Hiiii! First ever post! I wanted to start off by introducing my cringe self insert. I made him at first just cause I like clowns and wanted to make an OC to date Nightwing, but like many of my cringe self inserts I overdeveloped his story and accidentally made a whole AU centered around him. I’ll make more posts about the cannon characters soon, but enjoy his backstory :3
Joker was looking for a new plan that would hopefully both prove his “love” to Harley and finally get him even with the Batman. The Batman had recently started working with his first ever Robin, eight year old Dick Grayson. To the Joker, this was unfair, so he decided to get his own child sidekick. Joker made his way to the broken down apartments surrounding crime alley and after finding a neglected little seven year old kid alone in their apartment he made the next logical move, waited for their parents to come home, murdered them and took the kid home. He decided on the name Clown, telling Harley they were their new son! Of course the Joker did a number of unethical things, like never taking the kid to a single school building for any reason that wasn't for a plot, trying to bleach his skin (he was stopped by Batman on multiple occasions but Clown always ran back to his father), and training him specifically for the purpose of one upping Robin. There were times he was good, or well, bare minimum. He was accepting when Clown came out as trans at the age of 9 (he hadn’t even realized Clown was AFAB in the first place), he fed him proper meals most days, ensured he wasn’t thrown in Arkham (much easier considering he was a minor), ensured he wasn't homeless (at least not for log periods of time) and even provided some emotional support (though poor) when needed. But like a lot of Jokers plans, it wasn’t as effective as he had wished, no matter what he did, Robin was always better than his Clown, so he scrapped the idea. He didn’t kill Clown, he had become oddly attached to him and liked keeping around someone eternally loyal to him, just stopped paying attention. Clown continued pursuing Robin though, in an attempt to prove to his father he was worth the attention but ended up just creating a secret friendship with him, even learning his secret identity at some point (Bruce will not learn this until far later he simply thinks Clown is just friends with both Dick Grayson and Robin and is HEAVILY against it for obvious reasons). Clown sort of filled his days with spending time with Harley, the Hyenas, and sneaking out to go see Dick whenever he could. After Harley left, taking the dogs he picked up hobbies like painting or writing, slowly seeing Dick less and less until he had left to become Nightwing. In the period of years Dick had “died” and done all of his antics with Spiral and the court of Owls Clown ended up moving from home. He stayed with Harley some days, sometimes stole some money for a hotel for a few days until one day (at around 22) he started this odd love/hate relationship with the Riddler (only about a year or two older than Clown and Dick in this AU). They lived together for a while and were pretty on and off until Nightwing was back, Clown left Eddy to move to Blüdhaven and start following Dick around again. He stole the occasional wallet from tourists and managed to scrape together enough money to rent a pretty shitty apartment. He spends his time now just bothering Dick both on and off the Hero clock. They eventually developed a small tradition where Dick buys Clown dinner just as a way to ensure he eats at least once a day. This went on for a year or two until slowly Dick began to realize how Clown was struggling (could barely pay rent, no heating/AC, very little food, ect.). After one night in winter where Clown nearly froze to death and had to be taken back to stay at his apartment, Nightwing very slowly moved Clown's things into his apartment by trying to get him to stay more and more overtime. Eventually Clown had just fully moved in and after a few emotional conversations about their childhoods, what they missed in those years apart and Clown's admission that he didn't like doing his father's bidding (was always clear to Dick anyway), the two slowly began to start a relationship together. They now live together in his Blüdhaven apartment and are currently working on trying to track down Clown's legal documentation and get him a normal life.
