tntandgasoline | [RL - A Visit at Lisa's Place]

The knock on the door was surprising to Lisa - she hadn't expected company. Her stomach turned as she moved from the kitchen, over to the door which she began unbolting. There were two distinct possibilities: the police, coming to tell her that they'd arrested Jackson, and Jackson, there to harass her now that he knew her protection had been terminated.

"Who is it?" She called, one hand hesitating on the lock, the other on the door handle. If it was Jackson, he would be able to find a way in anyway. If it were the police, it would be better to open the door flat out. So, with one quick determined breath, she flipped the lock and pulled the door open. But, who she saw standing before he was far from anything she'd expected. All the face paint, scars and greasy hair of the Joker were plain as day before her, and suddenly it became very clear to her that he was not just a movie in the slightest. In fact, her eyes widened slightly in the realization as it set in that she, perhaps, should have exercised a little more discretion in the way she had addressed him.

"...What are you doing here?" Well, clearly she didn't feel the need to correct that now. "You're. Why are you in Miami? I thought- Gotham-" She didn't move from the doorway to invite him in.

"Mmhmm. I'm in Miami." He gestured blandly towards 'over there' with a grin. "Didn't feel like seeing the, uh, sights, though, not until I came by to see you." He licked his lips and held out the bottle - obviously sealed, never opened. Just in case she was suspicious.

"And I'm here because - well, I'll be honest. I'm bored, and Jackson decided to tick me off. So, I'm proving a point." Before she could get the wrong idea - didn't want that, did he? - he added, "Not that I'm here to, uh, hurt you or anything. I'm a gentleman; I wouldn't hurt a gal just because of some idiot."

"So, you're going to stick it to Jackson by coming here and... what, having a glass of wine and hitting the tourist spots?" Well, it was a Saturday night. But Lisa was hardly the person to show someone around the city and it was the Joker for Christ's sake. She couldn't imagine going anywhere where there wouldn't be confusion. That kind of makeup in New Orleans, Atlantic City or Vegas was one thing, but in Miami? Even downtown, she had to argue against the suggestion.

"I don't think I have a brochure extensive enough to cover a tourist locale you might not... stick out in." She examined the wine bottle's cork with scrutiny before deciding it had never been opened, after which point she stepped aside and allowed him entrance to her home - she couldn't shake the feeling that it was a mistake on so many levels, but she was doing it anyway. She'd been letting herself get away with a lot of that lately; Lisa vaguely wondered when it was going to catch up with her, and what might happen when it did. "What did he do to, uh, 'tick you off'?"

"Hah. Maybe I'm here on business." The Joker watched her look over the wine, then raised an eyebrow when she moved away - letting him in? Well. That was a bit surprising; what kind of job had Rippner really done on a gal who seemed so... smart?

Still, who was he to ignore an invitation? He stepped inside like he was at home there, taking off his gloves casually and looking around. "Nice place." At Lisa's question, he turned and smiled wide. "He said, um, me killing you would be meaningless. See, I don't believe that, not for a second, and I hate it when people just... assume I'm going to kill someone. So, here we are! Two birds, one stone."

He turned and strolled generally towards the living room. "So, pop the cork, let's have a party."

If she was disgusted by his sudden transition to appearing right at home in her house - which she had just finished purging any sign of Jackson from - she hid it well and simply shut the door behind him, tightening her lips into a firm line. Had he really said that? She wasn't entirely sure she could believe him. She was hesitant to believe that and she had easily accepted that he wasn't going to kill her? That didn't make sense. Moving past him, Lisa headed into the kitchen to get a corkscrew from the kitchen drawer.

"Well, considering the business you're in, I hope that's not the case." The fact that she was the person he came to when he wanted to get at Jackson - just like Eric had - was far from comforting. And, the fact that he kept mentioning it wasn't helping her ignore it as much as she'd like to. "That's because it's a lie." She meant to only think it, but it had come out as a quiet mumble. Stabbing the corkscrew into the top of the wine bottle with more enthusiasm than intended, Lisa cleared her throat. "Party. Right. That's not really my scene."

