This was just a random idea that popped into my sleep-deprived mind at eleven at night... I got it written in about forty minutes and became increasingly unhappy with it as I progressed. By the end of it, I thought it so cheesy and ridiculous I decided that I just had to share this with all my fans simply for the sake of seeing how appalled I could make you all :)

Okay, so that's a slight exaggeration, but really, I won't be too offended if you guys want to trash this one-shot, especially all you orthodox/pure Joker/Harley fans out there... This is practically sacrilege by you guys' standards XD Hell, this is a slight sacrilege for me even, which is exactly why I wrote it: because this scenario is so unlikely, so ridiculous, so wrong, that it really just needs to be put out there...

Oh hell, I'm waffling on and on. Damn, just read and see what you think XD

No Laughing Matter

Summary: One-shot. …She began to giggle, a touch hysterically and there was a nervous look in her bright blue eyes. He didn't appreciate it, didn't appreciate her mocking what had been such a difficult revelation for him. She should have understood, love was no laughing matter, especially when the angry boyfriend was a homicidal clown. BW/HQ


She hit hard for a girl. Bruce could feel bruises over his body, despite his armoured suit. But then, he supposed that was what you got when someone repeatedly slammed a steel construction mallet into your body. He supposed they at least made the claw marks on his face look mild by comparison, even if they did sting where his sweat combined with his blood.

As much as he hated it, he'd hit her back. At first, Bruce had gone after Harley with the best of intentions: bring her in peacefully, trying not to get bludgeoned with her mallet (objective failed) or eaten by her two eerily intelligent pet hyenas (objective partially achieved… One of them chewed on his arm before he punched it in its ugly snout) in the process.

However, after feeling the agony of a cracked rib and being chewed on by a hyena (he supposed at least he could make it a talking point with anyone who ever discovered his secret identity) and then spat on to top it all off… Well, Bruce decided on a new strategy. Kick Harley's nasty blonde ass to kingdom come and then bring her in.

Which explain why Harley was sitting handcuffed before him, shooting him furious daggers from her baby blues and no doubt mouthing off behind the gag he'd fixed around her deceivingly pretty mouth. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure her pet hyenas hadn't been the only ones chewing on him…

He wondered if he should get tetanus and rabies shots.

Well, what now? He supposed he should do what he usually did when he dealt with captured criminals and that was cart them off to either Arkham or regular prison, depending on which was the appropriate location.

However, his emotions weren't usually this involved when it came to the crooks he caught. Truth be told, Bruce just didn't want to turn Harley into Gotham's authorities, although every part of him knew it was the correct thing to do.

No, what he wanted was…

Well, it didn't matter what he wanted because it was impossible, immoral and quite likely lethal if Harley's precious Joker boyfriend were to find out. He was renowned for being insanely possessive of his little harlequin toy.

Suddenly, the very impossibility of what he wanted made Bruce angry. It hardly seemed fair: He was Batman, he saved Gotham from freaks like the Riddler and Two-Face time and time again, he devoted everything to this city, and as a reward, he got to watch as the only thing he'd ever truly wanted, ever truly cared about, paraded around after her beloved 'Mistah J', dressed as yet another costumed freak.

Abruptly, it was more then he could bear, more then he could tolerate in silence. At a loss as to what else to do, Bruce lunged forward and removed the gag from Harley's mouth.

"-feed you to the babies you goddamn son of a-"

"Harley!" Bruce interjected, having to shout to hear himself over her furious tirade, "Shut up!"

She looked even nastier and angrier then before, if such a thing was possible. She looked quite a sight too: her skin-tight harlequin costume was torn in places (Bruce was trying very hard to do the mature, good thing and avoid eyeing the more interesting placed revealed by her torn costume), her clown make-up was smeared beyond repair and her hair had escaped her hat and was plastered to her face in sweaty strands.

"Why should I?" She shrieked, "You jerk! Just you wait until I get free and shove my foot up your-"

"I want to talk to you." Bruce didn't speak very loudly, yet Harley heard him and suddenly fell silent. And, this was the amazing thing, stayed that way. Bruce saw the abrupt tension mingled with curiosity in her expression and knew she was listening. So, he took a bracing breath in and decided he was going to tell her what he'd always wanted to, but never quite had the guts to.

"Harley, do you really love the Joker?" He asked quietly, seriously. He crouched in front of where she sat propped up against a wall. It'd been snowing previously, she looked as cold as he felt.

The surprise in her expression was clear to see as she fully registered his question.

"W-what?" She stuttered, trying to shuffle away from Bruce (of course, she only saw the threatening Batman, not the lonely man beneath the mask). "Of course I love him! He's my boyfriend!"

"Then why haven't you been with him for the last week?" Bruce asked, voice hard, "Did he try to kill you again."

Harley squirmed, angry Batman knew so much about her relationship with the Joker. She cursed the cold, icy morning she'd been found unconscious and bleeding in a ditch by the Caped Crusader. She also cursed the debt she owed him for saving her life and not arresting her there and then on the condition she came with him to a nearby soup kitchen to have something hot to eat and drink.

