Thread: I Started A Joke (SevenxChantho)

Commissioner Jim Gordon sat with his head in his hands because sometimes things got so overwhelming that the only solution was to try and pretend - just for a moment - that the city wasn't there. After the Dent incident, Barbara had nearly begged him to leave Gotham, convinced that this would only be the first of many attempts on his life she had told him they could borrow some money from her parents, use it to get out, to move somewhere - anywhere but Gotham. It was a conversation that been repeated many times since, the most recent of which had been that very evening. In retrospect, his response probably hadn't been the best one Where do you suggest we go? Metropolis? This isn't funny, Jim! You're damn right it isn't funny. If I leave now - - then they'll just find some other idealistic sap to take your place as Commissioner, someone else to - to slip poison to! It had ended with Barbara sobbing into the phone and Gordon feeling like an ass, just the way he did every other time - but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't just - leave - like so many others had done. There was too much to be done, too few who could be relied on, and beyond that - how many allies did Batman have left? Gordon wasn't even sure he counted anymore, not since he had been forced to destroy the light on the GPD rooftop - one of the only moments in his career in which he had felt nothing but shame - and had severed his public ties with the Batman. But god, he was still with him - but the darkness was closing in more each day, seeping into the city more and more, driven by some horrifying, unstoppable force. Every time they made advances, they were pushed back again, there was no quantifying it. The phone rang and the sound of it caused Gordon to jerk violently, half-lunging for the receiver. At first, he listened. Then he protested. Then he fell into silence, set the phone carefully onto his desk and stood from his chair he approached the enormous window that served as a background to his office and drew open the thick curtains. He stared out at Gotham and then picked up the phone again, Yeah. Yeah, I see it. he said, and the distant flames reflected in the lenses of his glasses. --- Dr. Phillip Unger liked to think of himself as a philanthropist, an altruist who only wanted what was best for his patients - that was why he gave them all that big, bleached white smile and talked to the inmates like they were three year olds who just needed a good nap and a big, shiny needle to calm them down. He had made the mistake, at first, of trying to analyze his newest patient - one he had been particularly excited to meet after seeing his face across the news and witnessing the extent of the damage he had wrought on the city. A fascinating patient indeed. Inmate 3747 had been brought into Arkham Asylum with his hands cuffed behind his back and his make-up badly smeared, but he had been bizarrely docile. Unger had moved around him, looked him up and down, asked him questions - but all he had received was silence as the patient's dark eyes regarded him with something like very mild interest. Unger didn't like to classify his studies in terms of success rates - every patient varied, after all - but when it came to the Joker, the interviews - all of which were carefully taped - were consistently failures. The first interview occurred on the same week the Joker arrived at Arkham, and it began with a calm, professional Dr. Unger asking 3747 for his name, a question he never received a direct answer to. The fourth interview had the doctor reviewing the crimes that 3747 had committed the man had alternated between peering around the completely white room, staring at Unger, and drumming out a rhythm on the table in front of him, very occasionally raising his eyebrows in mock surprise or acknowledgement. The seventh interview had 3747 looking utterly bored while Unger uneasily asked why his cellmate had committed suicide. The response was a shrug. Interview eleven had a tense Unger bringing up the subject of the Batman. For the first time, the inmate spoke on camera to point out that the doctor's tie was tacky and he should really stop smoking because it couldn't be good for his health - or his little three year old son's health, for that matter. Or his pregnant wife. Lydia. The interview ended suddenly when Unger walked out of the room while 3747 looked at the camera and rolled his eyes. Interview twelve came months later and the first several minutes were filled with silence 3747 shifted in his seat boredly before finally asking Unger how his wife was. The camera continued rolling as Unger leapt over the table and began to brutally beat the cuffed inmate, the sound of strikes punctuated by hysterical laughter. Interview thirteen could hardly be called such it consisted of Dr. Unger entering the room, sitting in the spot where the inmate would normally sit, dousing himself in lighter fluid, looking at the camera, and setting himself on fire. That night, the east side of Arkham Asylum went up in flames and when the smoke cleared, the Joker was gone.