"Oh? A lie, huh?" He looked over the living room mildly. It was all so... normal. "Just a little thing, then. Nothing fancy. I don't really drink, anyway."

...When was the last time he saw a dining table that wasn't a fold-out one or missing a leg? Or a couch that wasn't stained. Clean walls, family photographs.

It was disgusting.

"So, uh... mm," he leaned in to look at a picture, saw a stick in a girl's hand, "Field hockey, huh? Don't strike me as the, uh, type for that kinda sport."

If they were being honest, she wasn't all that interested in just quality time with the Joker, either, but taking him out into the party scene was definitely a bad idea. She looked up from uncorking the bottle to see him investigating her house. Well, at least with him, she could supervise. Jackson hadn't bothered to so much as knock. Actually being asked about her past was something new.

"Yeah, I played through high school - what makes you say I'm not the 'type'? I was good." She laughed off the last part, trying to keep it from sounding like too much of a warning. Grabbing wine glasses from a cabinet behind her, she filled both halfway. "Field hockey and cheerleading," Lisa amended as she brought the two glasses over to where Joker stood. The bottle had been recorked, but the screw was mysteriously absent from the counter top.

He didn't like snooping - he liked knowing. Asking questions was the fastest way to knowing, too, so why not? It wasn't like she would lie to him - and even if she did, he really could care less.

If he noticed any potential threat in the way she spoke, or if he noticed the missing corkscrew, he made no effort to point it out. "I dunno," he shrugged, turning to face her, taking a glass vaguely before turning back to the pictures, "I just always remember seeing, y'know, big girls. Built like brick houses. Aheh, maybe I'm thinking of, uh, roller-derbies, though."

He turned and grinned. "So, how was it, being stuck to Jackson?" Throw a few hardballs between your straight pitches and things got interesting.

Straight to the point - Lisa couldn't berate him for mincing words. By now, the girl knew to be careful; she didn't show any immediate desire to drink from her own wine glass. His comment about field hockey did draw a laugh.

"Think of it like football. You need the big guys for defensive purposes, but there's something to be said for someone who's fast without sacrificing sturdiness." Which, of course, had been her - a fact that had apparently gone unchanged from high school. Ready to surprise, but hardly a pushover. His second question threw her off, however. The last person she wanted to talk about, let alone think about, was Jackson. After four painful days, she was ready to let it be over. Apparently that was too much to ask.

"It was... painfully unpleasant. Never a dull moment, really." Whether that was a good or a bad thing, her voice didn't betray. "He probably doesn't want me saying anything," the fact that she considered shutting up when there was no one here to see her and call her out on doing otherwise made her stomach churn. The Joker wasn't someone whose well being had to be watched out for - not like Maggie or Clint. Giving him information wasn't dangerous. "Someone came to kill him."

Oh, he liked her laugh. It was disarming - sweet, really. She was a smart girl with a nice laugh and a horrible tendency to draw the crazies out in droves. Terrible combination.

"Never much for sports. Didn't like the running - I was in chess club." No, but hey. It was something he could see himself doing, in some past where he was a geeky little schmuck. He took barely half a sip from his glass out of habit, not wanting to toss it back or make Lisa think he wasn't going to drink at all.

He pursed his lips, unsurprised. Wasn't he some kind of... psychopath? Made sense. People came to kill other people all the time. "Sounds like a nice time. Really knows how to, uh, show a lady a good time, huh? But, uh, if he doesn't want you saying anything, why are you going and telling me? After all, I've been known for being terrible at keeping secrets."

