Batman Begins/Dark Knight In the eyes of the Beholder

Gotham City was a living hell. LeAnne had discovered this some four years ago. Her father had always protected her from the darker side of Gotham .He had been one of the mob bosses. Being his daughter had granted her certain privileges concerning crime. She hadn't known the true colors of his thugs until a bomb had been mysteriously strapped to the underside of his car. Once he had been removed, the Maroni's had stepped into power. She had had a termination order on her head since she was seventeen. Then she'd forged a new name for herself, a new past, a new person. She was no longer Marianna Kimboulter. She was now LeAnne Walker, a renowned social worker. She would say most of the kids liked her, but the truth was, most hated her for tearing them from their abusive, druggie, alcoholic parents. This had hurt at first. She was only trying to help, but had soon decided that she didn't' like being sickly-sweet to the little brats anyway. She had slowly built LeAnne Walker's name up to one of a stern but kind person who did what was best for the youngsters without sugarcoating life for them.

It had been a long, tiring day for LeAnne. She had had to deal with a whiny teenager who didn't want to leave her parents who were drunken 99% of the time. On top of that, she had met with a youngster who had been shuffled from foster home to foster home. The child was adorable, but she sure held a mean streak. LeAnne walked inside her neat two-story house, plopped her purse down on the table, and went upstairs for a shower. Half an hour later, she stepped out of the bathroom, rummaged for some jammies and dressed. She trotted down to the kitchen, snagged something to much and went into the living room to watch TV. As per usual, the Joker was the highlight of the news. Speculations on his true identity, what made him tick, and other such nonsense that they had no hope of ever finding out. Personally, she could care less who he was. As long as he didn't bother her, she wasn't going to worry over him. While everybody else was worrying themselves sick day in and day out over who he was going to kill next, she was busy rescuing kids from less than ideal situations. It wasn't that she was brave or anything, she just couldn't bring herself to care.

After watching the news a bit, she gave up and switched it off. She went to work on the stack of mail she had received that day. Strangely enough there was an invitation from the infamous Bruce Wayne to attend a fundraiser Friday. While she considered Bruce kinda cute, she also thought of him sorta like a celebrity. One could lust after them all they bloody wanted, but never get a chance in hell to actually do anything with them. LeAnne contemplated attending. When she had been a teenager, she had loved going to this sort of thing. Now she found it boring. Everybody would be dressed up in the current fashion and looking pretty, and all having the same personality. Snooty, disdainful of the working class, and looking down the aristocratical noses. Still, she had not been to one in quite a while, and she might meet someone actually worth talking to, although she highly doubted that. She decided to go. She already knew just what to wear too.

Having gone through her mail, she went upstairs and tumbled into bed. I would say that her dreams consisted of dances and parties and Bruce Wayne, but that would be a lie. She was instead dreaming of the night her father had died. She was completely unaware of the figure perched in the tree outside of her window watching her. Nor did she see the red smile curve into an evil grin as the figure watched her thoughtfully.

VVVVVV

The Joker threw his remote at the TV in disgust. Once again those idiotic doctors were trying to psychoanalyze him. It was really starting to irritate him. He was perfectly sane thank you very much. He stood up and stretched an idea already starting to formulate in his mind. He would show the press just how much he appreciated them trying to analyze his head. First, he needed the materials. That was easy enough to obtain. Next he needed to infiltrate their building and rewire it. He wanted to make it an interesting way of detonating the building. He was contemplating how to do this when it hit him. Of course! He giggled childishly as he considered the new idea. Boy would they be in for a surprise.

He gave the orders for his apes - er I mean cronies to wire the building to explode in his special way. He trusted them to do it right, after all, if the didn't he would have to make a few examples out of them. He contemplated what to do next. He was restless. He only really slept when he absolutely had to. Which meant every other night. He wasn't really tired tonight, just restless. He thought briefly about finding some whore to take his restlessness out on but discarded the idea. They screamed too loudly too much in public places. Besides, he much preferred not sharing his toys with others. He wandered outside and just walked. He could oversee his project, but would probably kill to many apes for screwing things up. Besides, he was in the mood for female companionship.

His legs lead him to a street on the other side of town. Most of the houses blazed with light in all their windows. One of them only had a single light in one of the upstairs window. There was a tree conveniently outside said window. He climbed up the tree and settled himself in on one of the branches level with the window. A young woman was moving about the room. She had fairly long, fiery, red hair that curled down her back. They looked like they were still slightly damp. He watched as she turned the light off and crawled into bed. She was fairly young, just out of her teen years maybe. He continued watching her as she started writhing and crying. He assumed she was having a nightmare. Another idea formulated in his head. Perhaps he should consider kidnapping her. She would be fun to break. He elected not to just yet. Instead, he would mess with her mind. Carefully he crawled along the branch until he was at her window. It was not locked, not that that would've mattered. If it had been he would've gone in through the front door.