"No!" She protested fiercely, although her words didn't hold the confidence she wished for, "We had an… an argument and I decided we needed to take a b-break."

Her misery over the whole situation made her stumble on the last word. She tried to pass it off as stuttering because of the cold however.

"He threw you out again, into the cold." Bruce realised, not caring she heard the genuine sadness in his voice. "That's awful."

Harley bowed her head, knowing her lies would not avail with this man. She shivered in the cold and Bruce wished he had a jacket to give her.

"Harley, why do you always go back to him?" Bruce asked, "When he hits you, yells at you, hell, even tries to kill you sometimes!"

"Because you're a lot better." Harley drawled sarcastically, referring to the beating she'd obtained in the process of her capture. She didn't mean it literally, in the context Bruce would ever have hoped for, but her precise choice of words stung him into foolishness nevertheless.

"I am!" He declared, hurt and angry at her words, "And always would be!"

Both of them registered the exact meaning of his unguarded and careless words at the same time. Bruce froze and his eyes widened as the full ramifications of his slip of the tongue hit him. Harley froze as well and her mouth fell open. A moment of shocked, horrified silence engulfed the pair and Bruce felt a fresh snowflake land on his chin. He saw another melt in Harley's hair.

"Harley…" He trailed off, not sure where else to go besides the painful, revealing obvious, "I… That's why I don't want you to go back to the Joker… I lied and not just to you, to myself too… I'm not just doing the decent thing and trying to save your life just for the sake of doing so… I, um, I'm pretty selfish actually. I only keep helping you and saving you because…"

He had to take a breath and force himself to finish. Even then, the significance of his actions, of his next words were an almost agonising sensation of fear and worry against his heart.

"Because I love you." He said lamely, thinking to himself that this was perhaps the most pathetic moment of his entire pathetic life and it hardly seemed fair to go through this sort of thing when he was no longer a teenage boy with hardly any confidence to talk to girls.

And then, what he'd been dreading happened.

She began to giggle, a touch hysterically and there was a nervous look in her bright blue eyes. He didn't appreciate it, didn't appreciate her mocking what had been such a difficult revelation for him. She should have understood, love was no laughing matter, especially when the angry boyfriend was a homicidal clown.

'Oh fuck!' His eyes widened as he realised what he'd just thought. Her boyfriend! The Joker! What was he thinking?!

The whole 'angry boyfriend' scenario was bad enough, but this was the Joker he was trying to steal a girl from! Although he normally had no fear for himself where the Clown Prince of Crime was concerned, he had to admit, the idea of a righteously angered Joker, out to get revenge on his arch-nemesis (that would be him, Batman) for attempting to grab his girl…

Well, it was not a prospect that had him jumping up and down in excitement. More like wanting to bash his head in against the nearest blunt object.

And then, Harley suddenly stopped giggling. The unexpected silence shook Bruce out of his train of thoughts and he looked over at her.

"I'm cold." She said simply, shivering uncontrollably. He saw her lips were turning blue and reprimanding himself for not taking better care of her, quickly undid her handcuffs and helped her to her feet.

"Better?" He asked gruffly, trying to veil the emotions in his eyes.

"N-no." She stuttered faintly, shivering even harder then before. Her skin was very pale and even through his gauntleted gloves, very cold. "I feel sorta woozy…"

"You're suffering the onset of hypothermia." Bruce said out loud, half to himself. "You need to get warm straight away."

"We're on t-top of a b-building…" Harley had to struggle for words now, "H-how'm I s'pposed to get d-down? My l-legs fell all frozen and I w-want to sit down again."

"You can't or you might get even worse…" Bruce bit his lip as he realised what the immediate solution was. It was as if the fates were mocking him. "I need to share my body heat with you."

At first Harley gave him her trademarked 'I dare you sunshine' look. But then, there was a bitter, icy gust of wind that cut her to her very core like a knife. Without any further ado, Harley practically threw herself at Bruce, grabbing onto him like a drowning person onto a rock.

Bruce wrapped his arms around her, feeling her violent shivering against his body like seizures. He peeled off his gloves (wincing at the sensation of them being revealed to the winter night) and pressed his warm hands against Harley's back, just under her shoulder blades. She was a tiny thing; both his hands nearly covered that portion of her back when he spread his fingers.

"A little b-better." She murmured, pressing herself closer to her foe turned saviour. Then, she turned her head upwards, looking up at Bruce beseechingly.

That was where things sort of fell apart. He'd been able to take her physical closeness, even her sad, oddly appealing vulnerability. But the sight of her pretty face, pale and beseechingly turned towards him…

Well, that was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Without even consciously thinking about it, Bruce's hands had moved to cup her face and even worse (well, better really, but then, he wasn't supposed to be doing this), he found himself with his lips crushed against hers, kissing her desperately and ferociously.

