Chapter twenty eight- smile

"You want me to what?"

"I want you to move in. I care about you a lot and no offense but the apartment you live in now is a little less than ideal. Besides I want you to be near me."

I was shocked at what he was asking me. We haven't been dating for that long, and as much as I wanted to be with him more, the step was too big and too soon.

"I don't know if I can do that."

"Harmony, please hear me out with this. I really like you and I sincerely worry about you when your living alone in a bad part of town. Besides with all the stuff that's been going on lately I just really want you to be safe with me."

"What about Alfred?" I was trying to find a legitimate excuse to not move in with him.

Bruce smiled "I think Alfred likes you."

"I-I don't know-"

"Please, at least stay for a couple nights and see how you feel about it."

I wasn't ready for this kind of commitment. Not right after I forced myself into a love triangle between a hero and rich dude. I loved Bruce, and there was no denying it, but I also couldn't help feeling something toward the masked man who kept showing up in my life.

"I need to think about it, I'll have an answer for you tomorrow."

"I want us to take this next step. I don't want what we have to just be what it is now."

I looked down at my feet "I just need time, I'm sure one day won't hurt."

I pulled my shoes back on and laced them up. Then I stood up and kissed Bruce on the cheek "I should probably go. It's getting late and I don't want to get in trouble with the military."

Just as I started to walk back to where my car was parked Bruce grabbed my arm and pulled back into one more electrifying and passionate kiss. "I really do care about you," he whispered.

"Goodbye Bruce."

This time I walked away without interruption. Somehow I felt like we did a complete one-eighty in our relationship. We were in a bad place, and then a great place, and now an uncertain place, all in the same night.

If what happened yesterday never occurred, I don't think I would be having any second thoughts about leaving my shit apartment and dickhead landlord to live in a mansion. Now I'm conflicted that if I moved in with him I would be investing myself in a relationship that I didn't have my full heart into.

Because, I think I also might have legit feelings for Batman. Wow I'm fucking crazy.

Just to think a few months ago I was a quiet isolated girl who was still recovering from a shitty relationship with a tool called Harold. Now I'm dealing with multiple near death experiences, psychotic people in my old and new jobs, and kissing wounded vigilantes in the moonlight of my broken window.

I contemplated my future while I drove up to my horrible and dark apartment building. Arriving at the front door to the building I saw a recently new friend of mine, Gordon. He was waiting for me against the edge of the brick where the glass door was.

"Harmony. I've been waiting for you."

"Gordon look-"

"Please, call me Jim," he interrupted.

"Jim," I corrected "I couldn't show up to work today, I needed to recollect myself after what I've experienced the last couple of days."

"That's not what I'm here for."

"Well, you going to keep me waiting then?" I asked after a dramatic but brief pause.

Gordon nodded "alright, I came here to apologize, for what I put you through and for expecting you to do things for me that I wouldn't have asked some of my most experienced officers to do."

"Jim, it was no trouble really, just more great stories to tell my future children."

He smiled "I also have to say thank you. I'm not sure where this city would be at without you. Now I know you've told me that you prefer being a photographer, but like I've already said, I trust you Ms. Jackson and you already have earned this promotion in my eyes. Not only should I be dead, this city should be a heap of destruction, and I don't think you realize that what you did yesterday has surpassed any amount of bravery I ever possessed in a single inch of my being."

"You still want me to be your right hand man."

"You deserve to be my right hand man."

Great I'm faced with another tortuous decision to make. This one might be a no-brainer though. I like to take photographs, but I also like the offer he was giving me. It was no doubt more pay, but also a truckload more responsibility.

"I'll take it Jim, as long as I still get to take pictures."

Gordon now had an even bigger smile on his face "I'm glad to have you around Ms. Jackson, and I look forward to working with you. Bruce wasn't wrong when he told me you were one of the greatest people he knew."

"It means a lot."

He put a hand on my shoulder "I'll walk you up to your apartment."

"No, I'm fine really."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I think I can make it up two flights of stairs without being shot at," I joked "and besides your injured, you should be resting, and don't you have kids?"

"There's no resting in this city, but I hope you have a good nights sleep."

"You too."

I walked inside the dimly lit apartment building and looked back only once to see Gordon waving lightly with his hand. I smiled back and began the short journey up to my apartment door.