"Because, I'm not doing something just because he told me to." Lisa responded with more venom than she had intended. Taking a moment to recover, she drank from her glass. The wine was better than she expected from the Joker, and she was beginning to seriously doubt his motives for coming to Miami because of it. "I don't really play sports anymore - yoga, mostly." It was a peaceful diversion while she gathered her thoughts on the situation with Jackson and why she was explaining to Joker of all people. Did she really need someone to talk to that badly? She opened her mouth to speak, then reconsidered and shut it several times before she actually found the right words.

"Call me crazy, but I'm having a hard time getting used to this hostage business." Her voice was wry, "and being saved by Jackson isn't high on my list of ways I'd like to spend my weekend." Neither was having the Joker as a house guest, but she kept that to herself. Lisa was beginning to realize just how desperately she needed to get out more. "After four days of listening to him, I think I've earned the right to do the exact opposite."

"Ah, but yoga isn't a sport. Just an exercise." He never understood it, either - the poses were ridiculous and it didn't do anything. Oh well. He turned back to her, finding a way to lean against the wall, and regarded her mildly.

"He said you were a little jumpy, but he never mentioned all the spitfire you have going on for you." He took another sip - a real one, this time - and shrugged. "Mm, I think - I think I'm mostly interested because of the, uh, lookalike factor. You know, Dr. Crane and him. It's just spooky." He giggled and tilted his head. "Now, see, there's the rub. He said, 'aw, kill her if you want, Joker, I don't care,' but he does. Whoever said Mata Hari didn't leave behind some legacy for women of the next generations, huh?"

He looked over the pictures again, idly. "Keep in touch with any of your, uh, field hockey teammates? Maybe your, ahah, sorority sisters?" Yes, he remembered that bit about the bunny suit.

"Jumpy? He called me jumpy?" The fact that it bothered her was strange. She quickly moved on from the question so that she was able to shove it to the back of her mind, all the while trying to appear nonchalant. "I don't know who Mata Hari is, but I've got the sneaking suspicion it's insulting. But, I hope your friend Dr. Crane isn't as... incorrigible as he is." The sheer amount of time Jackson apparently spent discussing her with other people in threads she couldn't see was a terrifying thought. She really needed to get with Maggie and learn some basic hacking skills.

"I don't really keep in touch with any of the people I met in college. I'm not the same person I was when I graduated." Two years ago, she might have said differently, but it became easy to alienate people when your personality was completely rewritten. "People change and grow, you can't hold onto the past forever." Maybe it was advice she should take. Maybe it was advice she should give Jackson. Another pointed drink from her wine glass followed this train of thought - a longer one, this time. She needed it.

"No no no no no, Mata Hari is the epitome of a compliment. Well, I suppose, depending on how you look at it. She was a spy in World War II. You should look her up, get some tips."

He began to pace around the room, going slow enough so Lisa would be able to keep her back from him - he knew how little people liked to leave their back to someone they were afraid of. If she was even afraid... "Dollface is worse than Jackie, I'm sorry to say. Be careful not to let him get his hands on you." After all, Jackson was doing such a good job by himself.

He took to idly flipping through the mail on her end-table, not really paying attention to any of it, glancing up at the comment about the past. "Oh? Not big on the, uh, backstory either, huh. Girl after my own heart. Never much for the past either. Too much baggage, really, better to just - better to toss it all out like garbage."

Leaning her back against the wall that Joker had been at before he took a turn about the house, Lisa watched him. It was an unbelievable site - the Joker, dolled up in his makeup and his dirty purple suit seemed so out of place in her tidied, sterile home. And, yet, somehow, it wasn't entirely unsettling. For some reason, Lisa couldn't shake the feeling that he really hadn't come to hurt her - that he was just a cat declawed.

"I'll google it," she told herself she wouldn't really, but curiosity often got the better of her in these situations. "And, thanks for the advice." Now that definitely sounded strange. "Why are you being nice?" Straight to the point, then. "You're not... you're not exactly a nice guy. A nice guy wouldn't trick Maggie like you did and drive her half crazy, but you're..." Not scary? Staying safely in the zipcode of normalcy? A relief from the time spent with Jackson over the virus? "Not acting like someone who would do that." So, why did you? "I don't buy for a minute that you're simply misunderstood." Oh god, she really was like him - always asking probing questions, wanting to know. Her stomach churned, and another, more enthusiastic drink of her wine followed.

