Your Frown Is My Umbrella

Reign was jolted from her pity party when that double-crossing clown smacked his lips together, resulting in a sloppy pop sound that made her toes curl. She looked up at him from her spot on the floor, narrowing her eyes resentfully.

“So, who’s Bert?” The Joker asked conversationally, slipping the keys into his chest pocket as he shuffled towards the edge of the bed, closer to her.

“What?” she snapped breathily, and then mentally scolded herself for replying in such an angry manner.

Even she could clearly hear the malicious undertone in her voice. It was as though her anger (no, her anger monster) had crawled right up out of her gut and hitched a ride on her tongue just before she opened her mouth to speak. She could almost taste it, like bile in her throat. Her resentment for him was proving to be a very difficult emotion to muzzle…

Joker sighed dramatically, and for a moment she expected him to jump up and hit her for talking back like that. Drunken Damian would have.

But The Joker didn’t.

He merely licked his lips excitedly before repeating his nonsensical question.

“Who is he?”

“Who?”

“Bert!”

“Who’s Bert?” she countered stupidly, stiffening against the door and trying not to grimace. “I - I don’t know anyone named Bert.”

“You were out for a long time, you know. You said his name while you were sleeping,” Joker insisted, losing a good bit of his cheer as he furrowed his brow at her sudden alertness. “Quite a bit, actually. Don’t lie to me…”

Reign bit back a scoff of resentment. Being a practiced compulsive liar, she would’ve known if she were lying. And even if she did know someone by the name of Bert, what made this sick man think it was any of his damn business? And then he had the nerve to accuse her of being untruthful?

If anything, he was the dishonest one between the two. He’d set her free, and then shot her! She wanted nothing more than to point out that fact and rub it in his face, but a very wise something told her it’d be far more beneficial to her survival if she just let him lead the conversation. Or maybe it was really becoming more of a debate at this point…

“I’m not lying,” she stated truthfully, trying (without success) to control the persistent wavering that had taken up permanent residence in her voice box. “I really don’t know who you’re talking about.”

He tilted his head, studying her as though she were a painting that had been hung upside-down on accident. He then slid off the edge of the bed, crouched down to his knees, and placed his hands on the floor in front of him. This brought his eyes directly into her line of sight, leveling their gazes so perfectly that Reign found it impossible to look away. He then proceeded to crawl towards her, only to Reign, ‘crawling’ didn’t seem like the appropriate term.

He was slinking – no, prowling; quickly obliterating the short space between them and keeping his eyes locked on hers. The look on his smudgy painted face was highly unnerving in more ways than one, only making him look even more like some kind of absurd panther hunting its prey…

Reign shook her head dazedly. This wasn’t the first time she had compared him to a wild animal. It must have been his crazy hairdo putting those ideas in her head…

He sat down in front of her. Stretching out his legs beside hers and leaning back on his arms for support, he searched her eyes with uncensored scrutiny.

His unblinking stare made her more uncomfortable than it probably should have, and she instinctively folded in her legs against her chest and stiffened against the door. Her heartbeat hammered warningly in her ears, adding to this familiar sense of foreboding. Any minute now, he was going to spring forwards like a viper and stab her in the chest…

But instead, wearing a thoughtful smirk and a furrowed brow, The Joker merely ignored her discomfort and flicked out his tongue (like a snake) before opening his mouth to speak.

“So, Bert doesn’t ring a bell?”

“No,” she replied, inching to the right and biting back the pain in her arm. “I don’t know him.”

“Oh I think you do,” he murmured, “and ya’ see, liars, don’t last very long around here. So if I were you, uh, I’d consider telling the truth a little more from now on. Hmm?”

Reign let out a shaky sigh and stared fixedly at her knees. There he went again; accusing her of lying when she wasn’t. His truth-o-meter must have been on the fritz or something. Or maybe he was only acting so suspicious because deep down, he was just as paranoid about her as she was about him…

She shook off that thought without hesitation. He had no reason to feel that way about her. So maybe he was just using one of those crude interrogation techniques, where the suspect is hounded until they give the answer (the confession) the officer’s looking for. Then again, The Joker didn’t really seem like the type to use policemen as role models, and Reign wasn’t the type to lie about truths that didn’t require her talents.

The end of that thought broke off cleanly as Joker cleared his throat, reminding her that she still had a ‘truth’ to tell.

So, she immediately went back to thinking about this imaginary Bert character that The Joker seemed hell-bent on discovering. Bert, Bert, Bert, she didn’t know any Bert! How could she have been saying his name in her sleep if she didn’t even know him? She fumbled over her own thoughts, trying desperately to retrace the fateful steps she had taken back in dreamland.

She remembered blood, a ball, a bully… Gert!

Oh it wasn’t a Bert she knew at all; it was a Gert!

Her face lit up with the sudden realization, but just as she opened her mouth to correct the situation, there was a loud knock on the door.

The vibrations hummed briefly against her back, encouraging Reign to move out of the way. But just as she began to scoot over, Joker reached out and shoved her back. Her wounded arm didn’t seem to appreciate this sudden gesture, and before she could stop it, a strangled yelp flew past her lips. With a growl, The Joker slapped one bare hand over her mouth and used the other to grip her shoulder tightly and keep her in place.