While I walked down the hall I felt two feelings, a feeling that I might actually be leaving this dump, and an eery feeling of unmistakeable fear. Like a someone's-watching-me kind of feeling.

While I pulled my keys out of my pocket I could see my hands shaking, so it took me longer than expected to open up the door.

I tried to flick on the light switch as quickly as I could when I got inside, but because I was needlessly freaking out I couldn't find the switch. Sweat started to form on my forehead and my palms, when I heard the floor creaking somewhere in the room.

I looked up and had to cover my own mouth so I wouldn't scream. Batman's unmistakeable silhouette was in front of the open, or should I say, broken window. Instantly I felt a sense of relief wash over me, and I felt no need to scramble for the light.

"You scared me," I admitted.

He stayed standing completely still and looking forward out the window. Curiously, I walked up to him and stood at his back so that I was a foot away from him.

"are you alright?" I asked, fearful of him being hurt again.

Slowly, he started to turn around. And when he did make a complete circle, I realized the grave situation I was now in.

There, looking at me, with a poorly cut and scarred smile shaped on his face, white and red makeup caked over his sweaty complexion and dark piercing eyes, stood the unmistakeable man, the one I feared, the one who killed my ex-husband, the one who was responsible for all the pain I've been going through, for the deaths of hundreds of people, the reason that the national guard had to come here.

It was. The Joker.

From the second I set eyes on his face my body launched into overdrive. I dropped the keys I had in my hands, I started to back away, my whole body was shaking, and my eyes were already starting to tear up.

"I've been meaning to meet you, sorry about the wait, my schedule has been soooo busy lately. Believe it or not, there's a lot of hard work put into creating a revolutionary invention. Making everyone, smile," he said slowly and twistedly.

I opened my mouth and I was about to scream at the top of my lungs, but a hand from behind me clamped firmly on my mouth before I could even make a peep. Another arm wrapped over my torso and pressed me into the abdomen of someone else.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way Harmony, you are truly one of the most complex and mesmerizing people I've encountered in my loveless drift through these medieval streets."

I recognized the voice, and the strange metaphoric wording that came from the man speaking sickeningly into my right ear. It was Edward Nygma.

I felt like I was paralyzed, like any amount of energy could not get me to move. I couldn't just let myself be killed, Bruce taught me basic defense, and I was supposed to be ready for a situation like this. Except. I really wasn't.

I had to try. I had to fight for my life.

So I began to squirm violently against Edward's hold on me and screamed as loud as I could under his hand. While he was sort of distracted, I put my real abilities to test. I stepped on Edward's foot, hard. I dug my heel so deep into his foot that I could hear the both blood curling and satisfying sound of bones beginning to snap.

In pain he let go of me just enough for me to jab my elbow into his gut and then he buckled over, finally letting me go.

I screamed as loud as I possibly could "HELP ME SOMEONE PLEASE!!!"

"Help me, help me," the Joker mocked in a girly voice.

I backwards ran all the way into my kitchen and scrambled like crazy trying to find any sort of weapon I could get my hands on. The whole time I was shaking so hard and crying so much that I could barely keep my hands clamped around the meat cleaver I found.

I spun around and swung violently at anything I could find. Edward had a face painted with a muderous expression. He limped closer to me with his hands in the air. I ducked under his grasp and slammed the cleaver down on his head. Blood started to pour from the cut I created on the side of his skull, but it all just made him even more angry.

I grasped the cleaver from me and threw it out back into the living room, leaving me with nothing but my hands to defend myself with.

Edward closed in on me getting closer and closer and closer. All the time the maniacal laughter from the Joker was playing in the background like a broken audio tape. My eyes were flooded over with water and fear took a hard hold on my lungs, as I gasped desperately for single breath of air.

I was running out of options.

"Please don't do this," my voice cracked.

"What we want and what must happen are two very different things, Harmony Jackson," Edward said with contempt.

Without warning he launched at me, and my body reacted instinctually. I flung my foot forward and landed it straight into his groin. He buckled over in pain, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of empowerment. I grabbed the collar of his shirt and rammed his face into the wall, causing the whole entire room to vibrate.

