AN: Hello fellow geeks. This is my first time publishing antmything on this site, though I have frequented it for many, many years. And yes, in saying that I might as well have held up a sign saying "this is a piece of shit, don't waste your time!" But please do stick around. I mean, I thought it was good...

Though this is rated M it's not for the reason you probably searched that for if you know what I'm saying but it's pretty sweary and violent with quite a few triggering things like domestic abuse and all the other stuff that comes along with Joker and Harley Quinn. If that effects you, you know the drill. But without further ado...

"Gotham City: home to villainy, treachery and insanity. Evil lurks around every corner; down every darkened alleyway. It seeps from every crack in the filthy pavement. It corrupts everyone it touches. Crime is like a disease and this city is sick to the core with it. I would know, I see it every day. The infection flows through its veins. Gotham is a city built on crime. Without it, what is Gotham? Crime is the lifeblood and it bleeds onto every inch of it. Right and wrong blur. Anyone could be the next mob boss; the next supercriminal; the next serial killer. The sickness of Gotham City thrives in the darkness inside its boundaries. It is not beyond curing but only if someone dares to do it. The city needs someone to fight for it. Someone to exact Justice; take vengeance. Someone to sit on rooftops and brood. A whole shit-load of brooding. Gotham needs a hero. Someone to do what those idiot cops can't do. Gotham needs a vigilante. Gotham needs me. I am the night. The dark night... knight I mean... I am Batman. I dress in cosplay every night and punch people because I apparently have nothing better to do and a skull as thick as shit. I'm a real no-fun dumbass really. I can't wait until the Joker kills me in the most brutal way humanly conceivable because I never feel emotion and it must suck balls to be me."

"So," I prompt after a moment's notice, knocking my voice back up an octave. "Did I sound like Batman?"

I come down from the edge of the roof where I'd previously perched, looking down, broodingly at the dark, empty street below and turn to the audience.

My onlookers consist of one man. He is nearly shirtless, tied to a chair and gagged. He might be crying but it might just be the bad lighting from the lamppost below. He, in response, can do little other than thrash against his restraints. I stifle a grin; I do love watching them squirm. As I meet his eyes, he only fights his restraints harder, fear boiling under his sweat-covered skin.

"Not to brag or anything... ah screw it," I giggle, batting at him with my hand. "I am bragging. I happen to be a world-class impressionist. Trust me, it's not just extremely impressive, it's also a really useful skill set to have when one is on a lifelong quest to kill Batman. Just a imagine: Batsy's about town when suddenly he hears Robin calling for help. He turns the corner and BAM! Straight into a grenade. 'Course I've never been allowed to get rid of the Bat problem that way... But I could! Fun, huh?"

The man is noticeably crying from fear now. I lick my lips at the delicious sight of his demise. He tries to scream something though it's muffled by his makeshift gag.

"What was that?" I say, hopping over to the chair where he sits. The man fights his ties harder as I advance but doesn't resist as I reach down theatrically and tear the duck tape from his mouth. It pulls away with a painful ripping sound and leaves a large red strip across his face.

He looks up at me with enough unbridled hatred and terror to make my mouth water. Then spits at me enough to make me cringe. Then he headbutts me. Hard. In the face.

"You are fucking insane you sick, cunt , you-"

I quickly slam a new layer back onto his face from the diminished roll and tut at his language and shrugging off the pain in my head. "Talk like that'll make your girl

roll over in her grave. Well, she doesn't have one, she's still staining the carpet downstairs."

At that I throw my head back and laugh up to the empty night sky. The sound is whipped up by the wind and carried across the dark canopy of Gotham City.

"It's been fun," I smile at him, sweetly as my cackle comes to an abrupt end. "Really... I'm almost sad I have to kill you. You made such a good listener."