Harley jerked in surprise and Bruce came to his senses and pulled away from her. He stared at her in wordlessness, frantically trying to think of what he was supposed to say at a moment like this.

And then, like a phantom, she took a step forward and it was her lips searching his madly, her hands on his face. Her taste was a bizarrely beautiful one of mixed greasepaint, honey and something else, something unique to her lips perhaps.

Bruce suddenly gave in, just shut out every sense that screamed of the entire scenario's wrongness, and let his emotions engulf him.

Still without him consciously controlling his movements, he found himself pressing Harley into the wall, his hands searching her delicate, beautiful face and resting there, every bit of him shooting into awed overdrive at the mingling sensations of her smooth, cold skin and her warm, soft lips. It was dizzying, and adding in the feel of their tongues dancing against one another… He swore it was going to make him lose any vestiges of sanity he had.

This was no laughing matter, he really did feel in danger of losing his mind at that moment.

Then, it suddenly ended. The abrupt loss of Harley was agony and sweet relief in equal measures. Bruce blinked, trying to let the icy weather clear his mind of his confusion and remaining insanity. Eventually, he regained control and fixed his sight upon Harley, who stood before him with an odd expression on her face that was a combination of guilt, surprise and a sort of elation, much like his own.

"Better." She said lowly and a little huskily, "A lot better."

"Does this mean you won't go back to him?" Bruce demanded desperately, feeling the cruel sensation of a foolish hope.

Harley gave him a sad, pitiful look.

"Don't ask me that… I love him, B-man, I do love Mistah J and what I just did to him was wrong."

Bruce felt the use of her usually mocking nickname for Batman like a punch to the gut.

"He doesn't love you."

"He does you know." She shook her head angrily, "All you cops and so called heroes, you say horrible things about him, that all he ever does is laugh and laugh and hurt me! It's not true, okay, he loves me! I've seen him cry… I… What we have is no laughing matter, but it's not a bad thing!"

Bruce settled a serious look upon her face.

"Then where does that lave you and me? Was that a joke?"

"No…" Harley seemed uncertain, nowhere near as certain as a moment before, "You know you're a nice guy… I haven't had many of them in my life before."

"You don't have to let it stay that way." Bruce said, realising he needed to leave before he said anything more damaging then he already had, "I'm always there if you and the Joker… If you ever need me."

"Yeah I know." Harley said brusquely, "Saving me, like a stupid white knight."

"Dark knight actually." Bruce said, walking to the edge of the ledge they stood upon. "I look terrible in white…Will you be alright now?"

"Don't push it," Harley replied with a teasing smile, a smile he loved, "I like nice guys… But don't push it. I don 't want to get sick of you."

"Funny, that sounds like you intend to see me again."

"Maybe I just like to know you're there if I need you."

"Of course I am." Bruce gave her a lingering look that Harley almost blushed under, "I'll always come when you need me."

"How will you know when I need you?" She asked in amusement.

"I'll keep an eye out for you Harley." He said over his shoulder, facing out into the swirling winter Gotham Knight, "I'll be here if you ever need me. I promise."

"Sure thing B-man."

Suddenly, he hesitated and looked back at her.

"What are you going to tell… Your boyfriend?"

"Nothing." She replied in a tone that suggested he was an idiot, "I rather like having all my limbs attached firmly to my body."

"Harley, don't let him-"

Before he could finish his sentence, Harley stepped forward and once more fixed her lips upon his. However, this time it was a brief contact and when Harley pulled away, Bruce realised he was teetering on the very edge of the ledge.

"This suit lets you fly right?"

"Sort of, but what-"

"Buh-bye." With what could only be described as an evil smile, Harley gave Bruce a sudden, hard shove. His feet fell out from beneath him and he was sent careening into thin air, forty stories up. His suit didn't let him down, it slowed his fall, even if it couldn't stop it.

So, without fear of death or injury, Bruce let the fall take him, let the night air rush around him, closing his eyes. With the rush of icy wind came the return of his little inner voice.

'Wrong, so very very wrong.' It whispered in his ear, dissolving into the wind. Then, with a shock that seemed to travel all the way up his legs, he touched the ground. He stayed there a moment, crouched against the snowy concrete.

"I know." Bruce said quietly in return before opening his eyes to see the pale, smoky bat-symbol that had appeared in the sky. He studied it for a moment, wondering what had happened.

Then, he straightened up and walked towards his hidden Batmobile. Harley may have been no laughing matter but then…

Neither was what he did. It was as Rachel had told him so many times, seemingly a lifetime ago:

Whilst Gotham needed him, there could only ever be Batman; there could only ever be the Caped Crusader. That had stopped him from being with the ones he loved so many times, had even killed them in the case of Rachel. But now, he finally knew perhaps there was someone he could share that portion of himself with, however fleetingly and infrequently.

The sense of relief he felt as realised that, speeding towards the MCU building…

That was no laughing matter.

-Tries to look unassuming but keeps eyeing that pretty little button that says 'review'-