Authors' Notes: Joker and Harley do not belong to us in any way. If anything, we belong to them XD; This story presented a unique problem in terms of formatting as it originated as a roleplay between the two of us. It was something of a challenge to convert into more of a story-like form and I hope we managed to pull it off.

Harley Quinn's parts were written by Quinn and Joker's parts were written by Ryn. The fight scenes that occur had to be combined into something a little less…"separate" to work and, thus, contain elements of both of us. I'm sure we've made some grammatical errors along the way, some by accident and some for the sake of style, so be gentle with us in terms of criticism XD

As far as setting and character interpretations go, this comes from a site which is set after the Arkham City/Harley Quinn's Revenge timeline with the obvious difference being Joker's survival. As a result, the versions presented have a darker, occasionally Nolan-verse twist to them. They're both little more damaged now, each in their own ways.

Her return to Arkham did not herald any positive energies from Harley.

Oh, sure. She'd taken out more than a few innocents, even burning a family out of their home- Joker had known she was fuming, and when she'd steered off on another path, he'd allowed her. (Or so she assumed. She really had paid absolutely no mind to anything except dispelling the angry energy coursing through her.) He had been right there, in her grasp, and she didn't even get to make him bleed- though she mighta cracked a few vertebra, if she was lucky. He'd run. Like the damned coward he was, he'd run, after completely refusing to come to terms with his own crimes. He still claimed he was a hero, and how fucking dare he?! His bad day- the singular bad day Joker professed could hold so much of a grip on one's 'sanity'- had come and gone, and he was in denial of it.

It sickened her, and as she slammed through the door to the stairwell, wielding her bloody bat as a warning to any who might be within her reach as she moved through their base of operations, she was hoping her men had something for her to work with. She wanted to sink her metaphorical claws into Bruce Wayne. That should fuck with the Bat a bit. In fact, her men better have something, or...

Harley froze. She blinked, expression becoming stormy as she realized that the room was...empty. No telltale red-and-black flashes of color that would point her men out to her. There was nobody. Growling, she promised herself heads would spin when they arrived. Winging her bat across the room, the harlequin wouldn't flinch as it slammed into the wall, instead making her way through to the room she shared with Joker. He didn't make her sleep apart from him, because, well, honestly, neither of them slept often enough for that to be an 'issue' as it had been in the past.

The crib was still in the corner, and she knew what it contained would give her the most twisted sort of comfort possible. Moments later, she'd retrieved the object, cradling it against her chest, gripping it as though it would keep her anchored to the earth. A doll, fashioned to resemble Joker, aptly nicknamed Junior in honor of their dead child, it was to this object that she always clung in her darkest moments. She couldn't trust that Joker would always be her willing anchor, he wasn't the 'clinging to' type, but this doll would never deny her. Pacing, back and forth, back and forth, she would clasp this doll to her chest, trying to count her breaths, calm herself down. Her time would come. Their time, their revenge- and she knew that, but she had forgotten that the moment she had taken the first swing at Batman.

There was the lullaby, she was humming it again, slowly beginning to calm down, focusing on her steps and the doll in her arms. She'd let him see her weak. She'd cried in front of him. Her veil still hung down limply over her features, and that- that showed him that she was still hurting. She realized this now, and why had she let him see that? It makes him underestimate me, she replied instantly to herself, although she surely had not thought of that then. This was justification to herself. She needn't do it for anyone else. If the henchmen who'd seen asked, they'd die, simple as that.

After their surprise run-in with none other than the batbrain himself, Joker was caught in an interesting spot. Oh he was downright giddy at the idea the masked man was back in the picture, even if he seemed way out of practice. Just what had he been doing while hiding? It didn't seem as if he'd been paying any attention to those typically troublesome skills of his. The gadgets remained a familiar presence, if a cheap escape. Perhaps little Harley's new skills had been more of a curve ball than either of them had expected?

Speaking of.

She'd gone on quite the little rampage. Joker had followed, casually, along as the girl carved out her path of destruction. The best part had probably been when the family came running, panicked, out of their burning home only to find Harley there waiting for them. Kids and all. The clown appreciated a good structural fire and had lingered a little while to watch, but he didn't really let her get too far from him. He'd let her indulge her anger...until they returned to the asylum compound.

He arrived maybe twenty minutes after she got there, strolling leisurely to the area they currently inhabited. A glance was spared to the looming mansion as he'd passed by and a thought was given to relocating. The asylum itself was familiar, he knew ever inch, but why shouldn't they enjoy every inch of the island they controlled? Especially if they were expecting future guests? The cells of the asylum itself would prove useful for containing said guests.

The first thing he noticed upon entering what passed for their main room, their little base within a base, was the emptiness. Not a single one of her men or his anywhere in sight. That wasn't unusual, really, he often left general orders for chaos, or encouraged them to pull smaller jobs on their own time. Although, for their sake, he hoped they were still working on the last set of orders he'd given them. He expected every scrap of information on the Wayne family when they got back. Until then, there were other things on his mind. Like Harley's little confession back in the alley.

He paused in the doorway, watching her in silence as she paced and effectively blocking the exit. Only when she seemed to have calmed herself would he speak, slow and lower-pitched than usual. "You surprised me tonight..." Not in a good way, oh no. It was a mixture of disappointment and anger that had been festering in him since he'd overheard her speech. It had been pushed away long enough to enjoy their meeting with the bat, but after that it had crept back in.