At this his face animates with a newfound terror. He struggles further against his restraints, thrusting his body back and forth violently in a vain last-ditch effort to break free. His lame attempt proves futile over the layers of tape that bind his arms and legs. I laugh at his muffled screams and, waving kindly at him, gently push the leg of his chair with my foot. Gravity- a bitch- sends him toppling over the edge of the roof. After a swift descent, he hits the ground head-first at high speed. Upon impact, his head shatters like a bird's egg and his blood spills across the pavement, painting the street red. Good thing the roads are empty at this time or else someone would be spending a fortune on dry-cleaning tomorrow.

I laugh loudly again.

Good job, Lucy coos a voice in my ear.

"Aww, thanks. It was nothing really."

You're still a stupid, useless, good-for-nothing pile of sh-

I clamp my hands over my ears, frowning. Always so mean, that one. If they don't have anything nice to say, they ought to just crawl back out of my ear. Not that I find their existence completely inconvenient; they've been known to give mildly helpful, though somewhat questionable advice. Plus, I suppose it isn't so awful to have company in the dark empty void of madness.

Content that the voices are settled, I flip my wrist in front of my face to find my watch reads 3:17am. I'd better get back to the task at hand or risk failure. And a black eye. I've already wasted time on that guy.

It wasn't even part of the job to take him out. All I know is that he was downstairs necking some night shifter and disrupting the peace and quiet. As anyone would, I figured it would be fun to stab his girlfriend repeatedly in front of him until I achieved the psychotic, blood-stained look I was going for and then use him to practice my monologue on. After all, it's not often I get let out to play these days and Daddy said that if he heard the words "I'm Batman" uttered under his roof one more time, he would personally garrotte me with my own hair.

Giving one last glance at the crippled corpse below me, I snigger and turn on my heels, skipping toward the door back down.

Before I turn he handle to enter the building, I check my appearance in the reflection on the glass. My hair, purple, has retained its volume despite the drizzle, though the clown makeup on my face has smudged slightly. I try to smooth the red lipstick back into the exaggerated smile but only succeed in ruining it further. The curved up lips droop down on one side in a large line that stretches to my chin. Shrugging in surrender, I puff up my red tutu, load my gun and strut back indoors.

I'm immediately met with five panicked night staff, trying to make an escape. At the sight of me, they freeze. I simply beam, allowing them to take in my terrifyingly brilliant appearance and my youthful, clownish face. They've probably never seen a child covered in a grown woman's blood before.

"What are you doing here, little girl?" Asks one guy. It's cute that he's concerned for me. He'd probably like to believe that I'm here by mistake or something. That I'm innocent and alone and scared. They couldn't be more wrong.

"Having fun," I chirp.

The others begin to look uneasy, though he persists.

"You need to get out of here. Do you know who's downstairs?"

"My Daddy, silly." I playfully tap his nose before turning solemn. "But he's not going to be very happy with you."

With that, I grab him by the neck, yank him towards me and push the barrel of my gun against his skull. The others immediately panic but a quick shout of "move and he dies" has them all rooted to the spot. I order them to kneel with their hands above their heads. Ah, good old human loyalty and comradeship.

"Excellent," I say, looking down at them and smiling sweetly.

"Please, let me go," sobs the man under my grip. Great, another crier.

I raise my finger to my chin in fake contemplation. "Well, if you insist."

Before he can let out a sigh of relief, I snap his neck harshly and shove him to the side.

One woman screams.

I turn my gun to them, some now crying too. "Anyone wanna see my body count per second?" They look so terrified. Like animals about to be slaughtered that have just realised their fate. The woman at the back even looks kind of like a pig. I wonder if her blood will look like pig blood.

I laugh until tears stream from my eyes and further destroy my makeup.

"Who are you?" Breathes one man, breaking the silence.

My laughter fades. "You've never heard of me before?" Silence. "You don't know who I am?" I sigh. "Years of homicides and terror attacks amount to nothing. This stinks." I look up at them again. "Joker's Daughter, anyone?" No one responds, though the air seems to tighten at the sound of his name.

"Really?" I cry, exasperated, shoulders sagging.

"Y- you're with them?" Says the man on the left.

Bloody genius.

"Correct!" I praise. "Grand prize goes to... you!" I shoot him six times in the head.