And he hadn't come to hurt her - not this time. This was just a warning for Jackson, maybe for Lisa too, not that she really needed one. He could and would find them, if he really wanted.

Ah, directness. A good thing, really. "Oh, she told you about that, huh?" An exaggerated sigh as he flipped through a magazine - so boring. "And here I was hoping to be her dirty little secret. I guess not everyone plays by the same rules." He took a sip and grinned wide, ignoring the pull of the stitches. "I did it to prove a point - one that, uh, utterly went over Mr. Gavin's head. Are they still together, by the by? In whatever sense they were to begin with."

He settled down onto the couch, making a dissatisfied noise when it didn't creak under him. Clean, clean, clean. "And no. I'm not always such a nice guy." He pointed at her mildly, still smiling, "I just like to switch things up every so often. It gets so, uh, boring if you just play one note over and over again."

There was the slightest of twitches in her brow when he sat down. She made a mental note to call the steamcleaners - really, they'd just been there... Oh, right, Tommy and Maggie. Refocusing, she mustered a response.

"I don't know what there is between them, Maggie... never seems happy about it," shut your mouth, Lis', you shouldn't be telling him any of this - why was Jackson's voice at the forefront of her mind at a time like this? "What point were you trying to prove?" Good idea, Lisa, turn the spotlight back on him. Keep it away from yourself and Maggie, don't let him ask the questions. He's in your house. The fact that he just confessed to being unpredictable made her hand drop to her side, forearm moving slowly and, hopefully unnoticeably, behind her to touch the corkscrew in her back pocket to insure that it was still there.

He lounged on the sofa, a magazine from her mail open in his lap and his glass in hand. For all appearances, he was completely at home, even though internally he wanted to trash the place. Too plain.

"Tommy is a hard kind of guy to like," he said blandly, chalking up another win for himself in his private game with the firefighter. "I was just trying to prove... mm, that I could be perfectly capable of getting laid when I wanted too. Sorry for the, uh, crude language, but it's the truth. Maggie's a nice girl, so I don't regret it - but I'm just a little surprised that she hangs around an idiot like that."

He glanced vaguely over her, smirking. "Don't worry, I keep my promises." Putting his glass down for a moment, he tugged off his jacket and threw it at her. "Go ahead and look, no knives." Not in his jacket or his socks, but his shoes - well, he only had the one pair. And he wasn't about to stick a woman in the gut with his shoe. That would be rude.

She raised the arm she'd moved back to check for the corkscrew to catch his jacket, but she didn't look through it. Trust? Maybe. Pride? More likely. She set it on the table beside her, either way. Even if there were knives in it, he wasn't getting to them.

"I don't know, I think you just need to be patient with him. But, Maggie's pretty high strung. I think the combination makes it hard for them. But, they're trying, and that's what's important." She explained, taking another drink before continuing. "And, I'm assuming there was absolutely no malice toward Maggie or Tommy in choosing her as the subject of this point." There was irritation apparent in her voice, but it was better that she didn't try to hide it than to do so and fail.

"Believe me, Lisa, I've been as patient as a guy like me can be with him. He's just impossible." Maybe they just got off on the wrong foot. He didn't care, really. "Malice? Towards Maggie? No no no. I like Maggie, and I never sleep with a woman I don't like, anyway." He pointed at her, "I have standards, you know."

Tommy, on the other hand - it wasn't really malice so much as it was the desire to prove him wrong, to prove his stupidity. The man was irritating.

"Y'know, I'm kind of surprised at how... level-headed you seem to be, Lis. Er, Lisa, right? Sorry." He laughed lowly and picked up his glass to down the rest of the wine in one gulp. "Jackson seems to think you're a bit high-strung yourself, but here you are, keeping your cool and arming yourself, even! Very bold." Another fingerpoint.

