Disclaimer: I do not own anything of this genre. Not the cannon characters, the place, the situations, or any borrowed script dialogue from the movie version, should that come up in later chapters. The only things I could potentially claim are my originals. Yup.

This could be a Joker/OC romance. We have to see how it plays out. Depends on the mood the writing takes. It wouldn't be a fluffy romance or anything. Something gritty to suit him, thank you very much. This is my first Batman-verse fic, so I'm a bit of a n00b. Sorry in advance. Any constructive pointers and reviews are, of course, always welcome.

Enjoyyyy. :)

"Oh, eww!"

Ann wrinkled her nose as she caught a glance of recent crime scene photos that had recently been shipped in by Gotham's finest. They clearly weren't the worst ones of the bunch, but some of the more... indecent fellows down there were willing to fork over some of them to the press to get the word on the street what these mob hands could do to you. Her co-worker, Frank, glanced up, noticed that she had seen them, and hastily tucked them back in the nice little cream coloured envelope they had been sent in, a frown on his face.

"If you don't like looking at them, then don't. Nobody forces you to see them."

"I can't help it when we pretty much sit on top of each other," she snapped, squeezing her way back into their shared cubicle with a hot cup of coffee in one hand, and an issue of Vogue in the other. Seriously, this print out was where she wanted to be. Or some other distinguished fashion mag. Writing for Gotham Times, essentially doing grunt work in the crime section with Frank, wasn't exactly what she had in mind when she finished university.

She was a fresh graduate, twenty-one, and had left the local university with a degree in English literature (PS: twas mind numbingly boring, but worthwhile), a minor in interior design, and some dabbling in fashion, and most of her professors claimed she was a damn fine writer. In all hopes of jumping into the fashion elite, she had sent applications off everywhere to magazines that suited her taste, only to have them reply with meagre payment and low-level support staff positions. Not like it was anything better than she was doing at the Times, but at least the pay was enough to let her afford her decent apartment with a few of the downtown mainstreet. You know how hard it is to find a stupid apartment that wasn't facing another one? Plus, the better paying job allowed her to continue to splurge on clothes whenever she wanted, plus it got her great experience. Once she worked her way up to single reporter – not a shared position that she had with Frank – maybe some of the old magazines in the fashion world would take her a little more seriously. Besides. She was in a serious department, you know? Crime was big in Gotham – duh – which meant there was a huge group of people working the four solid pages dedicated to it for each weekly edition, freshly printed every Sunday thank you. Frank and Ann were two of the many interns that would edit, transcribe recorded interviews, occasionally get to write a small blurb here and there, and follow real reporters to press conferences and the like. It was just so exciting. Thrilling.

Ann had grown up in Gotham. Crime no longer held a huge appeal to her, seeing as she had become somewhat oblivious to it. It had hardened her stomach, and made her somewhat unaware of the rubbish that went on around her. Mobsters used to deal in her neighbourhood growing up. She and her sisters were pretty much convinced that there was a genuine mob guy living right next door to them, and gunshots hailing down between cars were... well, decently normal. Thankfully none of that had changed her love for clothing, fashion and design. She saw beauty in them, frankly. Although she probably could have left Gotham to go somewhere more... fashion-oriented, what would be the fun in that? May as well give back to the community that raised her, and perhaps help some of the less fashion-savvy folks of Gotham realize their full potential.

That and she didn't have the fucking cash to live somewhere like New York or Paris. Sigh.

So yeah. Here in the crime department. Frank and her 'minor' boss – a guy who really didn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things, but was clearly better than them – was a big mob junkie, and all the interns knew that should they get something good for him that involved the mob, he'd do them a favour in return. Bit of a blatant pervert, in Ann's opinion anyway, but Frank was keen on working his way up in this department. The stocky fellow had an uncle who worked in the police department, and after months of bribing and whatnot, they had managed to find a cop that would send them mob-hit photos and the like. It always made great press, and since most of the press weren't allowed in at a crime scene, it meant the Times generally had the best photos. No one knew how he got the pictures, and to be honest, no one cared. No one really cared about anything but results here, and that meant Ann got to stay out of the limelight, seeing as most people saw her and Frank as one singular slave that would do whatever they pleased. Ehh. Ann was more the writing chick. She was a good photocopier too! Could do a big ol' stack in under ten minutes if the copier was free. Which is usually never was, so apparently it's nothing to brag about.

Her desk looked nothing like the rest of the desks in surrounding cubicles. There was a clear distinction as to where her desk ended and Frank's started, because there was a huge pile of papers cluttering up his side. Hers was immaculate. Clean as a whistle. She had a thing about her area being clean, and usually spent a good ten minutes every morning undoing what the cleaners had done the previous night. Seriously. If she arranges her pencils from sharpest to dullest beside her laptop every fucking day, is that not a hint she likes it like that? Clearly not.

