* J *

Part Twenty-Three: Chapter 165: Bickery

The Joker whistled Pop Goes The Weasel as he and Jason take the stairwell up to the roof. The Joker dips his finger into black grease paint and puts a line under both of his eyes. Whistling, he turns to Jason and smears some under each of his eyes. Jason rolls his eyes as he readjust the black gym bag in his hand. It was rather heavy and Jason was anxious to get to the roof so he could put it down. The Joker's obnoxious high pitched whistle was working on his nerves.

"Must you always whistle that same lame nursery rhyme?" Jason asks as he shifts the bag in his hand into the other.

"Trust me, it's not really my favorite either," the Joker pauses his whistle to speak.

"Then why do you allllllways do it?" Jason can't help but ask.

"Sometimes the voice in my head does it just to piss me off. I've found that if whistle along it's less annoying. You should try whistling it with me," the Joker suggests and runs his painted finger over Jason's face again, putting a big smile over Jason's crimson lips.

Jason pushes the Joker's hand away in exasperation, "Are we going to play football, or are we working?" Jason asks.

"Haha," the Joker smiles and pinches Jason's cheek, "So young, so inexperienced. Tell me dear brother, do you know why football players wear these lines under their eyes?"

"No," Jason sighs, knowing the Joker really got off on sharing the extent of his useless trivia. Who gives a shit? The bag he was carrying was heavy and the lines defiled his freshly showered face.

"No?" The Joker asks, "My my, didn't Bruce teach you anything? They wear the lines because it cuts down on the glare from the stadium lights. In case you failed to notice, it's 2:00 pm, thereby making the sun our stadium lights. And what could possibly glare more than stadium lights?"

"The sun," Jason frowns.

The Joker wags his finger, "The sun on our beautiful white faces," he corrects.

The Joker approaches a keypad. The access door to the roof required a four digit pin number to open. Jason watched as the Joker typed in eight one eight one. The Joker turns the knob and opens the door for him. "8181 huh?" Jason smirks. He got the code. The eighth number in the alphabet was H. The first was A. "HaHa? Not very hard to crack by the way."

"For you perhaps, but for idiots who'd try to break in and kill me, it's way over their heads." The Joker finds a whirling fan that was meant for ventilation in the attic. "This spot should do," he turns to Jason.

Jason drops the bag onto the graveled rooftop and squats to unzip it. The first thing he pulls out is a pair of military grade binoculars, and hands them to the Joker, who was glancing at his watch. He kneels next to Jason and fine tunes the lenses. Jason starts pulling out pieces to a tripod, and reassembling them as quickly as possible. He knows the Joker is timing him, like always.

Jason then starts pulling out pieces to a sniper rifle and attaching them to the tripod. He pulls out the scope and attaches it to the rifle. The Joker glances at his watch once more. "Forty three seconds. Not bad," he comments and looks through the binoculars once more.

Jason sights the rifle, scoping it in to his liking. He looks out over the roof through it. He gets down on his stomach in his expensive suit. He hated wearing suits all the time, but boy, did he look good in one. "Got a sight on our target yet?" He asks the Joker.

"Yep, one o'clock," the Joker says.

"I see them," Jason says as he closes one eye and looks through the scope. He lines the target up in its crosshairs.

"Hold," the Joker says softly, "hold...and fire."

Jason exhaled all his air and squeezed the trigger. The rifle fires a shot and a bit of gun smoke wafted from the barrel. "Got it. Perfect shot between the eyes," Jason says and waits for the Joker to instruct him on the next target.