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in4ctivee3 · 2 years ago

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Broken Pieces

‣ Pairing: Ledger!Joker/Jack Napier x GN!Reader

‣ Summary: You’re burnt-out and overwhelmed and you’ve finally hit a wall. Now, all you can seem to do is fall apart. Good thing you have a special clown who knows just how to put you back together!

‣ Genre: fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, soft!J

‣ Warnings: burn-out, overwhelm, emotional breakdown, negative thoughts, feeling like a burden, lots of tears.

‣ Word Count: 3,050

‣A/N: This is dedicated to my lovely friend, @jslittlebirdie! I told ya I’d get around to writing you something eventually! I know you’re overdue for a proper break, and while I wish I could better help you carry the weight of life’s burdens and give you the true rest you deserve, I’m limited to just how much I can do. I hope this helps, even just a little. I love you, Sukie!💜

‣ Have an idea for a fic you’d like me to write? Send a request here. But first, make sure to read my Request Info!

L!Joker/Jack Napier Masterlist

Main Masterlist

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Heavy sobs and messy sniffles had long replaced the silence of your bedroom as you sat curled up on the bed with your face buried in J’s pillow. You were sure he wouldn’t appreciate his pillow being soaked with your tears, but it happened to be the first thing you reached for at the start of your breakdown, his scent always helping to calm you down whenever he wasn’t around. If you closed your eyes, you could almost imagine him there with you. As for the tear-soaked pillowcase, you’d be sure to wash it later before he got home, whenever that would be…

Jack had been gone for a week now, unleashing his newest schemes upon the city of Gotham. This meant you were home alone, which wasn’t really a problem for you. You had a lot of your own things to do during the time of his absence, so you planned on being busy and distracted anyway. The problem was, you were already overwhelmed and burnt out before you had dived into completing these tasks, and after multiple days of trying to push yourself through your to-do list, you finally hit a wall.

Cue you curled up in a ball on your unmade bed, your salty tears staining your beloved’s pillow as you simultaneously worried about all the things you should be doing while also remaining helplessly stuck in your place. You were utterly exhausted. Yet, the cruel voices in your head continued their endless loops of degrading words, telling you that you’re a failure, a disappointment, you should be doing better, you’re never going to get anywhere if you keep sitting on your ass, why can’t you just get up and do it already?

Your hands gripped the pillow harder as you cried, feeling like there was no escape from the overwhelming hell you were experiencing. All you wanted to do was curl up in J’s arms, knowing he was the only one who could quiet your mind and make everything better.

As if some divine force had heard your yearning desire and generously granted your wish, you heard the familiar sound of the front door opening, followed by J calling out to you in a singsong voice.

“Honey, I’m home!”

Instead of the usual comfort you’d feel upon hearing his voice, you suddenly felt a wave of anxiety fill your being. You couldn’t let this be the first thing he came home to after working so hard all week. Before you could think of anything else, your legs began bolting it towards the bathroom across the room. You quickly locked the door and leaned against it, closing your eyes as you tried to gain control of your breathing.

Jack had happened to see a flash of you go by as you ran to the bathroom and raised a quizzical brow at the sight.

“Hm…So we’re playing games, are we? I see how it is…”

He dropped his large purple coat and suit jacket on the edge of the bed before walking over to the bathroom door. He tried the handle, only to let out a huff once he discovered it was locked. Swiping his tongue over the edge of his scars, he glared at the wooden door that stood between him and his love. Immediately, he could tell something was wrong. You always ran to him when he got home and practically smothered him in hugs and kisses —that which he always secretly looked forward to. Never had you run away from him upon him getting home. This was enough to set his nerves on edge.

“I don’t think I like this game, doll. Open up.”

Hesitating to speak for fear that you’d give yourself away, you took a shaky breath as you stared at yourself in the mirror, trying hard to suppress the tears that continued to flow from your red and puffy eyes. You had to find a way to pull yourself together, and fast. This is not how you wanted to be reunited with your love after he returned home from such a long trip. You could talk about your problems later. For now, you wanted to welcome him home and hear about all of his latest antics that you’d only briefly heard about from the news. You loved how excited he got whenever he told you about such things. Seeing that alone would surely make you feel loads better. You quickly tried to spit out an answer, hoping he wouldn’t be too suspicious.

“S-Sorry! I’m just…g-going pee! I’ll be out in a minute!”

Jack did not buy your lie, rolling his eyes as he leaned his shoulder against the doorframe with his arms crossed against his chest. He knew you were in there crying. He could hear your muffled sniffles and unsteady breathing. It made him practically vibrate with agitation; protective alarms going off in his head as he tried to ignore the part of himself that suddenly wanted to murder whoever could’ve hurt you and focused his attention instead on getting through the stupid slab of wood in front of him.

“Sweetheart…If you don’t open this door, I’m gonna have no choice but to blow it wide open.”

