(Disclaimer: According to the existentialists, I am wholly free and exclusively own myself. I do not, however, own the Titans. So much for philosophy, I guess.)

-Chapter One: Greasepaint and Slapstick-

Perched on the rooftop of one of the many waterfront warehouses in the Jump City shipping district, Robin stared out into the night with the aid of a pair of night vision binoculars. He scanned back and forth, watching for any sign of a disturbance in the next shipping yard over, the very picture of focussed patience. Years of working with Batman on similar stakeouts had made him perfectly at ease with these kinds of waiting games—the other Titans, however, had not had the benefit of that training, and were growing increasingly impatient. As one, they looked up from their game of euchre at their leader. They had all had enough.

"Hey, Robin, come on, man, what's…" Beast Boy began, but Robin shushed him with a wave of his hand.

"Friend Robin, are we not meant to…" Starfire attempted, but again, Robin shushed her.

"Rob, jeez, when are we going…" Cyborg tried, but Robin silenced him with a ferocious hiss. Still, despite such an obvious expression of his irritation with his teammates, it was only a matter of moments before Raven also decided to break the silence, and with a bit more success than the others.

"Okay, I'm used to meditating for long periods of time and all, but we've been here for five hours and nothing's happened," she complained. "This is pointless. Let's just go home."

This was the last straw for Robin, and he turned to glare at his team for a moment before returning to his vigil via binoculars.

"This is what a stakeout is, guys," he snapped, still keeping the binoculars pressed to his eyes. "It's all about waiting. And you're right, nothing has happened yet, and who knows, nothing might happen all night, but if something does happen we have to be here, so just sit tight and shut up."

"But do we all have to be here? I have to get my beauty rest," Beast Boy whined.

"For once, I actually agree with Beast Boy," Raven added, with a slight tone of incredulity at this unlikely turn of events. "What's so important about this shipment that we all have to guard it? If you like this stakeout stuff so much, why don't you do it by yourself?"

"Not an option," Robin stated simply. "This is a Wayne Enterprises shipment coming in, and aside from it just being good business to help protect the interests of one of our main financial patrons, this is also a very serious shipment."

"Serious? So this 'shipment' will not be telling jokes?" Starfire asked with her usual mild confusion regarding colloquial uses of otherwise innocuous words. Robin sighed.

"No, Star, I meant that the contents of the shipment should be taken seriously, because they are very dangerous," he explained, his tone softening somewhat for the alien.

"What kind of dangerous?" Cyborg asked. "I know Wayne Enterprises deals with some pretty heavy-duty stuff in some of its divisions, but what exactly are we dealing with, here?"

"Chemicals, and some nasty ones, too," Robin replied. "They're heading for a research facility in Gotham where they'll be used in tests that might end up being a breakthrough in cancer research, but if the wrong people got their hands on them first, well…" His voice trailed off, leaving it to his teammates' imaginations to fill in all the horrible possibilities.

"And this anonymous tip you got said that some 'wrong people' were going to hit the shipment as soon as it landed tonight, I assume," Raven guessed. Robin nodded.

"It didn't say who it was, exactly, but it hinted that it was a pretty heavy hitter—not someone the usual security team would be able to deal with," he said, still with his back to the other Titans and staring out through the binoculars. "Only a hint, but still it's better to be safe than ankle deep in toxic chemicals."

The other Titans grumbled a little, but realized that Robin had a point. They knew from experience that it made their jobs much easier when they nipped things in the bud rather than sitting and waiting until some madman had already fully developed his crazy scheme for world domination or whatever. Mollified, they settled back into their game, which Beast Boy was eerily good at, having managed to euchre Cyborg and Raven no less than three times in the past five hands. Unfortunately for him, his nearly mystical skill was perfectly matched by Starfire's good-natured but nevertheless misguided attempts to play along, and she had cost the two of them four out of the last six games. In every case, Beast Boy's masterful playing had left Cyborg and Raven far behind and he could have almost tasted victory, but suddenly Starfire seemed to just pop out of nowhere and ruin every single one of his plans, allowing the other pair to not just catch up to them, but overtake them and steal the win in only a few short hands. This caused Beast Boy no end of frustration—he doubted he would have been able to lose so spectacularly even if he tried. He glared across at Starfire, but she misinterpreted his look, either because of the darkness or because of her natural naiveté, and grinned widely back at him. She then promptly got them euchred. Twice. Beast Boy groaned.