He tiptoed over to her and pulled out his knife. Carefully, he pulled her pajama pants down just enough to get at her hip. He then proceeded to make a horizontal cut. After collecting the blood that had welled up he went to locate the nearest mirror. In her bathroom was a mirror that he proceeded to decorate. A few minutes later, he was finished. The Joker admired his handiwork, both on the mirror and her. With a last giggle, he was out, leaving the window wide open to her detection.

VVVVVV

Several hours later, the peaceful quiet was broken by a shrill scream. LeAnne stared in horror at her mirror. Her first thought was that someone was lying dead somewhere in her house. She discarded that thought immediately however, when she saw her bloodstained jammy pants. Alarmed, she yanked them down to examine the cut. There was a J carved into her hit. He had marked her as his. LeAnne was not happy about this. Not. One. Bit. She was contemplating death by strangulation when her phone rang downstairs. Hastily, she trotted down and answered.

"Hello?" she asked.

"Hey LeAnne," the cheerful voice of her boss replied.

She groaned, "Look, I've already worked overtime these past three weeks. I am taking a vacation today and tomorrow," she stated before he could say anything.

"LeAnne-," he began before being interrupted.

"I am not coming in today. I've just had a nasty scare and don't think my nerves can handle any more excitement," she said firmly, "nothing you say will change that. Good Bye!" she hung up the phone before heading back upstairs.

She hated lying to her boss. In truth, her nerves were not frazzled. She was supremely irritated that her home had been invaded. Now that the Joker had invaded her life, she was going to actually take an interest in him. She would use today and tomorrow to find the bastard and kill him. Once reaching the bathroom, she cleaned off her mirror. Then she cleaned out the jagged and healing cut, wincing in pain as she reopened it, applied alcohol to it, and wrapped a bandage around it. That done she went downstairs and raided the refrigerator. She was pretty sure she had some moldy mayo somewhere in the bowels. She usually did anyway.

Having found the mayo, she went back to her bathroom, and returned a message. She would have to use the downstairs bathroom until it was cleaned off, but she could live with that. It read _Stay the Hell out of my House. _Around it, just for the heck of it, she drew little hearts. Grinning, she washed her hands and discarded the jar. She then dressed and readied to head out. First she had to hit an ATM, and then she needed to get some groceries. After that, she would try to learn as much about him as possible.

Half an hour later she stared in disgust as the bank ATM continually read _No Money Available_. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as she watched a bus pull out through a wall. She realized instantly what was going on. She watched in anger as the bus slid neatly into a long line of other buses. LeAnne stalked back to her car fuming. He was so going to pay for that. Three hours later she returned home with an armful of groceries. She sensed instantly that something was off. Things were not quite the way she'd left them, they were pretty close, but she had a good eye for spotting things. She put the groceries away while pretending that nothing was wrong.

She realized the second that she stepped foot through the door of her bathroom that something was definitely wrong. The Mayo had been cleaned off and replaced with _Why uh would I want to do that? How's the cut by the way? _Surrounding this was a serious of Ha's. LeAnne narrowed her eyes before turning around to carefully scrutinize her bathroom. She found what she was looking for, a cleverly hidden camera and microphone located in the doorknob. Hunkered down in front of it and stared.

"I know your watching this Joker," she began, "I don't know or care as to why you have invaded my home, but stay the hell out or the next time we meet, I swear I will put a bullet through your balls," She then proceeded to leave and return a minute later with a roll of duct tape. She put a large piece over the camera. The microphone she left uncovered. She had a tendency of singing really bad songs while she was going about her business and had every intention of using that against him. She did the same to the one's in her bedroom only she covered the mics up as well.

VVVVVV

The Joker was livid. He had entrusted a simple little task to his men, wire up the public news station building so that it would blow at the 6 O' Clock morning news. At 6 O'clock this morning, the news building was perfectly fine, nothing went boom. He had had to make a few examples. That put him in a slightly better mood. Just an hour ago, he had successfully robbed a bank. This made him even happier. Now he felt his feet being drawn back to that redhead's house. He had nothing better to do besides gatecrash a mob meeting later this afternoon, but that was a good 4 hours away so he had to come up with something to do in the meantime. He had come up with the brilliant idea of wiring up the girl's house with cameras. Hopefully she wouldn't notice and he would get a few eyefuls.

He let himself inside. Over the next hour or so, he strategically placed them around the house, putting several in her bedroom and bathroom. He was rather surprised to see something written on the mirror. It reeked to the high heavens, but it also showed she wasn't a coward. Any other victim would've run straight to the police, but not this one. Giggling, he cleaned the smelly gunk off the mirror and wrote his reply, adding the bit about his cut as an afterthought.