Harley knew he was there, oh sure- it was hard not to notice the lanky shape looming in the doorway out of the corner of her vision. Except, until her mind was straightened out- or until he deemed it necessary to speak to her- she wouldn't focus on him. This was one of those rare occasions when she needed to focus on herself. She was stroking the false hair of the doll, eyes distant and yet not, slowly working out in her mind logical reasoning for all she had done that night- like what she'd screeched at the bat. What she'd been unable to stop herself from saying.

It was the tone of his words that brought her back to reality. What caught her attention first was how low his voice was- and how slow he spoke. What she could assume from that was a brewing storm. After all, she knew his little ticks, knew how to differentiate a good night from a bad one simply by the tone of his voice. She'd endured a lot beside him, had seen sides of him nobody would ever see and live- nobody except for her. It only made sense, then, that she felt a huge sense of foreboding at his words.

And what was that she detected? Perhaps a bit of anger? A bit of...no. Seeming almost to ignore him, she crossed back to the crib, settling the doll in gently as though it were a real baby. She wasn't sure she wanted this conversation to go further, but she couldn't avoid it, and she knew it. If only she knew what was causing this, she might be a bit braver, but she couldn't remember the last time he'd taken such a tone with her.

She wasn't sure of what to say. She wasn't sure what to do, and as such, she did the only thing that came to mind- and perhaps the most dangerous, to be quite honest. She went to him. She reached for him, as though to embrace him, but stopped about a foot short- because something simply told her no, stop, something was...different. She'd become highly attuned to the man, and she knew that something was dangerously off-kilter here. Not that he was off-kilter, per se, but...she could nearly feel the thin ice she stood on. She couldn't manage many words. "Puddin'? What do you mean?"

Silence reigned while she stalled. His gaze, cold and hard, followed every little move she made. He didn't even spare a thought for the doll she'd insisted upon keeping as if it could replace what she'd - they'd - lost. It was not the same. Not by any stretch of imagination. If he burned it, would that destroy the delusion or destroy the girl? It was filed away in his mind as a possible course of action in the future, though the thing would likely remain safe unless the man was pushed to his own limit as far as temper went.

Finally, she turned, and came toward him as if to try getting her arms around him. He almost smirked when she stopped short. She knew. It had been a very long time since he'd fallen into such a mood. "Ohhhhh she doesn't know?" She wanted to play the innocent? Fine. They could do it the harder way, it didn't matter at all to him. If she wanted to subject herself to what she must know was coming, he could do that.

Joker stayed in place, making no move or gesture toward her just yet, "I gotta say...Haaarley...I'm a little...ah, hurt you'd tell the Batman," Volume spiked at the name of his nemesis, the word clipped and more outright angry than the rest, "more than you would me." Did she know he'd heard everything? Did she have any idea how long he'd been watching from the sidelines, hidden? He'd had his suspicions, given her behavior these past months, but no hard evidence.

He was abuzz with barely contained, violent, energy. The ominous calm before the storm. The man enjoyed the lead up, the tension that came when he would draw things out. In these moments he liked to watch her squirm, to watch the panic build in her eyes, until he finally struck. Then all hell would break loose. Their fights were nearly legendary in their violence, well above a simple domestic dispute.

Harley, herself, wasn't under any delusions about the doll. It was a doll. She knew this. It was something like a teddy bear to her, really. An item of comfort. Loss of the doll, hell, it would be one less thing to hold on to, but she wouldn't break. She was firm in her knowledge that the doll was not alive, was not the baby they'd lost. Still, she treated it tenderly. She treasured it. She had very few comforts left in this world; her hyenas were gone, brutally killed and stuffed by that shit-for-brains bird man. She'd lost Junior. Even Joker, in his moments when he would give in to her- he was never truly one for affection, and at least with the doll, she needn't worry about rejection.

She caught the slight flex of muscles around his mouth, though he wouldn't smile or anything close to it. He was a man fully in control of his facial expressions, after all. But his voice...it sent chills down her spine. She knew there were secrets between them, something that had never happened before his pseudo-death. That subtle shift, it had changed things, though for better or worse, Harley wasn't sure. Everything was more fragile than it had been before. She felt even less sure that she could truly be indispensable to him- after what she'd failed at, one of the biggest failures of her entire life. Even- and to flash back on her life before, it was rare, extremely so- even when she'd broken her ankle those years ago, ruining her gymnastics career, it had been nowhere near the failure of being unable to protect their son. It was something she tortured herself over. She had failed him, and she knew what happened when someone failed Joker.

Part of her wondered if he was biding his time, though she told herself over and over that his love for her made things different. She still had absolutely no doubts that he loved her, in his own way. But sometimes, love wasn't enough, was it? Oh, their special brand, their mad love, it had been through the worst kinds of hell and back...

His next words slammed into her, along with a realization- because there was one thing she'd said to Batman, right at the end of her little rant, one thing she hadn't told Joker. And he'd appeared so quickly after she'd finished- so... she took a step back. He had heard. He knew she'd wanted to die. Was he...angry? Over that? Honestly, she was ashamed, herself, in a way, but only because she had so blindly believed he had been killed. She should have had more faith in him. Pressing her lips together, she refused to turn her gaze, staying locked in his.

"It's in the past, Mistah Jay. I know it was a blind choice. I thought you were dead, if I had known..." She truly thought he was angry because perhaps it seemed she was partially attempting that as an escape. Death, an escape from him- as if she'd ever want to escape. She'd told him time and time again that she wasn't ever leaving his side. She damn well meant it. Tone defensive, she continued, "I wouldn'ta done it if I knew you were alive. You weren't showin' any signs of life- I thought the cure didn't take!"

If only she knew how off-base her assumptions were.