Chapter Text
You were on the cover of every newspaper in the Western World for weeks. Every news station was talking about the same thing:
'Midway City's Ballet's Primadonna KIDNAPPED'
'Ballerina struggles for life in Underground Crime gang'
'Sources say that infamous Gotham crime Lord known only as the Joker, and Y/N Y/L/N exchanged love letters before her kidnapping in August of last year.'
Kidnapping was such an unsavoury word for it, and you didn't like it. Mister J was your Prince, and you were his Duchess!
And after all, how does any prince meet his princess?
He rescues her.
Your father called it a 'delicate personality'. The bullies at school called it 'crazy'. The doctors called it 'Borderline personality disorder'.
Mister J called it 'beautiful'.
It wasn't Papa's fault that the payments were overdue. Since your Mother passed, things had been difficult for the business, and for him. The only problem was, was if things were difficult for him, they were difficult for Mister J, and that just wouldn't do.
He was at your house that day. Just appearing in your life as though it was the most simple thing in all the world. Like he was meant to be there. Perhaps that was why your father always went to such great lengths to keep you apart, because the day you came down the stairs, looking into the room just opposite the staircase where Papa held his meetings, your eyes met his and your world changed. Your fingers clasped around the banister, pulsing to the tune of a rhythm only you could hear; your silk nightie fluttering gently about your body; your honey blonde curls framing your pretty cheekbones, you looked like a painting to him. A work of exquisite artwork, and Mister J stopped midway through his sentence. He stood up, eyes completely fixed upon you, and your father swallowed thickly.
"Who is this angel you've been hidin' from me Mr Y/L/N?" Joker had asked, his tone just shy of dangerous as he tilted his head slightly to the side. His eyes widened a little as you and he gazed at each other.
You couldn't explain it, but you just couldn't look away. It was like watching a car crash. You were entranced, rooted to the spot on the final step of the staircase. Joker beckoned towards you with one hand, not breaking his gaze, and you went to him without even thinking as though he'd cast a spell on you. His palm cupped your jaw and you were struck by how cold his hands were.
Cold hands, warm heart. That's what your mother always said.
"This is my daughter, Y/N." Your father said somewhat anxiously. He went to stand up but the Joker held up a hand without tearing his eyes off you, and his henchmen shoved your father back down into his chair warningly.
"Y/N..." Joker mused, drawing out the word as though tasting it on his lips like the most exquisite of flavours. You instinctively leaned in closer to him, like he was hypnotising you with those eyes of his. They were bottomless pits of ocean blue, and you only realised how close you were when you felt his breath inches from your lips.
And then he was gone.
"Mr Y/L/N." He stated, going straight back into his usual business tone. He braced his hands on the table, eyeing your father dangerously. His tone was almost sing-songy, but his body language was predatorial.
"If my payments are not met by the end of the month, I am afraid I shall become very, very angry." He continued in a sickly sweet voice. "And you wouldn't want that, would you Mr Y/L/N?"
Your father shook his head, terrified.
"N-no, Mister J. I-I promise, I'll get the money."
Mister J smiled darkly form ear to ear, all red lipstick and silver teeth which lined his gums like bullets. And then he turned, stalking away with his henchmen in pursuit. He stopped when he passed you. You were still standing in the corner, gazing at this man who had just turned your world upside down. For a second he looked at you and his smile widened even further. He took your hand in his and brought your knuckles to his lips. He kissed you, and left a smudge of red lipstick there. And then he was gone.
That smudge became your anchor, as Mister J became your obsession. You would not wash it off. You would clean around it, but never over it. You spent whole hours just staring at it; lying on your bed with your hand stretched above you as you gazed at it. Sometimes you could still feel his lips on your skin, if you really concentrated.
He began to write to you. Letters with black envelopes. Some were poems, some were sonnets. Some he wrote, and some he recited to you. They would appear on your windowsill whenever you woke up, and you quickly realised that if you wrote your replies, placed them in the same black envelope, and left it upon your windowsill where you'd found it, they would be replaced the next morning by his reply. He was like your tooth fairy, and every morning you ran to your window to see what he had left you. He signed each letter with only 'Joker' and a red print of his lips from where he had kissed the paper. You pressed that paper to your own lips, and you cried.
His words flooded your senses like a tidal wave that hit you all at once and knocked you clean off your feet until you were drowning in him. You drew pictures of him, of how you remembered him that day. Some were of him. Some were of his tattoos which you could remember so vividly upon your memory. Some of his smile and the red lipstick he had left on your skin and on the letters he sent you.
Joker...
The word that was a nightmare to many became your dream. You would murmur it under your breath. You heard it in the melody of every symphony that you danced to. You heard it when you held your breath, or submerged your head under the water of your bathtub. You heard it before you went to sleep and you heard it when you woke up.
Joker. Joker. Joker. Joker.
You painted it on your wall. Over and over until the once white walls were nearly black. Big writing. Little writing. Upside down. It was compulsive. The next morning there was three black envelopes on your windowsill and over the top of your painted symphony of his name, was written in red spray paint:
Duchess.
The first letter was a poem called 'My Last Duchess'.
"That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now; Fra Pandolf’s hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
She had
A heart—how shall I say?— too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."
The second letter was a teaching by Aristophantes. Of how according to Greek mythology, humans were originally created with four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Fearing their power, Zeus split them into two separate parts, condemning them to spend their lives in search of their other halves.
"And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether she be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment."
At the bottom of the letter it said.
'I'VE FOUND YOU.'
The third letter simply read in a scrawl of red which filled the page:
'YOU'RE IN MY VEINS'