One Bad Day

The Test

Joker's POV:

(Flashback)
"Would you die for me?"

"Yes."

"That's too easy. Would you...would you live for me?"

A low gutteral growl comes from my throat as I snarl my metal teeth. My bowtie lies undone and draped across my neck. My shirt is almost unbuttoned all the way, yet I still feel like I can't breathe. I pop my neck and clench my fists as I stare at the bathroom door. I run my pale hand through my green hair in impatient frustration.

Beyond frustration I feel... I feel...shit, I'm feeling. I haven't the time for feelings, they have no relevance in my world of mayhem. I grab some pills from the table I'm sitting next to and toss them in my mouth as Frost looks on with a worried expression. He knows that when I take drugs I get just a little bit more insane. I scowl at him and wash them down with a hundred year old scotch in a crystal glass.

I'm hoping they alter the strange sensations in my brain that I assume are normal human behavioral impulses. These are things that don't belong in my brain because alas, I'm not normal, not halfway, not at all. I'm not supposed to feel... nervous.

"You should have just killed her."

"But she...felt so good."

"She makes you weak."

I should have listened to the majority rule inside of my head. She did make me weak. Or should I say, caring made me weak. She wasn't part of the plan. My plan was simple, to use chaos and madness to illicit that one perfect bad day in which someone becomes insane enough to kill. But Bats fought it every step of the way, this makes proving my point a full time job. It was meticulous planning, ruthless plotting, evil nuances, and a never faltering will executed with a maddening perfection.

But then she happened. She came along, unplanned and unwanted, into my chaotic life. It started out simply enough, she was part of an ellaborate escape plan from Arkham. She was a tactical move. A means to an end. A perfectly executed plan that blew up in my face.

"She interferes with the master plan."

"Ah, but she fills the lonely nights void of companionship."

"There's no room in our life for anything except madness."

I quickly rise to my feet and pace in front of the bathroom door. I feel like something is about to rip out of my chest. My heart is pounding at the rate of fear, fear like my victims feel in their last moments on this earth. I shouldn't be feeling this, feeling anything remotely involved with normality. It was all her fault. I growl again and sit back down.

"What's taking so long?" I ask Frost lowly as I stare at that damn door. Frost slightly shrugs and stays standing like a statue, staring at the bathroom door with me.

I leap to my feet again and storm to the bar. I poured myself another drink, gulp it down, and pour some more. My eyes fall onto the folder laying there. It was my file. It had taken me years to track down all the information about the past I had lost through shock therapy and experimental psychiatrist drugs, Arkham's idea of curing me.

I had just pieced together the last of the clues. I just reviewed it all tonight. Talk about bad timing... The biggest secrets of my past somehow had a direct impact on my present. She had an impact on my present.

"Told you we should have killed her."

I opened the folder and looked down at the picture of a man. Just an average ordinary man, dark hair, blue eyes. That guy used to be me. His name was Jack. Jack Napier. I turn the picture over because I can't stand looking at his innocent face. I'm not that guy anymore. I start reading over Jack Napier's extensive education, genius level IQ with a doctorate in chemistry. Well that explains my love of chemicals.