Divination (Joker x Batman x OC)

Chapter 24

"I'm sorry boss," the voice on the other end of the line said. "The cops got them all. I'm the only one that got away."

"Oh?" the Joker responded on his cell phone.

"Yes...I don't know how they found us," the voice said. "We weren't followed, we made sure-"

The Joker touched the screen to end the call. Something was going on. His stash in Chinatown had been compromised. His bank accounts had been closed and funds presumably seized. For the first time, a bank robbery he had arranged had been a failure.

"If you want something done," he said to himself. "You must do it yourself."

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"Great warm up," Bruce told Adriana.

"Wow," Adriana said breathlessly. They had done some jogging around the large fitness room in Bruce's enormous penthouse apartment, as well as jumping rope, pushups and a few jumping jacks. They both wore all black, sweatpants and tee shirts. It had been a coincidence that their outfits matched. "That was a lot. And that was just the warmup."

"Yes," Bruce said, not sounding out of breath at all. "We can do some stretching now while the muscles are warm."

"Okay," she said and mimicked the posterior shoulder stretch Bruce was doing.

"So..." Bruce said as he moved into a quadriceps stretch. "What's your motivation?"

"My motivation?" she said, pulling her ankle back  to the side of her hip in the same stretch.

"You motivation for wanting to learn some fighting skills. Self-defense?" Bruce said and did a few leg swings.

"Of course," Adriana said and placed her hands on her hips, still out of breath. "I need to be able to defend myself. Right? Things keep happening and I don't like feeling helpless. I need you to turn me into a killing machine."

"Is this about what happened at the bank?" Bruce asked. "I saw the surveillance footage. In that type of situation, there wouldn't be much you could do."

"You could though," Adriana stated. "You could have stopped them all."

"That's different," Bruce said and looked at her closely.

"Because I'm a woman?" Adriana asked.

Bruce took a pause before answering her.

"No," Bruce said and tilted his head. "Because it takes years of intense training several hours a day. It's not something you can learn overnight. Requires a lot of dedication."

"Right," Adriana sighed. "So that makes it impossible for me then."

Bruce was silent as she turned away and began to stretch her neck. She removed her hair from the ponytail it was in and stretched her neck again. She walked away.  He watched her facing the glass window overlooking the city as her hair moved across her back. He approached her slowly.

"I do apologize if this is out of line," he said gently, and she turned around to him.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Is something bothering you?" he asked her. "You seem just a touch...hot-tempered."

She exhaled though her nose and looked down as if she was gathering herself before speaking again.

"You obviously don't owe me an answer, it's just," Bruce started. "If I'm going to be teaching you..rage isn't exactly a good motive to start with. You need to be calm, logical, focused. Not emotional."