"Jack come on, it's been an hour, wake up, it's not funny anymore." Jack heard the concerned voice of his brother and slowly opened his eyes, his head hurt as if he jumped off a building and landed face first on the concrete sidewalk. It took him a moment to realize what happened before tears welled up in his eyes.
"Look... he can't be dead. Policemen have done their investigations and they haven't found his body." Dave sighed softly.
"Body? Investigations? How did he even kill himself?" Jack had so many questions.
"They said they found his car burnt down with a burnt body inside. There was a jerrycan of benzine next to the car so they think it's suicide. They haven't found any DNA on the body in the car yet so let's just hope it's not him, okay? He's still alive, I'm sure."
Jack fidgets the ring on his necklace between his fingers. "But what if he is? This is all my fault!"
"It isn't! If anyone's to blame it's that teacher who made him come out to the whole class."
"I'm going to fucking kill him!" Jack sat up but got immediately pushed down.
"If you kill someone I'll bring you to the police station myself." Dave looked down at his minutes younger brother. "I know it's hard because you really loved him but he's gone okay? People die. That's their whole thing."
Jack looked away from his brother before nodding slowly. He sat up and sighed.
"I know what I have to do..."
Many hours later Jack parked his motorbike against a fence outside of ACE Chemicals. He had to work a nightshift. He walked in and switched shifts with his colleague and sighed. It felt horrible to be at this place. He would've given up time he could spend with Bruce to work.
Jack did the same routine he always does. He puts on his work clothes, grabs a candy bar from the vending machine in the lunchroom and makes his round to see if everything's still going well.
"Oh, just so you know." An older man, one of Jack's colleagues, put his hand on the slim boy's shoulder before he's able to walk away from the vending machine. "There were a couple of guys here who tried to break in a minute ago, followed by some weird guy dressed up as some sort of bat. The police came to take away the boys but there hasn't been any sights from that bat man since I last saw him."
Jack looked at the man and swallowed before nodding. He walked out of the lunchroom, talking to himself a bit. "Okay... a man in a bat suit... yeah that's totally not weird, I can totally handle that... it wouldn't even be a problem because a guy in a bat suit that chases criminals around surely isn't dangerous to an unarmed teen who just tries to get some money to pay for gas for his motorbike.." he sighed, knowing there wasn't anything to be scared of, knowing what he was planning to do.
Jack walked up some stairs that lead him to a platform about some vats filled with chemicals. There was no reason at all for him to be up here, it wasn't on his route. He looked down at the green yellow glowing chemicals and smiled sadly. He grabbed ahold of the railing around the platform with both hands and took some deep breaths, breathing in the chemicals, a thing his employee advised him to never do.
It didn't take him a long time to think about what he was doing as he put his one foot onto the lowest bar of the railing, followed by his other foot on a bar higher up.
When he finally climbed onto the railing and got his balance he spread his arms and leaned forward, letting himself fall off the platform. He closed his eyes, thinking "this is it. This is the only way to be together with him again." But that thought quickly got disturbed. Jack felt a rough jerk on his shirt, widening his eyes. He looked up and a dark figure tried to pull him up, the man in the bat suit. Jack gasped and punched the man into his face as soon as he could, getting free from his grip and falling down into a vat of chemicals.
"Jack!"
It burnt. It burnt so bad. Why wasn't he dead? Jack opened his eyes, he was still floating in the big vat of green death. He swam up to the surface and gasped for air. Everything was dark, no one was left in the building. Jack climbed out of the vat and stripped to his underwear, rubbing his arms in the hope to get the chemicals off his body.
He walked to the dressing rooms and looked around, there weren't any spare clothes left for him. He took some deep breaths before walking out of the building.
It was cold outside, so cold it made Jack's skin tingle. He looked at his hands and only now realized how pale he looked in the moon light. It was late, very late. Not a person was outside, all stores were closed. The only lights in the street were street lanterns and two tiny lights in a window of a party store. Jack walked closer to the store and looked through the window, he saw a mannequin wearing a pink and green suit. He knew this store. He always went here for Halloween, he knew that his size was small enough for only those stupid suits to fit him.
An alarm went off as soon as Jack broke the window. He quickly took the suit and put it on before running away. Police sirens faded into the background as his breath quickened. He knew he couldn't go home looking like this. Jack went to his grandparents' house, they were on vacation. He broke open the window at the back of the house and went inside, walking to the bathroom. He looked into the mirror and his mouth fell open. His skin was almost white, his hair was greener of colour, brighter than before and his eyes almost looked like they were glow in the dark by how bright green they had become. He tried to catch his breath before he took off his clothes and turned on the shower, washing himself and his clothes. He left his clothes to dry and went to bed.