One can assume that the desks were a clear indication of how different Frank was to Ann. He didn't mind going a few days without showering. She showered at least twice a day. He worked best under pressure and mess, she preferred to have everything done well in advance. More time to read magazines, clearly. Somehow they managed to be friends. Even their appearances were different. Frank was short, a little on the heavier side, and somehow had managed to miss the acne stage in his youth and was getting hit full force with it now. Poor guy. Ann, on the other hand, was slim – one must be to work fashion, honey – with lengthy blonde hair, green eyes and completely clear skin. Facials are a miracle, no matter what Frank thinks. Poor fellow abhors them! He dressed in frat boy t-shirts – STILL! – and any range of lengthy shorts, sweats and old jeans, always with the same pair of running shoes. Ann liked to not wear the same thing for at least two weeks. She varied between comfortable and constricting shirts, skirts, jeans, dress pants, and all types of shoes. Do you now see where a lot of her pay check goes? Yes.

Flipping open her copy of Vogue lazily, she skipped the contents pages to the editors comments, reading it religiously while absently sipping her coffee. The little article about a robbery at a corner store – all details had been given by a very cute police officer – was finished on Tuesday (now Thursday) and was due Saturday, which meant there was nothing else to really... do. Sure, she would be an eager beaver and jump right into a new project, but she figured she may as well wait for her assignment next week. Frank had a similar assignment this week, but as usual he was sucking up to their superior and was getting information on the latest mob dealings. She had a sinking suspicion that he had a mole working the inside, but that was only a theory, one that she did not care or want to prove.

Suddenly, Frank's cell lit up, vibrating noisily near her elbow, and she glanced back, annoyed that it had somehow wandered onto her side of the desk. He grabbed it hastily and answered, his voice low. Somebody with information, no doubt.

"Food here yet?" she asked absently. She only did it to pester him, knowing that it wasn't the delivery company asking for directions for the umpteenth time, but someone probably more important. He waved her off irritably, the pen in his hand scribbling something down at high speed. His writing was only barely legible, and she had given up trying to decode it ages ago. However, the intensity on his face could be seen in the reflection of his computer screen, and she swivelled around the best she could to get a good look at him. This had to be something important. Setting her coffee down, she closed her magazine and waited patiently until he finished, her eyes occasionally darting about to make sure that no one was becoming more interested in their cubicle than usual. It helped that they were tucked neatly in the corner. Most of the time they were looked over.

The call lasted a good seven or eight minutes, in which Ann lost and regained focus a few times. It was hard to pay such solid attention when he wasn't giving her any physical signs as to what the call was about. Finally, he set the damn thing down and turned to her, his chair squeaking in the process, "We've hit the motherload, Ann."

"What?"

"My guy... My guy found out where all the bosses are meeting!" he hissed with barely contained delight. "You know all the bank seizures lately? How Gordon's been taking in all the mob's money?"

"Of course," she lied confidently, vaguely remembering being filled in on that during a meeting that she had sort of... slept through at the beginning of the week. Police chief Jim Gordon was taking back mobsters' money from biased banks. Or... something.

"Well, according to my guy, they're all pretty fucking pissed off about it."

"Fair enough," Ann mused, shrugging her shoulders. She'd be pissed if people were suddenly taking away all her money too. "But what does this have to do with us?"

"He got us details on the place they're having the meeting!" he nearly exploded, his face going that slightly reddish colour it did whenever he was excited. "He gave me details of the building, how to get in, how to avoid being seen, and where to hid if we were to, say, listen in on all their plans!"

She stared at him blankly, her mind finally clicking in with where his was going. When she finally remembered to blink, a laugh slipped past her lips, "Are you fucking serious, Frank? You want us... me and you, two people clearly in the prime of their physical fitness, to go trapsing around some building to spy on mobsters?"

"We could have it made around here if we got good stuff!" he pleaded softly, leaning forward, "My guy gave us the safest way in and out, up a garbage shoot, and we'd be in the background the whole time. It's tomorrow night-"

"I'm not spending my Friday night lurking in some dark trash can just so we could potentially hear something, then have a higher potential to get shot! No!"

"It'll be journalistic gold," Frank whispered, placing a hand on her arm. "We could get automatic promotions for doing something so risky-"

"If we get something decent."

"And think of the story they'll write!"

"If we get something decent!"

"You could finally be something more than just... you! You could get a seriously good recommendation from the higher ups, and maybe they'd put in a good word at Gotham's Vogue office, or something!"

Hmm. Now there was a thought. She nibbled on her lip lightly, cocking her head to the side, "You think?"

"Fuck yeah," he replied enthusiastically in something of a whisper. "We tell no one, then we come back from a little snooping with the best damn story this department has ever seen! They are all so grateful that we get promoted, and you can put in a request to transfer somewhere more... you know, fashion-y."

Tapping her fingers against her chin, she eyed him, knowing that he would probably say just about anything at this point to get her to go along with his little scheme.

"Get a better game plan than 'we go hide in a room after climbing the garbage shoot', and maybe I'll consider it."

Maybe.