Just Paint Your Face

Daisy

"Daisy... Daisy..."

I blinked my eyes open weakly at the sound of Happy's voice. Whatever shit that yuppie dude had sprayed at us had worn off, thankfully. But now we had a situation. We were tied up in some room, what looked like an old house. Wow, it was great that Gotham had all these abandoned buildings and never did anything to fix them. They were like a cancerous tumor or a rotting tooth, innocent to passerby, but inside held the maddest criminals in the world, ready to bust out and release its sickness on the rest of the world.

I could hear Happy crying beside me, babbling strangely.

"My father loved me. He loved me so much. I was smarter than him. Sometimes he got jealous... I told you... I told you he was a history professor? Loved Les Miserables. His favorite book. You know? Loved it so much. Loved me so much. Hated that I was so smart. Named me after his favorite character. It's just so funny... how you appeared... right after he found me, the Flower Lady..."

I still held the lipstick in my fingers. I scratched out on the floor, frustrated by my limited mobility.

happy, dont

"Don't bother," he laughed, "I know what you're going to say before you say it. And my name's not Happy. It's Marius."

I sighed, laying my head against his. We were tied with each other, back against back. I could hear Goofy not too far off, groaning. They hadn't bothered tying him up. A nasty bite wound kept him still. The ropes were wound tightly around my skin, making it difficult to breathe. I knew we would die if they didn't come and find us. That yuppie was probably hired to get back at him the first chance he got.

God, it was getting so hard to just breathe. I released the lipstick from my fingers with a small clatter.

I thought for half a second that I had gone delirious when I watched the lipstick roll and the foundation of the place shook. But as Happy jolted against me in surprise and I heard the shrill laughter of a clown gone completely mad, I knew that I was saved once again.

Ivy

I remember vividly that night Scarecrow had started this whole trend of villains and psychos running about the town. I'd been watching 28 Days Later, munching on popcorn. I was feeling worried because Rachel hadn't called me. I heard the screams outside and thought it was the movie, the rage zombies rushing after the main character. But as I walked into the kitchen to grab a coke and stopped at my window and saw some weirdo riding a hooded horse uptown and the Wayne Manor up in flames, I cried out in shock.

I remember making sure my door was locked, calling my boss to make sure everything was alright, shutting off the movie. I remember feeling very uneasy as I picked up the newspaper and read to calm my nerves, trying hard to find something positive, turning to a random page.

"SERIAL KILLER LABELED AS 'JOKER' STRIKES AGAIN IN NEARBY CITY"

I'd thrown the newspaper down in frustration, haunted by the screams outside my window.

And now, look where I was. Beside The Joker, kicking down the barricaded door of the man who'd struck terror in the heart of the city a year ago. Laughing madly alongside him as the foundation shook with my anger and poisonous blooms sprouted up through the floor to grab up The Scarecrow's cronies.

"Ah! So the crazies have arrived! "

I paused as The Scarecrow stood in the entry hallway, cocking his head at us. The Joker was antagonizing some goon behind us as The Scarecrow met me face to face.

"You say I'm crazy," I laughed in his smelly face, "I got your crazy."

"Oh, but I know that..." He paused and I arched an eyebrow, hands on my hips in my usual 'oh you silly man' stance, "But what I do wanna know is... WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?"

It was another one of those fluid movements again. He'd released some sort of a gas into the air and I'd released my ivy to try and stop him, but this stopped dead and I looked in shock as The Joker jumped in between us.

There was a heavy silence as Scarecrow stood grinning, and I stood shocked. Never in my life had I thought any man would intervene on my behalf--especially him. But there he was, standing stoically, pushing me back a step and coughing.

We waited for the screams. The ivy covering my body and spread through my hair writhed uncomfortably.

But he just coughed, blinking.

"Oh, that tastes terrible." He laughed.

I could sense the Scarecrow gawking beneath that mask, "But... the ... wha.. the toxin."

"THE TOXIN! Oh, the toxin!" He cackled wickedly.

The Scarecrow cowered away as The Joker and I stepped forward.

"Hey, hey," He held his hands over his head as he tried to reason, "Let's not be rash here..."

The Joker picked up a hammer that was lying on the dirty floor, "So who sent you, hm? The Italien? The man with the dogs? Oh, or maybe it was what was left of Gambol's operation!"

"I took over Gambol's operation..."

"Ah. Oh. Hm. That was your first mistake."

"And then I set out to find you..."

"SECOND MISTAKE!"

He waved the hammer through the air.

"Please, just.... stop..."

"HAMMERTIME!" He howled madly and brought it down on his leg. The Scarecrow screamed, I heard a dull crack and it was both of us laughing. We must've looked awful to him, standing over him, the Joker with his raised hammer, Grumpy with his gun, and me with my vines.

"Ivy's got some toxin too," The Joker laughed, "and you can bet hers doesn't fail."

"Yes." I smiled, resting my foot on his head, "And unfortunately for you, I'm not in a very good mood."

The Joker smirked, nudging Grumpy, "Let's go find our friends."

"Let's see what little man is hiding under that old piece of cloth..." I sneered, bending down to remove the mask from his face. He was mediocre. Boring, like his suit. His icy eyes look up at me in fear and his brown hair lay sweaty upon his forehead.

"Ah. Big surprise there. Coward."

I wrapped him up, covering the brown of his suit in green. He groaned as I squeezed, lifting him up off the ground to face me.

"Look at you..." He said, struggling, "You could have had... anyone else. A Harvey Dent. And you... picked... him..."

"Shut up." I snarled, banging him against the wall.

"That's what the mobsters say... the media... everyone."