The next day Jack turned on the tv the news was showing a picture of him. He was "missing". A soft smirk appeared onto his face and he let out a chuckle. He looked nothing like his old self anymore. He walked to the kitchen and took a pack of cigarettes from the counter, his grandma always left one for Jack to secretly smoke. He grabbed a lighter and lighted his cigarette before putting it against his lips, slowly sucking in some smoke before blowing it out again. He walked upstairs and took some new pair of underwear, putting it on. He walked into the bathroom and put on the suit from yesterday. It was still a bit moist but dry enough to wear. When he walked past a mirror he realised he couldn't just go out like this. Makeup, he needed makeup. He grabbed some makeup his grandma used to wear and put it on, a thin line of black eyeshadow and velvet red lipstick, Jack had seen this combo look in a weird magazine once and loved it ever since. The only thing his grandmother never used was foundation. There was no way for him to hide his pale skin. Maybe he shouldn't go outside, not until it'd be dark and no one would be able to see him.
It was getting dark quick that day, the tv was still on.
"Another criminal attack.." Jack heard from the living room, chopping up vegetables and putting them into a pan of water. The news was on. As soon as a journalist spoke out the word "Batman" Jack poked his head around the corner and smiled. "Batman~" he licked his teeth and turned off the tv. "Let's see what that man does that makes him so heroic, huh?" Jack clapped his hands and put on his purple suit. He still had his makeup on his face. He didn't look back at the soup he was making and just walked out.
After robbing an ammo store Jack walked up to the store where Batman was last located. He sprayed his face one more time with setting spray to make sure his makeup wouldn't sweat off.
"Stop. This is a crime scene! No one's allowed to go in there." A police man said, Jack turned around and gave the man the evilest smile ever. "Oh but sir....." he grabbed the face of the man and put his hand over his mouth, a knife against his throat. "I am crime." Jack laughed softly, slitting the cop's throat. He could feel himself turning into a different person. He walked into the store and immediately saw another cop talking to the vigilante he was looking for. He hid behind a shelf of one of the aisles and waited for the cop to leave.
Jack had to look at a stupid advertisement that showed a big Joker card with the text "take a chance and roll the dice! At Gotham Casino!" for five mutes before the cop turned around.
"Oh god! Ben!" He ran out of the building to see if his colleague was okay. Jack got up, loaded his gun and shot backwards, through the back of the head of the cop. Batman turned around.
"Who are you?" He growled in a low voice. Jack thought for a second, he didn't have a name yet and all that was on his mind was the poster.
"Joker..." He smirked, it sounded nicer than he thought. He pointed his gun at the stronger guy. "And I'll be the death of you..." he had his finger on the trigger but before he could shoot Batman slapped the gun away and punched him in his face.
He didn't know why but Joker started laughing at the pain, he was never a fan of pain but after the bath of chemicals, pain felt funny. He started to run away, Batman followed him.
Jack had a past of free running, which came in handy for the Joker. He jumped onto the sides of buildings in a way Batman couldn't. Unfortunately for him Batman had a grappling gun. When Batman finally had the chance to get ahold of the boy Joker ran into a bar. The bar was full of young women, it was Ladies night.
He looked around but his eyes stopped at a certain person, Harley, Jack and Harley had always been close as friends who like to gossip about stuff. Joker quickly stepped closer to her. "Harley! You have to help me, it's me, Jack."
She looked at him a second before bursting out in laughter. "Jack? I thought you were dead! Did you know you're missing? What is wrong with your face?" She looked concerned. "Come, I'll help you wash it off!" She grabbed his hand and pulled him to the restrooms where she took a couple of wet tissues out of her handbag.
She shook her head while taking off the makeup. "Jackie Jackie Jackie.. you're like a little brother to me but I never thought I would have to take crazy clown makeup off your face in a restroom at a lesbian bar!" She giggles. Only now Jack realized it was Ladies night every night at this bar.
"I uh.. I need your help.." Jack hesitated to say that.
Harley gave him a look of surprise. "Well would you look at that! Puddin' needs someone to help him out? What did you do, Big boy?" She smiled as she took off the last bit of makeup.
"Someone's looking for me.."
"Why didn't you say that the second you saw me?" She smiled and pushed him into one of the stalls and closed it. Not a second later Batman stormed in. Harley let out a high pitched noise out of surprise before yelling at him. "Ew! Get away you freak! This is the girls room!" She quickly moved into the same stall as Jack and locked it, gesturing to him to pull his legs up.
