Laugh Lines

Brainwashed?

A/N: I have nothing, read and let me know your thoughts :)

~On the street of villains taken for a ride

You can have the devil as a guide

Crippled by the boundaries, programmed into guilt

'Til your nervous system starts to tilt.

And in the room of mirrors you can see for miles

But everything that's there is in disguise

Every word you've uttered and every thought you've had

Is all inside your file, the good and the bad.~

~George Harrison~

Bruce could slap himself, he was so blind and stupid. He had woken up after a few hours and had an epiphany. When he had ran into his neighbor, he had known. But his sleep deprived brain was slow to put the pieces together. He knew.

He had the same dream again. He had once again relived the murder of his parents by the same painted face of Joker's wife, pulling the trigger as she laughed. Her eyes were bright and crazy. The makeup causing her to look deranged. He couldn't look away, then he noticed they were two different colors.

He had woken up in a cold sweat, the pieces snapping into place. The woman in the elevator, she was the same one from before the massacre on New Year's Eve. But she had brown eyes then, he was sure of it. They had talked after he knocked her down and spilled her coffee, he remembered her. When he saw her today, her eyes had been the same two toned ones he had stared into as she shot his parents almost every night.

Her face was slightly fuller and her hair was down, but the eyes were a dead giveaway. There was no way he was wrong about this. That woman was married to the Joker. It all was too much to just be a coincidence. He got into his car and sped to the cave. He needed to look something up.

Once at his computer, he first re-watched the footage from amusement mile, once he saw her face he froze the recording. There on the screen were two very different colored eyes. He ended the video and started to look up the names of everyone who had an apartment on the top few floors of his building. The elevator she came out of only went to the top three floors. He could feel adrenaline pumping through his veins as he pulled up the records.

He, himself had the penthouse, he had owned it for a while. When he saw the name of the floor below him he burst out into uncontrollable laughter. They quickly turned to tears. Jack Napier, the name Joker had used all those months ago, maybe his real name, had lived so close to him.

He hated the fact that he had been so close and Bruce had never gotten a glimpse of him there. Then his thoughts turned to the woman, was she his wife. There was no way it was a coincidence. Bruce needed to help her, once he had taken care of Joker, the girl could heal. There was no telling what that madman had done to brainwash her into marrying him.

Bruce got out of his chair and hurried back to his car. He would just grab the girl, she had to come back to the building at some point. He could grab her, bring her here to the cave, and keep her safe until he took care of Joker. Then he would get her help at Arkham. She would be safer, for now, with him. She would be out of the way so He could finish with Joker, once and for all.

He had made it back to the garage and waited. Her car wasn't there, he had time. He got out and moved to the trunk of his car he reached in and pulled out the small container that had his knockout gas vials, he tucked the remainder back into the trunk and moved back against the far wall, the dark shadows hiding him easily.