Edward still wasn't down. He swung at me and this time I didn't have the chance to duck. He clocked me right in the nose. The impact was so strong that it made me fall backwards, and collapse in pain on the floor, a bad position to be in.

He kicked me in the stomach, once, twice, three times. I could barely breathe between the panic attacks and blood coming up from my stomach and inside my mouth. He was still going at me.

Memories started to come back of me being beaten by Harold, not nearly as bad as it is now, but the feeling of helplessness was still washing over me.

I looked over at the Joker, he was just standing there. He was smiling and he was even clapping at the violence. How could I let this happen to me. How could I possibly be a part of this.

I couldn't give up.

Edward finally stopped kicking me and he started to wipe the blood off his forehead. I got my hands underneath my body and, shakily, pushed myself off the ground.

I was in full survival mode now. The only thing I felt was rage. Rage for my situation, rage for my mothers death, rage for my father leaving us, rage for the beating I took, rage for the betrayal of my friends, and rage for being so weak.

I screamed again, as loud as I possibly could, louder than I screamed when I begged for help. It was a primal scream from deep inside my core.

I ran straight at Edward, and sunk my teeth right into his collar bone, breaking through layers of skin and tasting iron flavored liquid all inside my mouth.

"You crazy bitch!" Edward yelled at me.

Honestly I could barely hear him through the beating of my own heart. He tore me off his shoulder, but I wasn't off him for long. I grabbed the back off his head and slammed it right into my knee. He nose was now just as bloody as my own.

Then I took my nails and dug them into his cheek, leaving four long bloody scratches across his face.

He yelled in pain and fell backward onto my couch.

Fortunately the towel rail I dropped yesterday when Batman came for a visit was still laying on the ground, and I didn't hesitate by picking it up and slamming it right into his skull, right where I hit him before.

Finally he was out cold.

I brought up the rail again, ready for another whack, but I felt the pressure of a circular object against the back of my neck.

"Very fun show my dear, but I'm afraid the act is over now. You see there is a simple, and reasonable series of events that will occur. If you don't comply, then you get a bullet, BANG!" He started to laugh hysterically "r-right, hahahahah, right into your pretty little head."

There was no way out of this now, and I don't know why I thought there might have ever been a way out. I was stupid. In fact I probably have made it worse for myself by doing what I've done.

"It's because of Harold isn't it," I said.

"Uhhh, who?"

"Harold, he worked with you, we were married once, and you killed him a month ago!" I yelled in disbelief.

The Joker raised an eyebrow, genuinely confused "look toots I kill a lot of people, sorry if I'm not inclined to remember that 'one guy' who you were married to."

"Then what do you want with me! What did I ever do to you!" I said in tears.

"Relax Barbie, this is the real world, not everything is about you," he spoke sarcastically.

Did he really just call me barbie, after he let me get the shit beat out of me, and then have the decency to call me self centered for wondering why he was doing this.

"You're a monster," I spat.

"No, I'm a clown, get it, the white makeup, the smile, I thought it was all pretty obvious really."

"H-how can you act like this!"

He smiled again "the problem is, I'm not acting."

Yet again, a hand clamped over my mouth and around my waist, and yet again, it was Edward. His hands tasted like blood and sweat, and they were so tight around my mouth that I really, honestly couldn't breathe.

"Cool it riddle boy, we need her alive, Batsy won't show otherwise."

Batsy? Did he mean Batman? Oh shit. They were going to use me to get to him. Then they were going to kill us both. I'm screwed.

"Im just having a little fun- clown -I'm sure you can understand," Edward loosened the grip on my mouth.

"And they call me crazy," the Joker spoke in a woe-is-me, voice.

They dragged me out into the hallway, and there, standing with a bat, and ready to kick ass was Ruth. I pleaded to her with my eyes and she held the bat above her head, ready to swing.

"Uh, I'm usually a pretty patient guy, but this is really starting to get a bit boring," the Joker said. He then raised his gun at Ruth, and she put her hands in the air. He got closer to her face so that the gun was practically in her mouth.

I whimpered in distress, but it made no difference. He pulled the trigger, but the outcome was much worse than I expected. It was a water gun, only the gun wasn't full of water.

I passed out, after I saw the smile appear on her face, and she fell to the ground. Dead.