“You wouldn’t do that. I’m in here…” You mumbled, your voice managing to sound a bit more stable that time. But it wasn’t nearly enough to convince him that you were okay.

Jack snorted in amusement, though his tone remained overall serious. “Don’t tempt me, doll. I will take down this door one way or another.”

You took a deep breath, a final attempt to calm down and get a hold of yourself. While you’d barely managed to stop the tears, your red and puffy eyes, along with your runny nose, were a dead giveaway that you’d been sobbing for the last half hour. Realizing you wouldn’t be able to make this disappear, as well as the fact that Jack’s patience was wearing thin, you decided to try your best to appear like you were fine and opened the door to the bathroom.

Jack remained leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed as you quickly pressed a kiss to his cheek before scurrying across the room, his eyes following your every move with close observation

“Welcome home, baby. I’m sorry; I’m really busy. I have to get this work done before the end of the day. Just give me a minute to sort through some things.” While this was an excuse, it wasn’t technically a lie. You hoped J would believe you and leave you be for just a moment so you could better compose yourself. One wrong move, and you’d be a heaping pile of tears all over again.

As you stood there, pretending to sort through the papers and notes on your desk, you could feel Jack’s footsteps growing nearer. His silence was deafening. Oh, how you hated it when he got so quiet. It always meant he was onto you.

To avoid what was to come, you began rambling about anything that came to mind, trying your best to direct his focus to anything else but you.

“How was your day? Did things go well? I saw you on the news earlier.”

“Doll…”

J was growing increasingly frustrated with the way you were behaving. He knew that you knew just how well he could read you. He had practically become an expert at understanding all of your little emotions and how best to handle them. So why were you still trying to hide from him? Surely you didn’t think he was so stupid as to fall for whatever trick you were attempting to pull on him…

“Oh, I found the tie you were looking for last week! I put it in the-”

Before you could say another word, Jack let out a growl and grabbed your wrist, tugging you to his chest and holding you securely in place. Carefully brushing a strand of hair out of your face with one hand, he examined your features closely. You stood frozen in place as his firm eyes softened a little. He let out a ‘tsk’, followed by a heavy sigh.

"You know I'm not a patient man, doll."

This was true, except when it came to you. Jack had always shown a lot of patience with you —as much as he was capable of giving. It remained one of the many ways he showed you just how much he cared about you. But such patience did not extend to moments like these, where you actively tried to avoid him and hide yourself from him. He hated this. It made him angry, but more than that, it made his heart ache. And he didn't like that one bit.

“M'sorry,” you muttered quietly, looking away as you felt the tears begin to fill your eyes again.

“Uh, uh. Look at me,” J ordered. Your lip quivered as you looked back at him. His eyes were much softer now as he bent down a little to reach your eye-level.

“Don’t apologize. Just tell me what’s wrong. Can you do that for me, toots? Hm?”

“If I do, I’ll fall apart,” you said, your voice cracking as you desperately held back the lump in your throat.

“I’m here. I’ll put ya back together.”

You whimpered at the soft tone of his voice, paired with his thumb gently grazing over your cheek. So badly did you want to fall apart in his arms, and now he’d given you full permission to. You could no longer resist the one thing you’d been needing during your entire time apart.

The moment you melted into his embrace, the floodgates re-opened in full-force. Jack wrapped his arms around you tightly as you spoke through your sobs, telling him all about your week without him and how much you’d been struggling. When asked why you didn’t tell him sooner, you responded by saying you didn’t want to be a bother. A bother? Jack’s brain glitched as he tried to understand why you would ever feel this way. Despite this, he remained silent as you continued to talk, and felt a twinge of pain in his chest as he realized just how much you’d needed him this last week. He felt guilty for not being there and angry at himself for not recognizing sooner the severity of your burnout and overwhelm. If he had just paid more attention, he never would have left you alone in the first place.

You could argue that you were just good at covering things up, but that wasn’t an excuse for J. He held himself to quite a high standard with you, knowing that someone like you, someone willing to ignore his massive flaws as a person and love him anyway, deserves so much more than the minimum that he could give. Jack knew he wasn’t able to give you a lot of things that he wished he could, but he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to find every other way he could to please you and make sure you were well taken care of. And whenever he failed to keep you happy, as presented to him in moments like these, it tore him apart inside with anger and guilt. Although he’d never tell you this, you could see the swirling emotions behind his eyes which told you all you needed to know. That he truly did love and care about you more than anything else in the world, even if he didn’t always say it.

When you were done speaking, J let out a soft coo. “Sounds like my dove had a rough week. Good thing I know just what ya need.” He pulled away from the hug with a goofy smile, the same one he always put on whenever he was trying to make you feel better.

“What?” You pouted as you wiped your eyes, playing into whatever he was trying to get at.

“A break.”

