I was half drunk, a little tipsy, giggling into his neck, my lips brushing his skin. I felt the plane shudder to a stop and grinned. I tilted my head up to look into his eyes, still sharp and intense despite having drunken 5 glasses of wine. 

"We're in Venice!" I breathed "Can we go to a cafe? You should never drink on an empty stomach." 

He grinned, stood up with me wrapped around his waist, his hands on my back. He dropped me to the ground gently and I grabbed his hand. "Should we kill the pilots?" 

He brushed my lips with his thumb and shook his head. "No. Publicity. Look around." He extended his arms, motioning to the destruction around us. "We are...artists." 

I shivered.

 "And art deserves attention." He grinned widely. I responded the same way, looking up at him. 

"Come on then." We danced around the bodies to the exit, grabbing our bags as we went. We walked out of the plane together, hand in hand, the King and Queen of Gotham.

The wind was cold, whipping through my hair and his. We had landed at the airport, our lone plane glinting in the bright morning sun. Behind us was clear blue sea, a little way ahead as the main airport. Behind that were little roads and houses. A man wearing a bright orange vest stopped driving his transport truck and stared at us. I looked down at my clothes and then at the joker.

"J, we're covered in blood!" He made a throaty sound and started to walk towards the man.

"No problem" he murmured. I followed, intrigued.

"Ciao!" The Joker's voice was weirdly friendly, low pitched and calm. Of course that's what it sounded like, not what it looked like, as he raised a gun out of his shirt and shot the man right through the neck, spraying us with blood once more.

"Unless we want to shoot every person in Venice we had better get a change of clothes. Frost sent someone to meet us right here in about 2 minutes. He'll take us to our hotel. Then we can go wherever we want." 

I clapped my hands together. "Ooh, then we can go shopping! Or, you know, whatever you want to do." 

He breathed in deeply, then nodded. "We can go shopping. I need a suit from Venice. I've never had one, and I heard there's a man who has some magnificent tailoring." I grinned, just as a black shiny van parked in front of us. We left the dead guy in the orange vest in his small truck and got in, out of the cold.

I shimmied onto one of the light brown leather seats, all lining the walls of the van. We couldn't see the driver, but he said something inaudible that the Joker seemed to understand and agree with. Within seconds we were speeding off onto the roads towards the centre of Venice.

"Are we going to boat?"

"Yes, undoubtably." He said it slow, his bottom lip slightly lower so that I could see his teeth. "We need to experience the full Venice, don't we?" I nodded.

"The city of love...how exciting." He smiled for a split second, then turned to the front again. I reached forward and kissed the corner of his mouth.

Through the black tinted windows I could make out people walking, tourists clutching huge black cameras and hoisting them up to their eyes to take aesthetic pictures of bridges and bright blue, green, yellow houses on the grey cobblestone.

We turned, and stopped abruptly beside what looked like a dock. There weren't any more roads, just gondolas bobbing on the water, tied with brown rope to the wood. A man was walking up and down, and on seeing us, started towards the van. I stumbled out of the car, adjusting my eyes to the bright sunlight. The man, who I could now see was barefoot and wearing a loose faded yellow shirt and shorts, approached us and smiled.

"Hello there! I have been waiting. I will take you to the other side." 

He was unusually chirpy, motioning dramatically with his arms to lead us into the boat. I giggled and walked down the dock, the sound of seagulls and the faint smell of fish greeting me. I climbed into a long boat, wobbling as I stepped in and sat down on the side. The Joker was standing on the dock, and I grabbed his hand and pulled him in with me.

No one else was here, along the whole street, a total contrast to the hundreds of tourists and villagers bustling around who I had seen earlier.

"Where is everyone?"

"We bought the road for a while." I smiled. The sun was glinting over the water, a shimmery effect gliding over it. The barefoot man climbed in and sat at the front, grabbing his oars. 

He dipped them in the water and pulled back, sending the gondola forward and over the bright blue river, towards the other side. 

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