Reign squeaked into the palm of his callused hand as the prickling pain in her arm launched its red hot heat all throughout her chest. The thin barrier that had been containing the majority of her discomfort was shredded apart so suddenly that it eclipsed her entire train of thought. She didn’t even think to wonder why he wanted to keep her so quiet. It never occurred to her that he was keeping her secretly.

Joker shot her an irritated warning glare before opening his mouth to respond to the person just outside the room.

“I’m busy!” Joker shouted, sounding angry enough to tackle down the door (and Reign), and whoever was stupid enough to be behind it.

“Uh, but Boss, we really need your help...” the boy replied in a muffled British accent.

Joker let out an animalistic growl that sent shivers up her rigged spine. Reign averted her gaze to the floor and tried to ignore the weird feel of his bare hand against her mouth. He smelt of dirt, copper pennies, and gasoline. It didn’t sit too well with her nerves, and she couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that Damian had never made her feel quite this anxious…

Well, he’s not Damian. Maybe he’s just as bad. Maybe he’s worse. Maybe he’s better. Did you ever think of that, little Miss Rainy?

“But Boss, but Boss,” Joker mocked, irritably tilting his head in sync with each muttered syllable. “What part of ‘I’m busy’ don’t you understand!”

There was silence on the other side of the door as Reign fought to sit still. Her pain had begun to fade slightly, but that didn’t do anything to ease her restlessness. His touch just seemed to awaken all of her senses and fill her with the overwhelming urge to run away.

Run far away, before it’s too late. Rain rain, go away… Reign Reign GO AWAY!

The voice outside the door spoke again, more urgently this time.

“But there’s a really big problem with the –”

“BUSY!”

There was another long pause, and then the sound of the young man’s footsteps hurriedly shuffling away.

Now that they were alone again, Reign waited for Joker to let go. She really wanted him to. Essentially he could snap her in two without breaking a sweat, and maybe that’s why he made her so uneasy; when he touched her, she felt as though he literally held her life in his hands.

Joker finally pulled his hand away from her mouth, only to pause for a moment, and then cup her chin instead.

Her widening eyes flicked up to meet his, and she realized his cloudy gaze was focused on her mouth. A tickling sensation fluttered along the lower half of her face like static electricity, and that was when she realized his callused fingertips were now lightly tracing the scars on her reddening cheeks.

That was another thing Damian had never done.

His other hand was still clutching her tiny shoulder, and it might have looked like a gesture of camaraderie if it weren’t for the awkward tenseness that racked both their bodies. Maybe it was like giving someone a hug or a handshake, and then not knowing when to let go…

Her breathing hitched, and in that instant The Joker seemed to snap out of his trance-like state. The fog in his eyes cleared up and he pulled away so quickly that it startled Reign all over again.

“Now,” Joker stated, leaning back on his arms again and acting as though nothing had happened, “uh, you were saying?”

“Uh…”

Reign struggled to remember exactly what she had been meaning to say to this bizarre man before they were interrupted. It sat on the tip of her tongue, seesawing back and forth and out of reach just when she thought she had it.

Names, names, Bert, Bert, blood, ball, bully, Gert!

“Gert,” she told him, and then cleared her throat. “Um, i-it was Gert, not Bert.”

“Oh yeah?”

She nodded in response.

“And who’s that? A friend?”

Reign hesitantly opened her mouth, and then shut it again. She didn’t like where he was going with this. He was just poking and prying, like a hungry raccoon snooping through garbage (and The Joker sure had the eye makeup down pat to help pull off that illusion...). Plus, in reality, that’s exactly what her past was made of; useless, putrid, nauseating garbage.

“She was just a bully, back when I was a kid,” she sighed finally.

Joker seemed to think about this for a moment. He rested his hands in his lap while playfully poking at the corner of his mouth with his tongue.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Makes sense.”

With that, he slapped his thighs and pulled himself up off the ground.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some business to attend to. You can’t leave bomb making to a bunch of idiot amateurs, you know. I swear they wouldn’t know a landmine from a goldmine... haha!”

Reign didn’t even make an attempt to say something in response to his silly little joke. She just got up and out of the way so he’d be able to use the door. When Joker saw that she didn’t even feign a smirk, his chuckles came to a screeching halt.

“Don’t like jokes?” he stated inquisitively, folding his arms across his chest.

Reign blinked up at him from her new spot in the corner next to the door.

“What?”

“Jokes. You know, those funny things that make people laugh, go haha?”

She tilted her head to the side. Where exactly was he going with this? She nibbled on her lip anxiously, waiting for something to come to her. Did she have anything against jokes? When she didn’t answer, The Joker waved his hands in the air expectantly.

“Well? I just told you a joke, and you didn’t laugh. So, uh, either you don’t like jokes, or you just don’t like my jokes. Which is it?”

Oh she was getting tired of his silly little questions! His childish ways were only adding fuel to the sputtering fire of resentment that threatened to consume Reign in her entirety. It made her want to hurt him. Maybe if she just took off her shoe and aimed it at his head…

But that wasn’t a good idea at all. He was still waiting for an answer; did she or did she not have anything against jokes?

“I don’t know,” Reign finally said in earnest after a short pause, careful to ensure that her disdain for him stayed locked up deep down inside her, where it belonged.

That was when she saw a streak of anger flash across his face like a bolt of lightning. As expected, it was swiftly followed by the voice of thunder.

Oh yes. She’d seen that look before.