A late Merry Christmas to everyone!

Tw: Mentions of suicide around the first half
--------

Joker glares out the window, arms crossed as he runs his tongue along the scars inside his mouth frustrated, the fresh bruises on his body dully aching in the cold breeze. He hadn't noticed at the time that Arthur wasn't with them when they escaped. He had been so preoccupied with fighting Batman that he hadn't noticed his partner passing out, or being swept away by a police officer.

"You left him?" He finally asks the men behind him, "you didn't mention that he was missing when we were driving back?"

"I'm sorry...we were doing what you told us to do when they showed up. Arthur was with you and we...we barely escaped-" Cal starts, but John cuts him off nudging him.

"We thought he was in the front with you. You probably thought he was with us. We only noticed when we got out the van that Arthur wasn't there"

Joker growls under his breath and turns them scowling, "We'll get him back. I know where he'll be"
___

"W-wait a seco-"

"February 1982, he was admitted to Arkham after what his boss described as a 'psychotic breakdown', involving an incident in the train station. He willingly admitted himself and spent 3 months there. Afterwards, he was assigned to doctor Phillips, then doctor Kane, but the social services were cut a few months later so his treatment stopped-"

"Stop"

"Months later, he was on the Murray Franklin show, where he attempted to take his own life with a gun, but survived the injury. He was sent back to Arkham for being considered a danger to himself and others, where he died 2 months later during a seizure. The doctors were unable to resuscitate him"

Gordan glances back up at Arthur, who glares down at the photo, gripping it so hard in his trembling hands that his fingers start to go white. He had suffered, but he had managed to get revenge for what they all did to him. But this Arthur didn't. Killing himself on the show was always the plan, but hearing that this version of himself went through with it made his blood boil. He didn't deserve this. He didn't deserve any of it!

"He didnt deserve it...he didn't..." Arthur looks up at him

"If Arthur Fleck is dead, who are you?"

"...People are cruel Gordan. All he ever wanted was to make people happy and laugh, but people don't like what's different. If you don't fit into their mold, you're cast out. He was abandoned by everyone and treated like dirt everyday, but unlike me, he got no revenge. I once saw a homeless man dying on the sidewalk, and no one stopped to help him. That's what this Arthur experienced too" He smiles slightly, but not happily.

"You didn't answer-"

"I was Arthur Fleck. Not your Arthur, like you said, he's dead. I'm the one who got justice"

"That's impossible. Your DNA may match his, you may share the same medical condition, and you may look near identical, but doctors watched him die. He's buried. You can't be Mr. Fleck"

Arthur let's out one of his fake, high pitch laughs as a reply, staring Gordan in the eyes coldly.

A few silent moments later, Gordan leaves, and Arthur waits a few seconds before slamming his head against the table. He glares at the floor, pressing his head against the table, and begins to laugh. A tear falls down his face as he laughs, the involuntary noise often getting caught in his throat. He almost feels nauseous from the news, knowing that it could've been him if he never killed those men, or his mum.

It seems strange; one single event can change the course of someone's life. All it took was one bad day to take him down this road. If he wasn't given the gun, he wouldn't have been fired, and he wouldn't have killed those men. If that didn't happen, he could've died, or, like what he has just learnt, gone down the same old Arthur Fleck path to his eventual death. He'd been suicidal his whole life; it was bound to happen at some point.

Besides, a few days before he went on the show he tried to drown himself in the bath, and the night he got the call he half heartedly attempted again for the first time since the day he was admitted to Arkham. If you could call it that.

A sudden realisation pops into his head the more he thinks about it. Surely, there's a recording of Arthur on the show? There's definitely a recording of himself killing Murray, so maybe, just maybe, he can see for himself what happened...

He's not sure how much time passes when he hears the door open again, but the footsteps sound heavier than Gordan's. The chair scrapes against the floor, before silence falls through the room again.

"Where is the Joker hiding?" This guys voice is deeper and raspy, as if he's trying to hide his actual voice.

Arthur slowly sits up to look at him, and is taken aback by a familiar glint in the man's eyes that dissapears as quick as it appears. Batman recognises him. But not from the fight earlier, no, he seems to recognise Arthur. But how? Who could Batman be under that costume that would know a guy like him? Only a handful of people would remember him.

"You tried to kill us, why should I tell you?"

"More people will die if you don't tell me where he is!" The man growls, and Arthur hesitantly has to break eye contact.

"He's my friend, I'm not go-"

"The Joker doesn't make friends. You really think he'd come back for you?"

"Don't...say that" Arthur clenches his jaw to try and calm himself. How dare he say that?

"You're expendable. He doesn't care about you"

"Yes he does"

"You're nothing to him"

Arthur doesn't reply, his eyes locked onto the wall beside Batman, anywhere but the man black. Not only is his accusation making him angry, it's bringing up insecurities that he had just managed to bury. Because what if he's right?

His hands clench, nails digging into his palm as he tries to hold it back, when the door swings open and Gordan directs Batman back out the room whispering to him. He doesn't hear most of what he was saying, but he's sure he picked up on the words "mentally ill". Like that meant anything. Maybe Batman should just be nicer.

After the vigilante leaves, Gordan walks back and hesitantly takes Arthur's arm, "Please get up, and don't resist"

But Arthur doesn't get up. His breath remains shallow. Gordan sighs, "Arthur..."

He slowly gets up and follows him back to his cell, fidgiting with the handcuffs against his writsts uncomfortably. As he passes an officer walking past from another room connected to the holding room, he suddenly feels like he recognises her. She stares back as he passes, seemingly recognising him, and Arthur looks down at her name badge. Dumond.

"Sophie?"

But the girl frowns and continues waking when Gordan gestures for her to leave.

"Sophie wait-" He calls after her.

"She's not Sophie. It's best if you leave her alone, Arthur." The commissioner says as he leads him back onto the cell, locking the door behind him. He unlocks the hand cuffs through the bars, steps back to look at him, then walks away when someone calls him over.

Arthur sighs and sits back on the bench, tightly holding himself as he watches another officer walk up to the bars with something red in his hand. They stare at each other as the man moves around to him, then hands him back his red jacket before walking off. As he opens the folded jacket, a joker playing card falls out and Arthur laughs to himself.

It won't be long.