"Dude, this is unreal—isn't getting a euchre supposed to be rare in this game?" he asked nobody in particular. "How the hell does Star get us euchred twice in a row?"

"Hey, who are you to talk? Before that, you euchred us three times," Cyborg snorted. "I didn't hear you complaining then."

"Yeah, well, those three weren't all in a row, and besides, they were all due to my mad card skills," Beast Boy shot back.

"I guess you finally had to be good at something," Raven muttered, and Cyborg choked back a laugh. Starfire didn't appear to have heard.

"Hey!" Beast Boy cried. "That's not…"

"Quiet!" Robin hissed. "Something's happening."

The prospect of finally getting some action in a night of otherwise unmitigated boredom cleared all thoughts of petty bickering from the Titans' heads, and they quickly dropped their cards and joined Robin at the edge of the rooftop.

"What did you see?" Cyborg asked as he used his mechanical eye to magnify his view of the neighbouring shipping yard. "What am I looking for?"

"It's more what I didn't see," Robin replied, somewhat cryptically, before explaining further. "I've been watching the guards make their rounds ever since we got here, and so far they've always followed the same pattern, but one of them just disappeared—I have no idea where he went."

"Could someone finally be making a move?" Raven asked.

"Maybe. The guards might be changing their sentry pattern, or maybe I just missed the guy," Robin admitted. "No, wait—I just lost another one."

"Where?" Cyborg said, trying desperately to get his bearings and suddenly wishing that he, too, had spent the last few hours on the lookout like Robin had.

"Sectors 21 A and 36 C," Robin told him. "Shit! Now I've lost one in 38 D!"

"What are those, bra sizes?" Beast Boy asked as he hopped up and down behind his taller friends to try to get a better view.

"No, genius, those are sectors in my mechanical eye's field of vision. Robin's probably got them memorized," Cyborg replied, taking a brief moment to wonder anew at the spiky-haired boy's ability to retain any information he came across. "And from the way they're arranged…oh, man. Whoever it is that's grabbing the guards is making a beeline straight for the warehouse with the Wayne shipment in it."

"Dammit! Titans, GO!" Robin shouted, and leapt off the rooftop, his teammates close behind him.

OOO

Holding up a hand to silence the other Titans, Robin edged hesitantly around the corner of the warehouse door to get a look inside. The door was one of those large, nearly completely square ones that transport trucks would back up against in order to load or unload. The segmented steel door was raised up along its tracks, lost in the darkness above Robin's head, leaving the warehouse completely, tantalizingly open. Even so, it was almost pitch black inside, and all Robin could make out were the vague outlines of support beams where they were struck by the combination of moonlight and the artificial light from the light posts outside that streamed in through the doorway. He grunted in mild consternation.

"Okay, this is probably a trap," Robin informed his team in a businesslike manner, as though this was nothing out of the ordinary, and really, for the Titans, it wasn't. "Move in, but take it slow, go cautiously, support each other, and don't even think about letting your guard down for even a second."

The Titans nodded and followed his orders exactly, slipping silently into the warehouse. Robin took point, and the others fell into formation behind him with a practiced ease that could only come from years of working together, relaxed yet still alert and wary, all their tools and powers primed for use on a moment's notice—they were ready for anything. However, despite this their as-yet-unseen adversary still had a surprise for them, and one of the warehouse's hanging lamps suddenly flared to life, casting a small circle of light onto the ground only a few dozen feet away. In this small patch of light sat three human shapes, and by the look of their uniforms they were the missing guards. They were slumped forward, facing away from the Titans, and Robin beckoned them to follow him as he circled around to get a better look at them, being careful not to get too close to the lighted area. He soon wished he hadn't, however—cold dread seized the pit of his stomach and his whole world seemed to fall out from under him as he saw their faces. Their distorted, grotesquely smiling faces.