Giggling, he finished up with the bugging and skipped home to watch his video feed. Upstairs he went, through a long hallway until he came to a door that read Joker in large tacky lettering. His personal hideout was not the same as his men. Heavens no, he wouldn't have any men left if that were the case. No, his hideout was located on the outskirts of Gotham City in an abandoned apartment complex. It was useful to his needs after he had revamped it a bit. Now he could keep "guests" in rooms there where they couldn't escape. His own quarters were in the far right apartment. At the moment, he held no prisoners. For several hours nothing happened. Finally, he set it to record and went to get ready for his little meeting.

His wardrobe held several versions of his typical purple ensemble. He had a few other things to wear, but the suits took up the majority. He changed into his favorite pair of purple trousers, grayish-blue silk shirt, green vest, purple gloves, and purple trench coat. Next he proceeded to strap in several grenades to the inside of his trench coat with the thread hooked around his finger. Now he was ready to go. It did not take any time at all to interrupt the meeting. He couldn't help to laugh at what was going on inside the meeting room.

(I don't feel like going into gory detail about the meeting. If you want to know what happened, watch TDK. I'm not changing this scene at all.)

He was quite pleased at how well the meeting had turned out. He had successfully cowed them and them all and had even got to kill someone. He was listening to the radio when something interesting turned up.

"And the famous party boy Bruce Wayne is having a fundraiser event," one person remarked.

"We certainly hope nothing similar to what happened at his birthday party will occur," a feminine voice said amused.

"Yes, perhaps we should keep him away from all alcoholic beverages" the first answered.

The Joker didn't listen to anything else happening. He was too busy formulating a plan for tomorrow night. He would definitely attend this little gathering. He suddenly remembered the videos he had left recorded. With this thought in mind, he stopped on the gas.

He giggled as he munched popcorn and watched the feed. She headed up and he waited eagerly for her reaction when she read his note. She stared at it for a second and began looking around suspiciously. He watched puzzled by all this until she stared directly into the camera. He watched in amazement as she spoke with a cold, clear voice. He smirked evilly as he considered his next move. He watched in amazement as she proceeded to cover all of the cameras in the bathroom and bedroom. A wave of disappointment flickered through him before he grinned. This was just making it interesting. His video feeds had since caught up with current time so now he was listening in horror at her singing. It was truly horrible. He also had a feeling sh was doing this for his benefit. It sounded like she was taking a shower.

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

The Joker grabbed his ears and held them, desperately trying to drown out the tune. It was almost as though she could see his reaction though because she only got louder.

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

He let out a whimpering sound as the tune vibrated around his head. He had always hated that absurd song, and now it wasn't much better.

_In the morning, laughing happy fish heads_

_In the evening, floating in the soup_

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

Sweat was poring out of him as the singing grew to a new level of horridness. He was going to go nuts soon if she didn't quit singing. He couldn't take it much longer.

_Ask a fish head anything you want to_

_They won't answer, they cant talk_

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

He collapsed in the floor, still clutching his ears. Paint was smearing all over the place from this. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get the tune out of his head.

_I took a fish head out to see a movie,_

_Didn't have to pay to get it in_

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

"Stop it," he groaned, "please, just stop with the singing. She continued on with her singing. The sounds of water running had long since stopped.

_They can't play baseball,_

_they don't wear sweaters_

_They're not good dancers, they don't play drums_

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

"STOP!" he screamed in agony, his ears hurt from clutching them. He knew that even if she did stop singing, the song would still be stuck in his head.

_Rolly Polly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in_

_Italian restaurants with Oriental women._

_Yeeaahh_

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

He groaned and whimpered and moaned as the song continued on. Would it never end?

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

_Yum!_

He was seriously contemplating ripping his ears off in hopes that the song would end. He began searching his pockets for his trusty knife.

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yumm!_

_Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads_

_Fish heads, fish heads, eat them up_

_Yummmm!_

_Yeeaahh_

His movements paused abruptly as he realized the song was over. He crawled back into the seat and watched warily. He prayed she wouldn't start singing again. She had a truly horrible singing voice and he hated the song. He then saw her walking through the living room where she paused in front of the camera. She turned to it, smiled brilliantly, and flipped him off before going on her merry way.

The Joker sat back contemplating how he was going to get back at her. He had already decided to pay her another little visit tonight, and perhaps tomorrow as well. After all, he had no plans until tomorrow evening.

**Well my darling readers, did you like it? Should I continue? You are a click and a few words away from another chapter. Fish Heads is from Dr. Demento's. I know the Joker probably wouldn't react that way to the song, but I couldn't resist. I love that song by the way. Just wait till you see what he has planned. Another song in the next chapter. Until then, cheers!**


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