Her body tensed even more profusely with every point of his finger, and she began to realize that she had gotten in way over her head with this one. Jackson, Jackson had standards. He had rules. Joker didn't. Joker did what he wanted, when he wanted, and he was smarter than he looked - dangerous by any standards. Calling her out on her acquiring a weapon just in case, knowing just what buttons to hit; she had to stop her hand from tightening too severely around her wine glass.

"But, you hurt her. Why would you hurt her if you like her." That didn't bode well for Lisa, considering Joker apparently liked her as well. Why had she brought this up? Oh, right, an attempt to be in control of the situation. "Jackson doesn't know nearly as much about me as he thinks he does." That was a lie. A flat-out, blatant lie, but one that made her feel much better about the fact that he had apparently been running his mouth up and down to Joker. She was hesitant to accept his last comment as an actual compliment - was it meant to be a threat? It felt like one. Intimidation tactics, maybe. No, he wasn't that thoughtful. "It's part of my job description to stay level-headed. Having to deal with Jackson is good practice, you could say." She tried to speak calmly, normally, but there was a slight pitch in her voice of fear.

"I didn't hurt her. If I remember correctly, she hurt me." He laughed throatily again, "I had clawmarks for a week. But no, I didn't hurt her. It's her problem if she can't accept that I was playing a completely different person. Joeseph liked her more than I ever would."

He could tell he'd hit a note, but he wasn't quite sure which one it was. Maybe he needed to bash his hands more carefully up and down the piano. "Jackson is obsessed with you. At least, that's what I got, from the few times I talked to him - plus our little conversation during that truth thing."

He stretched his arms over his head, joints cracking from his knuckles to his shoulders. "Jackson is also nothing like me. I think you probably know that by now, though, with that little, mm, lilt. And now, you're nervous."

The way he was talking about Maggie was disgusting to Lisa, and she didn't hide the fact. But, she was beginning to understand his goal. This was all a matter of taunting her, showing her that she should right well be intimidated by Joker just like she is by Jackson. What did she do to deserve this? Had she been such a terrible person in a past life that this was all karma?

"You say that like I shouldn't be," She had every right to be nervous, the man was terrifying. "And you did hurt Maggie, you played with her heart and you know it." It sounded so childish to be reasoning with this to the Joker. She shut her eyes, trying to ignore the stabs at Jackson and how his obsession was not only unhealthy for him, but for her as well. Her work was really starting to be affected, and if this was any indication, her every day life as well. "Don't bring him up. Please, don't bring him up."

The Joker laughed, loudly, like a cackle, and rose to his feet, dusting off his vest easily. "No, you shouldn't be. If I was going to hurt you, I would have done it all ready. And I'm really sorry if Maggie's having conniptions over me having sex with her, but she enjoyed it and that's all that matters." He took to pacing again, a wide circle back towards Lisa, still looking over everything. When he glanced back to see her eyes closed, he frowned.

"Mm. He's done a number on you. Such a shame, you're such a smart girl, and here you are rabbiting over that effeminate idiot. Where's your spine, Lisa?"

His argument was valid enough. There was no reason to beat around the bush, but even wolves liked to play with their food. Still, it was reassuring enough for her to open her eyes and observe him moving closer. She tensed, finishing her glass of wine and taking it as an excuse to walk away, back to the kitchen to refill it.

"For some reason, that's not exactly comforting. And, I have a spine." Jackson hadn't quite taken that from her yet. She wondered vaguely if he had, would she be dead? The amusement factor would be eliminated. The very thought made her knees buckle together weakly and she was suddenly thankful she was behind the counter so that the Joker couldn't see that. "I'm not afraid of him. I've just had more than enough of him from this virus that..." Okay, she was afraid of him. Joker didn't need to know, she needed a better excuse. "That I just don't want to hear anymore about it."

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