"Oh, no," Robin whispered. "Not him…"

The other Titans looked questioningly at their leader, but before they could say a word a voice called out of the darkness, playful in tone but bone-chilling nonetheless.

"Robin, my boy! How good of you to join the party!"

Another of the warehouse's overhead lights flickered on, revealing the speaker to be a man dressed in an impossible lavender suit with a matching bowtie and a shockingly bright green shirt. Most shocking of all, however, was his face—his dark green hair contrasted sharply with his chalk white skin, and his bright crimson lips were twisted upwards into a perpetual toothy grin. He was flanked by a slim woman dressed entirely in a red and black jester's outfit, as well as three men who could only be referred to as goons, and while they were significantly less colourful they more than made up for it with sheer size.

"Oh, wonderful! You've brought your little friends with you as well! What are they called again? The Teen Titmice?" the Joker continued, his red lips twisting into an even more outrageous smile.

"Oh, man…is that who I think it is?" Cyborg asked quietly, and Robin simply nodded, his eyes fixated on the monster in front of him.

"What's the matter, Robbie-kins? No hug for your Uncle Joker?" the clown joked, but Robin simply continued to glare.

"Friend Robin, I do not understand," Starfire interjected. "Who is this strange person?" Robin opened his mouth to reply, but the Joker beat him to it.

"Oh, forgive me, I've forgotten to properly introduce myself," he apologized, and took a deep and overly theatrical bow. "Some call me the Clown Prince of Crime. Some call me the Gangster of Laughs. Some call me Maurice…"

As if on cue, one of his henchmen pulled out a small trumpet and blew two notes, the sound of which might accurately be transcribed as "mwah mwaaaah", and the Joker dissolved into manic laughter, as did his moll, Harley. The three goons laughed along, albeit rather confusedly—they didn't get the joke, but they had worked for the Joker for a long time and knew what was good for them.

"Oh, that's a killer, boss," Harley managed between fits of laughter. "I never even saw it coming!"

"Hah, yes. I've just been dying to use it, but I'm hard-pressed nowadays to find someone who doesn't recognize me—I guess stepping out of dreary old Gotham for a spell was a good idea," the Joker cackled, but then stopped and eyed the Titans thoughtfully for a moment. They weren't laughing.

"It seems, though, that some people don't appreciate the lengths I go to for a good joke," the Joker said accusingly.

"Maybe they didn't get it," Harley suggested with a shrug. "Kids these days, eh, Mr. J?"

"By Jove, Harley, I think you've put your finger right on the button!" the Joker exclaimed, clapping his hand against his forehead. "That particular joke, while it is a damn good one, is targeted at a slightly older age group! I've completely misread my audience! How could I have been so foolish?"

"Aw, don't sweat it, Mr. J," Harley consoled him. "Everyone has their bad days every now and then."

"I know, I know, but still, if this gets out my reputation will be ruined!" the Joker moaned, devastated. "Harl, Mo, Lar, Cur—you won't tell anyone, will you?" Harley and the three goons shook their heads vigorously.

"Not us, boss! You can count on us!" cried one of the goons, who was likely the one called Mo, judging from his bowl cut hairstyle.

"Oh, thank you, it's so good to know I have people I can trust," the Joker gushed melodramatically, but then he turned to look at the Titans and his expression soured. "Them, on the other hand, I'm not so sure about."

"Oh, I'm sure you can think of some way to take care of them, puddin'," Harley said with a knowing leer, and with this the Joker brightened.

"'Take care of them,' eh? Take care of them! Harley, my dear, you've done it again!" he cried, and then pointed at the Titans and grinned. "Kill them!" he commanded gleefully.

Mo, Lar, and Cur, along with Harley, began to advance towards the Titans threateningly, their faces adorned with various degrees of sneers, but suddenly Starfire, who had been deep in thought, spoke up and interrupted them.

"So, if I am to understand you correctly, your name is…Maurice?" she asked, pointing at the Joker. "And you are Friend Robin's uncle? But then why would you seek to kill him, when only moments ago you wanted a hug?"

