Warning(s): Child Abuse, Kidnapping, Blood, Cannon-Typical Violence, Mentioned Domestic Violence, Self-Harm, Drug Abuse, etc.
"P-Puddin'..." The Joker hardly stirred, not until she screamed.
"What the fuck, Harls?" He groaned, cracking one metallic blue eye to check the digital clock on the nightstand. 3:03 AM. Far too early to be awake and screaming your bloody head off, as far as the Joker was concerned. "Do ya even know what time it is, dammit?"
Moments later, Harley shuffled over to the bed, clutching something in her trembling hands. The coppery tang of fresh blood filled the room. "She... She's gone, Puddin'..."
Joker sighed, "What are ya blabbering on about, blondie?" And then, sitting up, he finally realized what it was that Harley was holding. "Dammit, did the little brat have another accident? Don't coddle the damn blanket like that, throw it in the fuckin' washer and come back to -,"
Harley let out a broken sob as she flipped on the bedroom light, "It's blood, Mistah J! Melody is -,"
His Queen collapsed to her knees, her body wracked with broken sobs as she tightened her hold on the blanket. Suddenly on his feet, the Joker strode past her and out into the hall, following the familiar path that would take him to their daughter's bedroom. Harley had left the door slightly ajar, so he almost missed the tiny, bloody handprint just below the doorknob.
Stepping inside, the scent of death was almost enough to make him gag. But if he expected a scene of absolute carnage... that certainly wasn't what he received. For one, there was only one body. His henchman sat in the rocking chair by the window, stationed to ensure that something like this didn't happen. The young man's throat had been slit, ensuring a clean kill - he wouldn't even have had enough time to scream.
Exactly as Harley had said, their daughter was just... gone. Not necessarily dead, though there was nothing to eliminate that possibility. How had someone managed to locate their hide-out, sneak in undetected, and make off with their loud-mouthed child and they were none the wiser? They'd trained her well for the very real possibility that this could happen. Though she was small, there was no way she'd go down without a fight.
And then, something caught his attention. "Hey Harley, c'mere a sec." When he didn't hear her soft footsteps approaching, he growled. "Goddamn it, Harley. Get your ass in gear and c'mere now."
Harley scampered over, pausing in the doorway. The look of terror in her eyes was almost enough to make him pause, "I can't go back in there, Puddin'... Please don't make me -,"
"That's not Mel's blood." He said simply, cutting her off.
Now it was Harley's turn to look confused, "What do ya mean, Mishah J?"
"Her sheets are white. Care to explain why, if the comforter was on her bed, the pink blanket absorbed all the blood and only a few drops got on the white sheets?" He ripped off the sheet and the mattress protector, "There's nothing on the mattress either."
Harley breathed a sigh of relief, before frowning, "Well, if it isn't her blood, then -,"
Joker frowned, "I'd put money on the fact that it's from that sorry sucker over there." He jabbed his thumb in the henchman's direction, "Most likely, all the blood from his neck wound was freaking out Mel -," he grumbled about not knowing how his child could be so afraid of blood, "so they used the blanket."
"My poor baby..." Harley mumbled, fear darkening her normally bright blue eyes.
If the blood was still wet enough to transfer easily, then it was likely that she'd been taken within the last hour. In other words, if they were using a getaway car, it was unlikely they'd made it out of the city. But that still wasn't good enough. Gotham was the embodiment of a city that never slept - thousands of people would be on the road at this hour. Without any other distinguishing information, the kidnapper would blend right into the early morning traffic.
Still, it was something, and it was the only lead they had at the moment. Pushing past Harley, the Joker exited the scene of the crime and went downstairs, frowning when he found his henchmen in the midst of a very heated poker game. At the murderous look on their boss' face, they wisely dropped their playing cards and stood at attention, waiting to hear what it was their boss had to say.
The Joker picked up one of the green poker chips, twirling it between his fingers silently. And then, "Do you know what happened tonight, while ya buffoons were sitting around playing poker?" He smiled eerily, before flicking the chip at one of the men's cheeks so hard it left an impressive bruise. "Huh? Do ya?"
"N-No sir." They answered meekly, shaking in their boots when the Joker's grin slowly fell. Wrong answer.
"Oh? Well, allow me to fill ya in on the juicy details." The Joker's hand wrapped around one of the young men's necks, squeezing so tightly that black dots crept in on the corners of his vision. "My brat is missing because somebody neglected to enforce my no visitor policy. Tell me, which of ya would that be?"
The man's eyes widened when the Joker's grip tightened, his eyes practically bugging out of his skull. "S-Sir... I didn't... I didn't know -,"
Joker sighed, "Ya know, there's only one thing I hate more than inept help... and that would be liars."
