Chapter 13

"Batsy?" the Joker mumbled just loudly enough for Batman to hear. Seeing that the Joker unlike the last several times he visited to check up on him, he seemed more coherent now.

"Joker, you need to listen to me. Did Diaz and his men do this to you, or was it someone else?" Batman asked the Joker after seeing that the Joker was waiting for him to answer.

The Joker tilted his head to one side as if he was trying to recall an event that happened just weeks earlier, but that his head was completely jumbled and wouldn't let him remember.

Looking a little more insane than usual but in a very different way, the Batman chose to talk to the Joker slowly without any pressure involved. If villains kept information from Batman, he would usually use different types of techniques to make the villain talk.

In the Joker's case now, Batman knew that taking his time might allow for better results. He would rather the Joker give him every piece of information he needed to possibly even catch a different person who had done this to him if it was not Diaz or someone involved with him.

Deep down he did not want to admit it, but if Diaz was the one to cause the Joker to go through so much mental trauma to where he lost his laugh, just how scary were those pulling his strings?

"Oh Batsy, remember when you tried to stop me from giving away all of those flowers that made citizens of Gotham smile just like I do?" the Joker after pondering for a minute told Batman.

"Joker, you need to concentrate. What happened two weeks ago was not your fault. If you tell me what exactly happened and who had done all of this to you, I can stop this madness from escalating any more than it already has." Batman told the Joker as the Joker continued to reminisce about the times Batman foiled his plans time and time again.

This was the first time that Joker had spoken complete sentences in the past two weeks since he was found by the Gotham police force. By the time that the police found him, he was curled up in a ball crying his eyes out with his makeup completely smeared all over his face.

"Joker, what would Harley want from you?" Batman asked the Joker as he continued listening to Joker's rant about how he would always defeat him at every turn even though Joker would always be one step ahead until the very end.

"H-H-Harley?" suddenly hearing her name, Joker's ranting came to a completely stop as his eyes widened and he stared at Batman as if he was just told the worst news of his life.