This stopped Harley and the goons in their tracks. Refusing to believe what they had just heard, they turned to stare back at the Joker, as much to see his reaction as for new orders. The Joker, meanwhile, stared at Starfire, his mouth hanging open in disbelief for several seconds before he was able to recover. When he did, it was to once again dissolve into uproarious laughter.

"Um…no, Starfire, he wasn't being serious just now," Robin whispered hurriedly. "His name isn't really Maurice, it's the Joker, he isn't my uncle, he just always calls himself Uncle Joker, and he didn't really want a hug—he most likely wanted to kill us from the start."

"But then why go through all of that?" Starfire asked in confusion. "Why not simply attack immediately?"

"Well, it's because he's just totally insane," Robin explained. "Everything is a big joke for him. That's why he set everything up so dramatically, and…"

"Oh, that's rich!" the Joker interrupted, tears of merriment streaming down his face. "Classic! Simply too perfect! I think we have a live one here, boys! I had no idea that anyone could be so completely, utterly dense!"

"Ummm…I apologize, but I am confused once again," Starfire stated, chewing her bottom lip and blushing with embarrassment. "I am indeed alive, and Tamaraneans do have a greater muscle density than is natural for humans, but I do not see how this is at all relevant to the current situation." In response, the Joker simply started laughing all over again, and Robin found himself begin to blush in embarrassment as well.

"Starfire, those are actually figures of speech," he whispered to her. "He was…well, I hate to say it, but he was calling you stupid." Realization dawned on Starfire, and she frowned.

"I see," she growled through clenched teeth, and turned to face the Joker. "Mr. Joker, while I am unfamiliar with many Earthly ways, I am not stupid, and I take offence to your suggestion that I am."

"This just keeps getting better!" the Joker giggled, and Starfire's eyes narrowed.

"I believe in mercy, however, so I will give you the opportunity to apologize for insulting me," she continued, but the Joker just keeled over laughing. He rolled around on the ground, kicking his feet wildly, gasping for breath between fresh waves of laughter.

"Apologize? Me?" he managed to get out. "For creating such a hilarious gag by accident? I should get a medal!" Starfire's face contorted in an uncharacteristic snarl.

"Very well," she stated simply, and launched herself at the clown with a cry of pent up aggression being released.

It all happened in the space of a moment: Starfire streaking towards the Joker, Robin calling for her to stop, that it wasn't safe, Harley and the goons rushing in vain to defend their boss, and the Joker…the Joker just smiled.

"Too predictable, kiddo," he whispered, and tossed a grenade made up in his likeness in Starfire's path. It exploded, releasing a cloud of opaque yellowish gas that blocked all sight, and although she could see the Joker's minions quickly toss on gas masks out of the corner of her eye, in her surprise she could not help but gasp, and got a lungful of the vapour. She plummeted to the ground, coughing and wheezing.

"Starfire! No!" Robin screamed, but his training took over and he found himself putting on his gas mask before he even realized that he had taken it from his belt. "Raven, cover Cyborg and Beast Boy, I've got to get Starfire out of there! That's Joker toxin!"

"Don't worry about me," Cyborg said, waving away Raven's offered telekinetic shield even as she enveloped Beast Boy. "My air filters are having to work pretty hard, but they've got it covered. I'm good to go."

"Fine, Cyborg, you're with me. Let's go!" Robin shouted through his mask and darted into the cloud of gas, Cyborg in close pursuit. They found Starfire on her knees at the feet of the Joker, who was cackling like the devil himself.

"Too late, Boy Blunder!" he shrieked. "Your little girlfriend just got a full dose of my toxin! She's as good as dead!"

"Starfire!" Robin shouted, ignoring the insane clown's ranting. "Starfire, it's alright, we're going to get you help," he consoled her, then turned to Cyborg. "Cy, get me a full chemical analysis of this gas—we're going to have to…"

"Ugh, what is that smell?" Starfire muttered, interrupting Robin's orders. "I believe I am going to have it stuck in my olfactory organ for at least a full seven-day cycle."