Batman looked in every other stall and growled. "I'm sorry, Ma'am, if you see a man dressed up as a clown that goes by the name Joker please inform the police, he might be dangerous." He sighed a bit before getting out.
"What the hell did you do to get Batman to follow you?!" Harley looked up and Jack who was uncomfortably smiling, sitting on top of the toilet with his knees against his chest.
"I killed two cops, Harley- I-I don't know what came over me- I just-" Jack looked panicked.
"What?! Are you crazy?" She whispered loudly. Jack slowly nodded and slowly started to smile. "I... I think I am.." Jack said calmly before starting to panic again."Can we please go somewhere so I can change clothes?"
Harley nodded. She didn't live at Wayne manor all the time ever since she got in a fight with Alfred about how she dressed, she had a small apartment in downtown Gotham.
"But first we need to do something against that hair... wait- maybe I have something to take care of these clothes..." she took her bag and pulled out a cheerleader uniform and black shoe polish. "We'll have to work with this because this is all I have, I came here straight out of cheerleading practice."
"Hell no, I'm not going to wear that stuff!"
Soon after they both walked out of the bar, Harley dressed in her normal clothes and Jack wearing the -actually very inappropriate for teenagers at a public high school- cheerleader uniform that was just his size because he had the same height and body type as Harley. His hair was covered in shoe polish to make it look black and shiny. Batman jumped down right in front of them.
"Ah! What the hell is wrong with you!" Harley said out of shock.
"This.... guy.." he pointed at Jack. "Is he with you? I didn't see him inside..."
"Yes. This is Jack. Jack is my... boyfriend... and he was in the stall I went in because we wanted to do some naughty stuff but you totally killed the mood!" She frowned at him.
"Prove it." Batman crossed his arms. He now recognised his former crush and knew something was up, why would he dye his hair black and pretend to be dating his sister one day after his boyfriend allegedly killed himself?
Harley looked at the cheerleader and stroke his neck. "Such a naughty slutty... whore, wouldn't you like mommy playing with that little uh... cheerleader... cock(?) of yours?" She said teasingly but very awkwardly while pulling Jack's head closer, softly squeezing his neck as she kissed him.
Jack didn't know whether it was because Harley has a manly grip or because a big muscled man was watching them but the skirt got tighter and he quickly had to cover it with his hands.
Bruce looked away out of secondhand embarrassment. "Alright... I guess... can I speak to your boyfriend real quick though?"
Jack looked at him and swallowed. "Uh..."
"Of course you can! He's all yours!" Harley smiled and let go of her best friend.
Bruce quickly thanked her before taking Jack outside. As soon as the door to the back alley closed the green haired boy was pinned against the wall.
"I didn't do anything! I swear! It wasn't my fault-"
"Jack... it's me.." Bruce said.
"Wh-what?" Jack looked into Bruces eyes. "Bruce? Y-you're not dead?"
"And you're not missing..."
"I didn't try to go missing-" Jack said softly.
"You jumped into a vat of chemicals, you were trying to kill yourself! Why?! Why would you do something that stupid?" Bruce's voice was getting a bit louder the longer he spoke, clearly worried. Then he realised. "Jack I-... please don't tell me you did that because of me.."
"You were gone, Bruce-.. how could I not try to be with you again?"
Silence.
It was quiet for a long time, Jack had tears in his eyes, but so did Bruce. After a moment of quietness Bruce leaned in and carefully wrapped his arms around the shorter guy.
"I'm so glad you didn't die." He said and gently planted a kiss against the pale flesh of Jack's neck.
"I'm glad you didn't kill yourself..." Jack let out a soft chuckle before letting out a sigh. "My uh... my appearance has changed, Bruce... because of the chemicals..."
"I noticed... I'm going to pretend you didn't kill those cops, by the way.."
"I did- oh god I did- I'm a criminal! I need to go to the police! I need to go to jail- what if they put me in jail? I'm not made for jail- they'll beat me up- they'll do awful things to me in there just like in the movies!"
"Relax, okay? You're not going to the police, you're fine. It'll be our secret okay?"
Jack slowly nodded.
"Now, about your outfit..."
"Don't even start- I feel like a whore in this skirt-"
"It is very... visible..."
"What? My underwear?"
"The thing in your underwear..."
Jack blushed darkly.
Bruce smiled but stepped back. He put his mask back on and looked away. "You should go home... I'll swing by tomorrow, okay?"
Jack nodded, "I'll see you tomorrow." His voice sounded soft but sweet.
Bruce gave him one last kiss on the cheek before he ran off, leaving Jack in the cold dark alley, all by himself.