The others gasp or cry out in horror, then turn and run. Before they can make it two metres they're all dead on the floor.

Patting my gun, fondly, I pull out my phone. There is a flash as I snap a picture of the five corpses and the familiar bing as I send it to my Mom. A moment later, as I reach the bottom of the corridor, she responds. "Where the hell are you? We've been so worried about you. We haven't heard from Frost and we thought you were dead. Come back down right now or else I'll-"

I roll my eyes and toss my phone behind me. I'll get a new one tomorrow.

What was I supposed to do now?

Get to the damn lab.

Idiot.

"Oh, right!"

Skipping slightly, I move down the corridor, ponytail bouncing with my springy movement, reloading my gun again. There are obvious signs of some kind of squabble here: bullet holes in the walls; blood on the floor; a black-clad gangster dead on the floor. Noting it's not one of ours, I kick him in the side as I pass. The sign above his head boldly reads "lab 4 this way".

"Was it lab 4 or lab 5?"

Four, you idiot!

"Thanks!"

I continue down the winding halls until I reach the lab.

"Ding! You have reached your destination!" I say and kick through the doors, blatantly ignoring the toxicity warnings.

Inside is a quivering old scientist in a hazmat suit. He clutches his papers to his chest as I enter and begins to sob.

"Hello!" I chirp.

"Please," he begs, shrinking down. "This is my life's work. Leave us alone."

I snatch the papers from his hand and eye them curiously. "Hmmm," I murmur, theatrically tapping my chin. "What do we have here?" The old man is sobbing louder now, cowering away from my small, innocent self. "Blah, blah, blah. Science, science. Extremely deadly? Oooh!" I grin at him. "Neat!"

There is a sweet sound of ripping paper as I tear his research into tiny pieces. The scientist howls in misery and collapses to the floor, yelling incoherent obscenities to the heavens.

"Now what's the stuff called?" I mutter. Turning over my hand, I see the words scrawled over my palm:

"MDMA."

I scout the room until finding the drawer with the same label. I yank it open and grab one of the test tubes from the many rows. I beam in pride at my achievement. This is the first time I've been given any proper missions. And I did it alone, too.

Of course, before this point I had to shoot all the henchmen that my Dad had ordered to go with me. It was, strictly speaking, Johnny Frost who was in charge of the extraction job but I figured it's less impressive as a group effort. What more could make my father prouder than his only living heir taking up the family business?

I've been waiting for such an opportunity for months. My parents have gotten over-protective recently, much to my dismay. It's been very annoying, being me, to get stuck with the "wait by the door" or underage getaway driver jobs when I live for the violent adrenaline rush of the battlefield. This was supposed to purely be my moment of victory is interrupted by another bought of crying from the professor as he scrambles around in his pile of paper. I scowl.

"Now where's that extremely deadly stuff?"

When I leave the room the scientist is howling in pain again, now from the corrosives burning his face off.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I turn around to the source is the voice behind me. I thought I'd be alone with the sounds of gunshots here but apparently I'm not the only one in the foyer. As I spin around in the chair, I'm met with the glaring face of Johnny Frost.

"Well, I was about to see how fast I could go in one of these wheely chairs but it'll be more fun with two people. We can race to the receptionist's body and back."

"I mean, what the hell do you think you were doing earlier? Suddenly, we're about to move into the lab block when I hear gunshots. I turn around and you're there, covered in the goons' blood and attack me. Me! I changed your diapers and you attack me! Next thing I know, I wake up with a god almighty bruise in the back of my head and no idea where you are. Your father would kill me if I lost you. I start panicking, naturally, thinking maybe you'd been killed or kidnapped and I had to follow your damn trail of bodies up here. And here you are wi-"

"Frost!" I cut him off, tiring quickly of his condescension. Holding up the test tube, I gloat: "I got it."

His frown immediately morphs into a grin. He too, reaches into his pocket to pull out another batch of the stuff. "So did I."

I can't help but laugh at the hilarity of coincidence.