"What? Starfire? You're okay?" Robin asked incredulously, and the Joker, if anything, was even more surprised.

"You mean you aren't finding things very funny right about now?" the Joker inquired cautiously. "Because that's really what I was going for."

"No, no, but this gas does smell like forn'r'thax," Starfire replied. "I like forn'r'thax just as much as the next Tamaranean, but too much can be quite oppressive."

"Forn or what? And my Joker toxin does not smell! I assure you that it is quite odourless," the Joker insisted.

"It is forn'r'thax, Mr. Joker, and while I am sure that your gas is indeed odourless to humans, it certainly smells like forn'r'thax to me," Starfire informed him. "In fact, I would have difficulty not recognizing its smell—it is considered a delicacy on my native world of Tamaran, and its scent is very distinctive."

"Wait, so this stuff smells like food to you?" Cyborg asked, and Starfire nodded affirmatively. "And it isn't having any particular effects on you at all?" Starfire nodded again. Although it was hard to see under his gas mask, Robin grinned, both in relief and anticipation, and turned to the Joker.

"Well, Joker, it looks like you've tipped your hand—Starfire's immune to your gas," Robin said. "And now you've got five very annoyed superheroes to deal with. I'd say that puts you at a disadvantage, wouldn't you?"

The Joker swore colourfully and threw a handful of razor sharp cards, all of which missed except for one that stuck harmlessly in Cyborg's front armour. Muttering a few even more vile curses, the Joker then turned and ran, leaving Harley and his goons to the Titans.

"Hey, boss! Wait for us!" the goon probably called Mo called and ran blindly through the swirling cloud of gas which was only just now beginning to dissipate. Or rather, he only ran through the cloud as far as it took for him to slam himself into Robin's extended staff.

"Ah, a wise guy, eh?" said the goon who could only have been Cur. He had been following close behind Mo and had seen the whole thing. "Why I oughtta...lemme at 'im! Nyah, nyah!"

In reply, Cyborg simply drew himself to his full height and loomed over the enraged goon, who only had time to squeak in fright before he got clobbered by four hundred pounds of cybernetic super-teen. Lar and Harley, who had been a bit further behind, had time to skid to a stop and turn to run in the opposite direction, but from the sound of it they ran right into Raven and Beast Boy. A girlish shriek, which could have come from either Lar or Harley with equal likelihood, was all that heralded the defeat of the last of the Joker's gang. A few seconds later the gas seemed to be swept aside by a rippling field of black energy, leaving everyone's view perfectly clear. Raven quickly surrounded the gas on all sides with her powers and compressed it into a sphere about the size of a bowling ball.

"Right, what should I do with this?" she asked, holding up the ball of deadly toxin nonchalantly in one hand.

"Put it in water. That'll neutralize it," Robin told her, then addressed the Titans more generally. "Is everyone fine? Good, we're going after the Joker. There's no way I'm letting that madman go free on my watch. Titans! Go!"

With that, Robin sped off in pursuit of the mad clown, the other Titans close behind him.

OOO

In a distant part of the city there was a room. It was pitch black, the only illumination coming from the glow of a single television screen, which cast strange shadows on the surrounding walls. This room, while of intense and immediate interest to those who currently occupied it, would not even be worth mentioning for our purposes if it were not for precisely what was on that screen.

"Titans! Go!" said the image of Robin on the screen, and suddenly he ran off camera with the other Titans.

"Computer, go to camera twenty-four."

The image on the screen changed, showing a different part of the shipping yard, just in time for the Titans to be seen running past.

"Computer, is the camera drone following the subject?"

:AFFIRMATIVE:

"Show me its feed, then."

The image on the screen changed once more, this time to a view of the Titans that followed along as they ran, showing them from the side with a slight downwards angle, as though the camera was racing along beside them on the rooftops above their heads.

"Computer, centre the view on the subject and magnify."

The image panned over a little and zoomed in so that Starfire took up the entirety of the screen.

"Perfect. Pause it."

