Wanna Know How I Got These Scars?

Author's Note: This story is based on Heath Ledger's Joker and takes place in the past and about six months after the events of The Dark Knight.

It had been years since I’d been back to Gotham. My family and I had moved to Metropolis halfway through my senior year of high school. After high school I’d studied in Europe. I’d stayed there until now. I was back in Gotham despite my parents’ wishes. The city was more dangerous than ever, but that didn’t bother me. I missed my home, and Metropolis had never felt like home to me. Besides, Gotham needed me. For almost fifteen years I’d worked overseas as an historian and archivist. I knew computers well, and I was talented at organization. The entire Gotham Public Library System needed overhauled. The GPLS encompassed not only the branch libraries, but the city, county and state archives, the vital records, land and grant offices and the historical society. It would be a huge undertaking that could take up to five years to complete. The project was being funded by the U.S. Recovery Act and by the Wayne Foundation. With the worldwide economy doing so poorly work like mine was hard to find. I wasn’t hurting for money, but I enjoyed working. I’d jumped at the job offer, even taking a pay cut to accept it.

Once I’d found a nice brownstone and moved in, I threw myself into my work. I spent sometimes one hundred hours a week at work. It was while I was scanning in old issues of the Gotham Times I saw the Joker for the first time. The image rocked me to the core. I spent hours pouring over every news item I could find on him. Six months ago he’d been incarcerated at Arkham Asylum. I read what I could find, but not until I found one of his broadcasts did I know for sure. I left work early and went back to my unlived in house. I’d barely even unpacked, but I knew exactly where to find what I was looking for. Not that I needed it to remember. The memory still ached in me, a wound that had never properly healed. God, I had loved Jack Napier to death.