver their punch lines. He didn’t need any of that, all his jokes came from right off the top of his head – all by himself – he was a one man performer. And sure, most of the time people didn’t get the joke, but that was because his jokes were way past their intelligence levels, he was literally tossing pearls to swine. His jokes were so sincere and truthful that people just – can’t get the joke – their psychological blindness and denial does not allow them to understand – only to perceive it with their senses.

The show had ended at the credits began to roll. He changed the channel once more and saw that Silence of the Lambs was playing. He left it on, the movie was practically over but he had watched it already, it was a classic. The scene that was playing currently was the part where they had Hannibal virtually locked up in a bird-cage in Washington DC, Clarice had already visited him and this was the part where the two wardens of his cell block were getting ready to give him his second helping of extremely rare pork chops and some K-Mart steamed greens.

There was a loud THUNK coming from the door of the basement where The Joker had thrown Bob into. He turned his head away from the fake lights of the television set and started hearing the rhythmic banging and screaming from his already awake basement buddy. He sighed, nonchalantly got up from his seat on the couch and slowly cracked his neck before reaching over to his purple trench coat that he hung up on a coat hanger and pulled out his Drop Point Blade hunting knife from his pocket. He let his thumb feel and test the sharpness of the cool steal.

He began walking towards the door and Hannibal had now thoroughly beaten to death one of his captors, the doctor himself picking up a switchblade and looking around for the other police officer.

…Ready when you are, Officer Sergeant Pembry…

Notes: These are actually exact quotations: 1st one is from Forest Gump, 2nd is from American Pie, and 3rd is from Sex and the City

[Dick Grayson]

Dick had been hearing about the chaos hitting Gotham for a few months now. He’d been watching quietly from his apartment in Bludhaven with a permanent frown placed on his face, his eyes flickering to his phone every so often for some sort of call for help. What was going on? Why had no one contacted him for help? Were Batman and Robin even doing anything to stop this madness?

At first he thought perhaps Bruce was just being a stubborn mule, which wasn’t all that out of the ordinary but with the current situation of Gotham, he was deeply concerned that his mentor had said nothing to him. The Dark Knight rarely asked Dick for any help what so ever but this just wasn’t right, something was seriously wrong.

As he continued to watch the news of his neighbour city, he could no longer just sit by and watch the place he was born crumble to the ground. He began to collect a handful of clothes from the cupboard, shoving them into a bag. Dick wore his Nightwing costume beneath his jeans, shirt and leather jacket just incase there was an emergency and he didn’t have the time to change.

Throwing his rucksack over his back, the rucksack that had a million secret compartments, he locked the beaten flaking door of his apartment, standing there thinking about how he didn’t know whether he’d ever be back again. He always had these slight pessimistic thoughts cracking through his optimism, or maybe it was just common sense. His job was extremely dangerous, he had no idea where the other vigilantes were and for all he knew he could be facing every criminal he’s ever fought just over the Gotham City border. Robin had been beaten to an inch of his life and shot numerous times as had Nightwing and most of the time that had only been due to one criminal. What would happen if he faced an army of them with no back up? He would be dead, wouldn’t he?

Then why the hell was he going to Gotham? What could Gotham possibly gain from Nightwing showing up all alone? Surely if Batman and Robin couldn’t make a difference then what made him think that he could but there was his nagging instincts that told him that he was needed. Maybe his friends were in serious trouble and that’s why they hadn’t called. Nightwing needed to check out Gotham, at least for his own sanity, it was doing him no good to be transfixed to the news whenever he came home from working at the BPD.

Climbing into his specially equipped car, he fixed his jet black hair so that it was obstructing his vision. Dick was a rather handsome young man and despite his past fashion disasters - Red, Yellow and Green, what was he thinking? - he had still managed to catch the hearts of a few women over the years. Even though he was still a little shorter than most of the heroes, Dick certainly made up for it. Dick Grayson was and is the number one acrobat in the world, not only that but he is a master detective third to only Batman and Oracle. Taught by Batman he is a weapons master, a master martial artist, a master of stealth, disguise, escapology and intimidation. Former leader of the Teen Titans. He had always known he’d never be as good as Bruce, but he was god damn close.

Putting his foot down, with his car taking the appearance of a sleek black sports car, he approached Gotham in record time. As a police officer he wasn’t the best role model when it came to staying within the speed limit. He’d collected his own amount of speeding tickets over the years from an early age, he was surprised he even still managed to keep a license, not that losing his license would stop him anyway.

With his earpiece in, he began to ring Oracle, he hoped that Barbara was okay and still around to be his eyes and ears in Gotham. With his own sharp blue eyes kept firmly on the road, he approached ninety miles per hour and he wasn’t sure where to head first, he needed to go to the manor to check on everyone but at the same time he felt as though there was something important to do within the city.

“What’s going down, Oracle? No ones called me up in weeks and well considering the news channels I had been expecting at least a text message, ya know?” Dick said lightly as the phone was answered, he didn’t bother to say it was Nightwing, Oracle would no doubt immediately know his number by heart. “I’m over the Gotham border now, any traps I should know about?”

One way to tell immediately that something is wrong... The lack of cars on the highway, it was eerie but also extremely exhilarating to be the only car on all four lanes. Let's just say, Dick was having fun skidding around and creating tire marks upon the cracked gray asphalt. He then chewed his lip as he check his mirrors to see that no one was around and that no one had seen him before carrying on sensibly towards the towering dark skyscrapers of Gotham city.

[Barbara Gordon]

When her phone began to ring, Barbara froze. What were the odds that just as she was thinking of calling for help that her phone began to ring? Picking it up, she saw the screen blinking DICK. Her heart skipped a beat and, despite all she knew, she couldn't help but pause momentarily. Again, what were the damn odds? Squaring her shoulders, she picked up the phone.

"Dick, you have no idea how happy I am you called," she said, relieved.

“What’s going down, Oracle? No ones called me up in weeks and well considering the news channels I had been expecting at least a text message, ya know?” Dick said lightly. Unfortunately for him, it sounded to her as if he was accusing her of lacking in her duties. If there was once thing she couldn't stand, it was being told she wasn't doing her job. Barbara, Oracle, was ever diligent.

"Well, Dick, since you've been watching the news, I'm certain it would occur to you that I've had my hands full," she retorted testily. "And, just to make things clear, you have a phone! You just as easily could've called or texted to check on m...on how things are here," she added, catching herself just in time.

"I'm over the Gotham border now, any traps I should know about?"

Sighing, she pushed her anger away and turned on the computer screens in front of her. "There's been a police blockade since this all started. But then...you know, the usual happened and the cops "mysteriously" disappeared," she informed him and brought up the cameras of the main highway into Gotham. "You should be fine, but be careful because you know that some of Arkham's greatest guest would've done something." Scanning up and down the highway, she caught sight of Dick speeding down the empty road and smiled. "Got you in my sights. Welcome back, Nighwing."

After a bit of tapping on the keyboard, she transfered the video of Dick driving to her main bank of screens. Rolling back over, she also transfered her phone call with Dick to her earpiece. "Listen, since we're on the subject, what's going down right now is I'm staring at the ugly face of our favorite clown. He's hiding at the Monarch, but I can't get a clear shot of what he's doing. I need to get my equipment in there. Any ideas how I could do that?" Smirking, she leaned back in her chair, basking in the brilliance of this new development.