The image of Starfire froze on the screen, and the source of the voice leaned in closer to get a better view, causing his face to catch the dim light from the monitor—while little detail was visible, his glasses were quite evident, and glared malevolently in the darkness. A hand reached up to touch the screen, trailing over the image of the alien girl.

"Perfect. Did you see that, Fulton?" the man asked rhetorically of his unseen companion. "Joker toxin is one of the most insidious poisons known to man, and the alien just shrugged it off like it was nothing. Cancer, AIDS, ebola, the common cold, virtually every disease known to man, and now Joker toxin, too—she's immune to them all. Now, more than ever, I know that she will be the key to the success of my research."

"Well, yes, Dr. Havelock, but then your experiments with that sample of her genetic material that you got from Cadmus have already shown considerable promise," said another voice, a female one, that must have belonged to 'Fulton'.

"Oh, please, Fulton. Experiments on nothing but cloned tissue are incomplete at best," Dr. Havelock chided her. "I need the original, or all my work will be for nothing."

"But doctor, wouldn't a clone be just as…"

"I need the original,Fulton! I need her!" Dr. Havelock roared suddenly, jabbing a finger viciously at the image on the screen. "My work will have no truth to it otherwise! No substance!" Fulton said nothing, and the doctor calmed down somewhat before continuing.

"I need the original," he repeated, "and I know just how to get her…"

-End Chapter One-

Author's Note: This is the beginning of my new serious story. Hopefully all will go well. While this chapter might not have suggested it much, aside from the good doctor's cryptic remarks at the end, this will be a fairly Starfire-centred story. This might be a bit of a stretch for me, because Starfire is not exactly my favourite character, so my characterization might be a bit off. Well, I'll just have to see how it goes.

No, the Joker won't be making any more appearances. My only real reasons for including him in this chapter were for the "some call me Maurice" joke and to go against something I've noticed in at least one other story that featured him—that is, that the Titans had to have Batman come to save them. I'm thinking of one story in particular here, but it's been a while since I read it so I can remember neither the title nor the author, and anyway, this isn't a "Hey, so-and-so, your story such-and-such was really stupid, nah nah!" kind of commentary. My only reason for mentioning it at all is that I would like to make note of my differing opinion about how the Titans would stand up against the Clown Prince of Crime. I don't think they'd need Batman. Batman has defeated the Joker many times, both single-handedly and with Robin's help, and while Batman is a genius and an incredible combatant, he's also just one guy with no superpowers. Replacing him in the usual "Batman and Robin" duo with not one, but four superpowered teenagers would still present more than a match for the Joker in a straight fight in my opinion (he might be able to get the edge using psychological warfare over an extended criminal campaign, but that isn't the situation here). I don't think the Titans' relative inexperience will make too much of a difference, because first of all, it's inexperience when compared to Batman, for God's sake, and second of all, I don't think they're really all that inexperienced by any comparison. They've been fighting together for, what, four seasons of the cartoon now? And there seem to be hints that the team was at least around before the first episode of the first season. Ergo, not really all that inexperienced. I mean, they took on a guy who was, for all intents and purposes, the devil. And beat him. Yeah, so that accounts for why I think the Titans would be able to beat the Joker, at least in this scenario. As for why the Joker wouldn't have realized this himself, well, let me once again split it into two arguments: one, as an adult, I'm sure it would be pretty easy to discount the abilities of a team of teenagers, which would have resulted in him wildly underestimating the Titans; two, he's crazy. This is the Joker we're talking about, here. His plans don't have to make sense—in fact, it's probably best if they don't.

Anyway, as I said, this isn't to say that anyone who thinks the Titans would need Batman to beat the Joker is wrong. I'm just saying that I don't necessarily agree. (Also, it seems kind of like Robin would be saying "Waaaaah! Surrogate Daddy! Surrogate Daddy! That bad man is doing mean things!", and that's just not the way I see him at all.)

Oh, and as just a quick aside, it really helps if you imagine Mark Hamill doing the voice of the Joker, like he did in Batman: The Animated Series. Honestly, it's some of the best work he's ever done. Including Star Wars. (Shit, I am so going to get flamed for that…)