"I think you're jealous." I smiled.

"Maybe."

"Oh, you make me sick." I squeezed him harder until he became even paler than he already was, "You look a little down... here... I can help!"

I pulled out my lipstick, a vine twirling off the cap. He stared at it in horror.

"You know what your third mistake was, Crane?"

He whimpered.

"Touching the girl."

I drew a smile on his face, laughing as he screamed, dropping him to the ground.

Daisy

"Charlie!" I heard Grumpy rush in first, hurrying to his best friend.

"Samuel..." he croaked.

"Aw, shit. They got you bad."

"'S alright. Nothing that can't be fixed. Here comes boss..."

I looked up at The Joker, the only man I would ever truthfully call father. I beamed and he smiled his yellow grin at me. He dropped a bloody hammer to the ground and sauntered over, pulling out his knife.

"I tried to kill as many of them as I could..." Happy said suddenly, "But I ran out of bullets."

"Sh, sh, sh." He severed the ropes and we fell forward. I sighed, able to breathe again.

"He killed all the men... all our stuff is back home.. and we can't get it! They've found our old place... the cops'll come..."

"Happy," He snapped, "why so serious?"

He dragged us up, one in each arm. We were weak and tired and didn't object. He was humming again, murmuring to himself.

"I love you, you love me, let's get together and kill batty... Ivy's gotta ruin the floor with her fucking weeds, real nice. God, I swear there was a cat in here..." He passed Ivy and sneezed. She looked up suddenly, her eyes sparked.

"It was you."

"Huh?"

"In the alley..."

I could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

"I'm trying to put the kids to bed. And then there's this mess to clean up..."

"I'm on it," she said, "and there's a couple of bedrooms down that hall over there."

I saw as he turned into the hall some weird weeds reaching up out of the broken floorboards, swallowing the men into the earth with out a trace. I shuddered.

He dropped us casually onto the floor of a small bedroom. The building looked as if someone had just up and left and never came back. Which was probably normal in Gotham. Separate twin beds stood against opposite walls. Some comic books littered the floor, but not much else.

I heard The Joker laughing with Ivy about something and listened as he passed down to other rooms in the hall. I heard him jump excitedly at finding a working bathtub and Happy rolled his eyes.

Grumpy and Goofy came in a moment later. I clapped my hands to see Goofy standing. Weak, but standing.

"How's the wound?" Happy looked up, still tense. His eyes had now darkened.

"Aw, shucks, it ain't nothing." He lifted his shirt and showed off a horrid, stitched up bite wound."Grumpy stitched it right up."

They sat down with us, dealing out cards for a game of War.

"We playing with Jokers?" Happy asked.

"'Course we playing with Jokers."

Happy's shoulder's slackened a bit.

We slapped our cards down, one by one. The higher card won all the others, and so on. 1, 2, 3, so on. Jacks, Queens, Kings, Aces. And of course...

"Joker!" Happy cheered and he took all the cards.

That's how it always went.

Ivy

"Jack."

"Hm?"

"You ever get the feeling... that we're doing things wrong?"

He looked at me, "May, if I'm not getting that feeling then there's something really wrong."

I laughed, rinsing my hair off in the water. We were clean, but the water was a blackish red. From his makeup or blood, I didn't know which. We lay across from each other in the dinky little thing, but he acted as if it was a luxury he'd never had.

These were one of the few moments he was sane and we could hold a conversation, and I considered that the real luxury.

"I'm talking about Daisy. The Mime."

"Hey. Hey. I know I got a few screws loose... I know I have a.. a, uh, temper. But I take good care of the kid."

"This isn't about that, Jack. I know you. This is about giving her a chance."

"A chance at what? Living here, becoming a secretary and saying 'oh, yessir I'll get that coffee to you right away.'"

I snarled, "This isn't about me either. She's more than that. Have you seen the stuff she writes?"

"As a matter of fact, I have."

"And look what's happened to her so far? We try, but it's not enough. She lost her voice. She twitches sometimes. What'll it be next? An arm, a leg, an eye. Or maybe her heart. I just want to give her the chance, Jack. The choice."

He looked uncharacteristically pensive for a moment.

"Where will she go?"

"They won't try her, they won't stick her in the asylum. She's too young and they think she can be fixed."

"But we can't dump her on a random doorstep.. it's got to be someone who's got the means to protect her... an honest man. Someone like me..."

He mouthed a word.

"Jack. You can't be serious."

"Am I ever serious?"

I looked into those deep brown eyes and saw the little bit of sanity melt away. He cackled, pulling me forward.

Daisy

It was going to end soon, this life. I knew it that morning. I knew it during the card game. I knew it as Happy crawled in front of my door out of habit and I slipped between the sheets of someone else's bed.

I knew it, but I didn't want it to be true.

Thing was, I didn't know how soon until he came into my room. He shuffled in quietly, knocking something over and giggling. He sat down on the bed, shaking me roughly, even though my eyes were open.

"Psst. You awake, kid?"

I nodded. His hair was clean and he only wore his purple pants. He smelled like flowers and gasoline.

"Tomorrow... uh, yeah. Tomorrow me and Ivy are going out. And you're taking a ride with Happy. Goofy and Grumpy are taking you somewhere nice. Real nice. ...Don't look at me like that. Oh, I see. You know what's coming huh?"

I looked down at my hands, shocked at feeling tears on my face.

"Hey. Hey. We'll come back. When you're older and can decide for yourself. You like postcards?"

I gave him a weird look. He replied with nothing more than a dismissive wave.

"Get some sleep, kid. Tomorrow's a big day."