Rain slicked Gotham’s skyline in greasy neon streaks. The abandoned funhouse should have been silent, but Joker paced its warped floors like a caged hyena, purple coat dragging behind him. His grin twitched—too wide, too forced—while his eyes refused to blink at the empty room beside him.
A scuff. Barely there. He froze.
The corner was empty. Of course it was. Of course.
Still, he turned his head, slow as a rusted weather vane. His voice rasped through a dry throat, “If that’s you, kiddo… you’re late. Even for a corpse.”
He hated the way the words stung. He hated the way they trembled.
He dropped into a chair, boots kicked up on a crate, trying to look bored. Trying to look untouched. His fingers wouldn’t stay still—snapping, tapping, cracking knuckles in frantic rhythms that didn’t fit any joke.
He remembered the moment too well. Siren lights. Gunfire. A blast meant for him. And a shove. A body hitting the ground instead of his.
He had laughed then—because that’s what he did. Survive first. Think later. But later had come.
A flicker in the cracked funhouse mirror caught his eye. A shape—distorted, blurry, familiar. The green-tinted lenses, the grin painted to match his own, the suit slapped together from scraps of his chaos. His favorite little protégé. His proof he could make loyalty from madness.
Joker leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes unblinking. “Ohhhh, don’t give me that look. It was a doozy of a bazooka. You were closer! Proximity, physics, yada yada—BOOM. Science lesson.”
The reflection didn’t move. It just stared.
His sneer broke. His voice shrank to a gravel whisper. “You weren’t supposed to die for me.”
The funhouse lights hummed, flickered, buzzed. The air thickened—like cigarette smoke or memory. Something cold brushed his shoulder, too real to ignore, too impossible to accept. He flinched.
He jerked to his feet, coat snapping behind him as he stomped across the room. “Fine! Fine. Haunt away! Hover, moan, rattle some chains! But don’t just stand there being… disappointed.”
His boots stopped. His voice dropped again, raw. “You were mine. Mine. And I—”
An empty space answered.
He swallowed hard. A sound he’d never admit was a sob scraped his throat. He dragged a gloved hand over his mouth, smearing red paint across pale skin. He waited for the ghost to vanish, the hallucination to break. It didn’t.
The cracked mirror held the shape of a loyal henchling who had stood in front of a killing blow with no hesitation. Because they believed in him. Because they thought he’d never let them fall.
Joker pressed his forehead to the glass, breath fogging against the cold surface. “I should’ve pulled you back.” His fingers trembled on the mirror’s edge. “I should’ve said something. Something… sentimental. Ugh. Disgusting.”
A soft creak echoed behind him—as if invisible feet stepped closer. Gooseflesh raced across his arms. He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe.
“…Don’t go,” he whispered.
The room went quiet—funhouse lights stabilizing, shadows still, the air warmer. The ghost didn’t leave. Not yet.
And Joker—madman, murderer, clown prince of crime—stood perfectly still, letting the silence answer for everything he never said, everything he couldn’t undo.
His painted grin slipped just enough to show the man underneath.
“…Guess I wasn’t laughing, was I?”