His serious response quickly turned your pout into a frown. “What? No. I already spent all day doing basically nothing. I have to-”

“Noo, you don’t. You need a break. A real one.” He took your hand and began pulling you over to the bed.

“But-”

“No buts! Except for this cute little tush parking it right here,” he said as he pointed from your butt to the bed.

You stood silently and unmoving. Jack rolled his eyes with a huff and clapped his hands insistently.

“Ahem, get a move on! Or do I, uh…have to make you?”

Knowing there was no way you could possibly win against J’s demands, you slowly climbed onto the mattress. You sat awkwardly with your legs pulled up to your chest and looked up at him through your eyelashes. J kicked off his shoes and removed his vest, tossing them both to the side. He took a glance at you and shook his head, letting out a light-hearted scoff as he loosened the tie around his neck and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt.

“Ya know, if you weren’t so dang cute, you’d be annoying. Now scooch!”

You made room for him as he climbed into bed. Once he was positioned with his back and neck supported by pillows, he turned to look at you.

“Well? What are ya looking at? Get over here,” he said, arms opened wide towards you.

Jack felt the air leave his lungs as you immediately dove into his chest, a breathless chuckle passing through his lips as he wrapped his arms around you and pressed a kiss to your hair.

“Alright, listen up, toots. Ya can’t keep chugging along without proper breaks-”

“You do that,” you muttered into his chest.

“Ah, very funny, sassy pants…Well, you should know better than to compare yourself to me. I’m not exactly what one would call a, uh, “good example”,” he said, smirking slightly at your pouty attitude.

“Now, before I was so rudely interrupted, I was gonna say that ya need to take better care of yourself, doll. That pretty noggin can only take so much at once, you know. Same goes for your body. And if everything is too much and ya can’t handle it, you need to tell me. I don’t like this whole “hiding how you’re doing” schtick ya got going on. So it better stop. Oh, and you’re not a burden. Not to me. So, get that out of your head. Got it?”

You nodded and sniffled into his neck. One of his hands ran up and down your back comfortingly while the other cradled the back of your head.

“Good.” There was a moment of silence before he spoke again, this time much softer and less stern. “Ya know…If you told me sooner, I would’ve come home right away…You know that, right?”

“But there’s nothing you can do. And I didn’t want to interfere with your plans,” you spoke, your voice wavering in a way that made J’s chest hurt.

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, toots. See, I may not be able to take all your problems away, but I can help where I can. Even if it’s just to make sure you get proper breaks. Or to give ya a good squeeze.” He hugged you tighter in that moment, making you giggle. Jack smiled at this, having missed the sound of your laugh up until this point. He pressed a soft kiss to your temple, leaving a small trace of red paint in its place.

“You’re more important than any of my plans. You come first, doll.” He pulled you away so he could look into your eyes once more and playfully wagged his finger in your face in a reprimanding manner. “So ya better call next time. Capiche?”

“Capiche…”

“Good…Now, uh, where’s my big smooch? I can’t wait forever, ya know.”

This elicited another giggle out of you as you eagerly leaned forward and pressed a fervent kiss to his lips. When you pulled away, you were smiling. Jack grew even softer at the sight.

“I missed you. Thanks for always putting me back together. I love you so much, J.”

Instead of responding with words, Jack showed you exactly how he felt by cupping your cheeks and pulling you into a loving kiss, followed by a bunch of sloppy kisses all over the rest of your face. You laughed, which only egged him on more. He chuckled as he continued until he felt satisfied with his work. When he finished, you had little marks of red and white paint all over your face and a big smile. Jack held your face between his hands and looked at you like he was admiring a piece of art.

“Beautiful,” he murmured. You almost melted into a puddle with how tenderly he was treating you. Heat quickly rose to your cheeks as you suddenly found yourself shy under the ardent gaze of his eyes.

Burying your face into his neck, you snuggled into him as close as you possibly could. He smelled like a mix of gunpowder, smoke, sweat, and gasoline, but you didn’t care. In fact, by now, you found this smell to be comforting —something you always missed whenever he was gone. It was a unique smell that belonged only to your J.

You relaxed into him, allowing yourself to let go of your worries and stresses for the time being. As long as J was around, you could trust that everything would be alright. Jack would always watch out for you; he’d always keep you safe and do what was best for you. Above all else, he’d be sure to pick up all the pieces of you and stick them right back where they belonged.

As J shushed you softly while gently running his fingers up and down your spine, you surrendered to his will and drifted off to sleep, knowing that he’d have you and your worries sorted out by the time you awoke. Whatever pieces that remained would be handled together. For now, all that mattered was Jack’s slow breaths and steady beating heart as he held you tight in his arms.

No matter how many times you fell apart, he remained the only true fix, for his love was the glue that the broken pieces of your soul so desperately required.

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#this was so lovely #and so comforting🥺#ledger joker #ledger joker fics

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