There was a sharp snap, and suddenly the young man's body fell to the ground, lifeless. The others, all relatively new themselves, looked on in horror. The Joker merely cracked his neck and gave a low, warning snarl. He wasn't in the mood to mess around anymore. Instinctually, one of the men reached for his gun, kept tucked away in the back of his jeans.
The cold kiss of metal to the base of his neck was all it took to still that movement, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, sonny." Like the flip of a switch, Harley's normally cheerful voice has gone deadly cold.
"Unless ya wanna see how fast my girl can blow your head off your goddamned shoulders, I suggest ya tuck it back in and behave." The Joker said, his eyes gleaming with bloodlust. Wisely, the boy took the hint. "Now, unless there are any other smartasses in the group... this is the plan."
The henchmen were to head off in four groups of two and form a blockade around the major exits of Gotham city. Any vehicles that looked the least bit suspicious were to be stopped and searched, and if the driver or any of the passengers proved to be non-compliant, the henchmen were free to use lethal force at their discretion. Absolutely any news regarding the child's whereabouts was to be reported to the Joker immediately.
Once they left, Harley visibly deflated, those bothersome tears returning to her eyes. The Joker rolled his eyes, "We'll find her, okay? Don't get all snivel-y on me. Save the waterworks for when ya really have something ta cry about."
Angered by how unmoved he seemed by their daughter's disappearance, Harley spat, "I don't think ya really care that she's missing at all. You're more upset that I interrupted your precious sleep than the fact that your child could be dead. I don't know why I ever thought you'd make a decent father!"
Joker, momentarily taken aback by her little outburst, almost didn't notice when Harley started to march toward the door. "And where the hell do ya think that you're going?" He snapped.
"Out." And that was all she said before slamming the door behind her.
"Talking like I don't l... lo... That I ain't fond of the kid." The Joker grumbled under his breath, sitting in the wreckage that was his daughter's bedroom. "The little brat knows how I feel about her..." after a moment of thinking over his last statement, he whispered, "Right?"
His eyes flickered over to the child's dresser, with a row of expensive porcelain dolls sitting on top of the cherry-wood surface. He was reminded of her last birthday, when he'd finally caved and taken her "shopping" in downtown Gotham. All she'd wanted was that damn porcelain doll, and had eventually snuck away from the Joker and his henchmen in order to steal it for herself.
Though he had warned her multiple times about wandering off on her own, she'd done it anyway in the hopes that he'd be so proud of her for her first real crime that he wouldn't remember her little slip-up. He could still hear the surprised little squeak she'd made when the back of his hand had connected with her cheek, which had morphed into a scream when the doll shattered beneath her and bits of porcelain pricked her delicate baby skin.
Melody... did he actually love her? Or did he just have a vested interest in keeping the child alive, for Harley's sake? There was no doubt in his mind that losing Melody would be the end of his Queen, so ensuring the child's well-being was in everyone's best interest in that respect. But there was something else as well...
"It's almost like I... like I..." here, he trailed off, unsure of the exact word he was looking for to describe the giant knot in the pit of his stomach.
When he'd shot out of bed and stormed the child's bedroom, what was it that he'd been expecting to find? Her body? Something constricted painfully in his chest at the idea of finding the blue-eyed toddler's lifeless body, and he quickly pushed the thought aside. A ransom note? Much more likely. In fact, he was kind of surprised that there wasn't one. What kind of kidnapper specifically targets a mobster's child and doesn't want some sort of recompense?
The kind that sees the bruises on the child's body and thinks that they're doing them a favor by rescuing them from an abusive household, perhaps? And maybe that was it. Maybe they didn't want to give the child back because they figured they'd be better off (read: safer) far, far away from him...
With an ear-piercing scream, the Joker rose from his seat on the bed and overturned the child's nightstand. Splinters of wood flew in every direction, the few trinkets unfortunate enough to be inside the drawer shattering when they hit the ground. Not feeling any better, he took one of the chunks of wood and used it to smash her vanity mirror, glass spraying down around him like a rainstorm.
Tiny pinpricks of pain lit up his arms, only serving to make him angrier. He could see her in his mind's eye, little bits of porcelain stuck in her delicate skin. Shards the same size would hurt her one-thousand times more than they could ever hurt him. Why did he always have to hurt her? Why couldn't he just... just tell her that he... he...
"Fuck!" He screamed again, this time bringing the hunk of wood down on his leg. Fireworks went off in front of his eyes as soon as it collided with his kneecap, the pain like white-hot fire spreading through his veins. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Again, and again, and again...
When his knee could no longer stand the abuse, he collapsed in a heap in front of her bed. The abused flesh was already swelling, the bruise an ugly purple color that clashed with the lilac carpet. Slowly, he ran his fingers through the shag, ignoring the nasty bloodstain by the rocking chair.
Maybe she didn't want to be rescued, and that's why she hadn't fought harder... Maybe she didn't want to come back home.
