Chapter Text
Joker Junior sits in his cell, he was moved to one of the “kinder” sections of Arkham as he was not seen as a threat. He no longer had the energy to be a threat. He spends most of his days standing in front of the mirror, trying to see past the persona he was forced to display. Trying to remember who he once was. He has an idea, but the memories are fuzzy. The only clear memory he has is when he was beaten silly. When he was broken down so he could be molded into who he is now. But today he doesn't want to look, today he just lies on the floor waiting. He doesn't know what he’s waiting for.
Suddenly the guard acknowledges him after hours of silent judging, a presence he has grown used to over the past year. “You have a visitor. behave.” the guard practically spits out, with clear hatred in his voice. Joker Junior sits up and stares as a girl, not much younger than him. blonde hair sitting in a bun that hides its length, but Joker Junior knows it’s long. He's seen this girl before. She simply stares at him for a solid minute. Unmoving. It's kinda creepy, but she's always been a bit creepy. She's wearing a long white lab coat, it's completely buttoned up, though he can see some slight cracks of the purple showing from underneath. The woman walks up to the glass wall dividing them. She places her hand on it, and sighs. It's then that Joker Junior realises how he knows her, she knows it too. as a smile creeps up her lips as she sees his eyes widen. She pulls something from her pocket, a grenade. She then spits a glowing green orb out of her mouth and laughs, as she does so the guard becomes much more alert. Though it doesn't matter. Her bun falls into a braid reaching down to the floor. She opens the top of the grenade, placing the orb inside as it changes to a teal. “Now the fun starts” she muses, as she pulls the trigger and the room goes up in a cloud of blue.
⛦❦⛦
The blonde is running, her braided hair blowing through the wind, carrying Joker Junior princess style. Joker Junior is barely conscious, simply trying to grasp the situation as the sirens start blaring. He's barely conscious and extremely overstimulated, however, so nothing that comes to mind is helping to explain his current situation. She simply laughs and drops another crystal, this time changing from pink to red. She stomps on it, which blasts them both into the air. As they’re flying the girl pulls a red skateboard from her back and grabs onto the nearby tower. She skates down the suspensions as if she's done this a thousand times before. The explosion seems to have stopped the chasing officers as Joker Junior can no longer hear the sirens. She skates a bit further down the street before making a halt in a nearby alleyway. She places Joker Junior down beside her and returns the skateboard to her back. She looks at the wall for a minute before breaking into a fit of thankful laughter, and slumping down beside him.
“Been a while” she smiles, still seeming to catch her breath
Joker Junior simply stares at her, still trying to regain some of the stability his meds gave him. “Punchline..?” he asks, unsure of what he's seeing. It's been a year since he'd last seen her. Back then her hair was of a relatively normal length, and she could barely stand up on her own. Let alone skate like she had, and keep her balance after an explosion. She was Joker's bio-daughter with Harley, though Joker saw her more as a mistake. She was incredibly malnourished in her early years, not to mention the radiation from the carnival district. Which led to her having health problems later in life, problems that prevented her from causing the chaos he wanted. She's part of the reason Harley “adopted” him. To make up for it. They both knew it, they just made an unspoken agreement not to speak of it. Neither of them wanted this, they just had to put up with it. That was until Joker Junior got arrested. No one came to rescue him, no one cared to rescue him. And to be honest, he was fine with that. Arkham, as shitty as that place is, was much better than the burning carnival they called home.
“Yeah it's me, lot has changed since you got, got” Joker Junior had forgotten about her accent, it was very similar to Harley's but unlike her’s, he found Punchline's accent comforting. Though he couldn't tell you why.
“Tell me about it” he wheezes
“Litteral or figurative?” Punchy asks, she had never been good at telling the difference between the two. Harley said it added to her charm, Joker found it annoying.
“Figurative for now, until we get somewhere safer to talk, then I want you to tell me everything”
Punchline just nods. she shoves Joker Junior down when they hear sirens, ducking behind a trash can. They both know his hair is a dead give away. Once the noise can no longer be heard, Punchline jumps up and pulls down the access ladder and they both climb the fire escape onto the roof. Joker Junior can't tell if he loves or hates being up here. It feels familiar, but unsafe at the same time. Punchline leads him across roofs for a while until they get to a specific building, at which point they climb down only a couple stories on the fire escape and in a window. She turns on the light and slumps down on the couch.
“Welcome home junior” she giggles as she leans up at him.
He scans the apartment before turning his attention back to Punchline. “You own this place?”
“Someone owns it”, she shrugs. “haven't been here in years though. So I spruced up the place and now it's mine!”
“That's not how that-” Joker Junior begins to argue, before realising it's pointless. He scans the apartment some more, there's posters all over the place as well as random paint splatter and a couple scorch marks, most likely from accidental explosions from whatever those crystals are. “So you just live here now..?”
“Yep!” she hops up from the couch and begins to spin around the room as she speaks “but it got lonely so now you live here too!” she stops in front of him. Staring at him, she seems a little desperate, like she didn't choose to be alone. Like she was abandoned. “There's even a spare room for you to sleep in!” she regains her smile and pulls him into a side room that's practically untouched, “i-I didn't know what you liked so I figured you could just decorate it on your own!” She starts squeezing his hand, then realises she is, and shifts to squeezing her own arm instead. Her eyes begin to dart from the room to him. “I could help you of course! I just didn't want to do it on my own and wind up doing something you don't like...” she begins to ramble. Her smile fell with each word. She tilts her head down to the floor and just stops. She lets go of her arm and just stands there. Joker Junior doesn't even know what to say, until he sees a droplet fall from her face to the floor. He just continues to stare as she begins to sniffle. Through tears he hears her plead “please don't leave me alone again”
Junior then pulls himself out of his own head and holds her hands in front of her. She tilts her head back up and he kneels down to meet her gaze. “Never” is all he can muster to say, but it was clearly enough as she wraps her hands around his neck in what he barely recognises as a hug. He holds her tight before adding “not by choice anyway” once he can tell she's stable enough to understand the joke.
⛦❦⛦