"Fuck..." his voice was softer now as he reached up and grabbed that stupid porcelain doll and clutched it to his chest.
He loved her. He loved her so much it fucking hurt. And now she was gone.
Three days later and they were still no closer to discovering the child's whereabouts. The Joker had re-focused his attention internally, thinking that perhaps the threat had come from inside Gotham. Not many were stupid enough to cross the Clown Prince of Crime, and even fewer knew he had a child in the first place. In other words, hopefully he could make short work of the list and have the kid back by nightfall.
It had also been three days since Harley had left, and while he knew that it would be easier to track down the whereabouts of his Queen, he had a sneaking suspicion that she didn't want to be found... and perhaps it was better to let her come back on her own. Just thinking about the things that she said to him made his blood boil, and without thinking he took his gun and fired at the wall, completing a perfect frowny face just above their king-sized bed.
How could she ever think that he didn't love their child?
Maybe he should be out there, searching with the others. After all, it was their incompetency that resulted in the brat getting kidnapped in the first place.
Of course he'd turned out to be a piece of shit father, just like his own old man. He'd told her what would happen if they had kids - she'd been the one so sure that things would be different this time around. Where had that faith been when it had taken her almost four months into the pregnancy to tell him about the baby? Granted, he'd been less than thrilled by the news, if the jagged scar on her collarbone was any indication, but still...
He knew he didn't deserve sleep - not until Mel and Harley were back and he could ensure that they would never leave his sight again - but the Adderall he'd dosed himself with left him jumpy and uneasy. He'd blown six holes in the wall, mistaking shadows for potential assassins.
"Sir," one of the henchmen, a young blond who looked just as likely to wet himself as slaughter an entire room of innocents, hesitantly approached the Joker. He barely had enough time to duck and avoid a knife being tossed at his throat.
"Good job." But it was unlikely that this was meant to be interpreted as praise, as the Joker had his gun leveled at the man's temple a moment later. "I'd like to see ya dodge a bullet... feeling lucky?"
Terror filled the young man's bright green eyes, and he compensated by blabbering, "We think that we've found Melody -,"
The Joker raised a nonexistent eyebrow, clearly not impressed by the henchman's findings. "You think?"
"You remember the tracking device you had installed in her earrings?" The Joker nodded, of course he did. Something good had to come out of Harley's insistence to get the kid's ears pierced at six weeks old. "It's set to activate if she's a certain distance away from you or Miss Quinn."
The Joker frowned, "Why didn't it activate before, then?"
"Since she has to be at least fifteen miles away for the device to activate, my guess is that Miss Quinn was close on her trail for the past few days before the kidnappers managed to throw her off their trail." He said, "According to the report, her last known whereabouts were the Industrial District downtown -,"
The Joker seemed to take this in, and then nodded, giving his approval to head in and retrieve her. Much as he might want to accompany them on the retrieval mission, if he got too close they risked losing the signal on the tracking device, making it possible for the kidnappers to move her without their knowledge. He would have to stay behind and make sure that the sorry bastards stayed put.
"Losing her is a one-way ticket to the Funhouse," the Joker slurred, his tone lacking the usual malice as the world began to blur into an array of crystalline colors. God, he really just wanted to sleep. "Bring her home."
"Understood, Boss. We won't let you down again."
They'd lost two men in the retrieval, but it was a price the Joker was willing to pay in order to have his daughter returned to him. He'd had another fit of mania in the few hours between learning her whereabouts and bringing her home, where he'd laughed himself into a stupor before punching his reflection in the mirror, not stopping until his blood dripped from the broken shards.
"Daddy." A little voice cut through the eerie silence of the lair, and he felt his heart leap up into his throat. Slowly, he turned, coming face-to-face with his princess for the first time in what felt like forever. "You hurt your hand, Daddy."
The Joker shook his head, before extending his injured hand toward her, cupping her chin gently and tilting her face back to inspect it carefully. She had a nasty black eye and a busted lip, but otherwise seemed unharmed. "Don't worry about my hand, princess. Daddy is fine."
"Oh." She nodded, her dirt-caked hair clinging to her face. She seemed unsure of what to say, but he could feel the fear radiating off of her in waves.
He sighed, before picking her up and lifting her onto his lap. "C'mere, princess." As soon as she was in his arms, the tears began to fall. "Shh... Everything's okay now. Nobody's gonna take ya from me ever again..."
"Yours, Daddy..." the little girl mumbled sleepily, allowing her eyes to fall closed for the first time in the last four days.
Stroking a bloody hand through her messy blonde locks, he whispered, "Now, angel-face... tell me about the bad men that hurt you..."
A/N: So yes... that is the whole fic. This is a precursor to the story idea mentioned at the end of Daddy's Girl - in other words, Joker gets thrown in Arkham for beating the hell out of some very bad men. So let me know what you think? How will Joker handle his new revelation that he actually does care about his daughter?