"Frosty old boy, I'll make a psycho out of you yet."

He eyes me suspiciously, purposely frowning. I ignore him.

"Race you down?" I offer.

"Hell no," he scoffs.

"Aw, come on!" I plead. "We never have any fun!"

"And for good reason." He chides. "Your idea of fun includes throwing yourself and other people into ridiculously dangerous situations for your own amusement. I ain't sticking my neck on the line to keep you happy."

"Hey. That's a little unfair. I also like to throw... okay, point taken."

"You're a menace to society."

"At your service."

He rolls his eyes slightly, though with a wary fondness that I only know from him. "Now give me that stuff before you hurt someone. Or yourself."

He holds out his hand as I slap the contents of my own onto it. As I shuffle backward, he peels away his fingers and discovers only a bullet. He blinks. I grin. As he looks up to grab for me, I lash out with my foot, kicking his wrist, sending his fingers splaying. As the vial slips out of his grip, I reach out and snatch it. Giving another swift kick to his ankles, I run toward the elevator. I press the button repeatedly as I observe the dazed Frost make to stand. He spots me making a getaway and attempts to chase after me but stumbles with dizziness. As the elevator arrives, I slip inside, press the ground floor button and wave sweetly as the doors slide shut.

"But Puddin!"

"Shut it Harley! You know what I think about eating on the job."

I push open the door to find my parents engaged in argument over a large slice of cake. Harley, who clearly found it in the cafeteria, clutches it protectively against her chest with half of it smeared around her mouth as she chews a bite. Daddy simply glares at her again, a final warning, and she turns to drop it onto a desk, but not before taking another chunk out of it.

"Hiya!" I say, hopping over to stand next to my father.

"Lucy!" Greets Mom through a mouthful of dessert. Typical. She runs over to pull me into a suffocating bear hug, no doubt transferring the numerous crumbs onto me.

"We were so worried about ya!" She coos. "Out there all alone with psychopaths runnin' around."

"Not to mention all those other guys!" Dad smiles.

I laugh at this, only making Harley pull me in tighter. For a small woman she sure has good grip.

"I happen to have had complete confidence in you, kid," chirps Dad, patting me on the back. He looks around, thinking. "Where are the boys?"

"Umm... funny story..."

"Lu!" Scolds Harley, releasing me from her python-like grip to give me a reprimanding stare. "What have I told ya about killing the goons!"

"Only do it in private," I mumble.

"Exactly!" Says J, waggling his glowed finger at me with a tut. "What will people think if we go around killing the hired help?"

"That we're mad?"

"Mad, bonkers, insane, round the bend, lost our marbles! Nothing untrue, but bad for business."

He ruffles my hair, slightly condescendingly, pressing down just hard enough to be painful. Then grins whilst I try not to look disheartened.

I quickly shrug it off, remembering my achievement.

"It doesn't matter, anyway. Look what I got!" I dish into my gun holster and pull out the pair of vials. I raise them above my head, before bowing smugly. Not a second later does Daddy pull me upright by the shirt and snatch my prize from my grip. He grins hungrily at them as he tucks them safely into his blazer pocket.

"Do you know what this is?" He says, turning to me again. His face is alight with a newfound joviality; his eyes glinting with the spark of madness which he does so well.

"Science shit," I offer.

"Even better than that. This is Methylenedioxymethamphetamine; ecstasy; the final ingredient to my Joker Toxin."

"Oh."

He turns, raising his eyebrows at me (well, where his eyebrows should be- I'm sure presuming that he's raising his eyebrows, though he could be having facial spasms). "Oh what?" He snaps.

"That's it? It's not like... a highly poisonous chemical weapon that burns your face off and makes your blood run out of your eyeholes?"

He glares. "Is it not impressive enough for you that I can single handedly manufacture a chemical that has brilliantly murdered hundreds of people before you were even born? Does it bore your majesty?"

"No, no. Just, couldn't we have gotten it from an Italian guy in a hoodie down crime alley?"

Once again, his face contorts from a scowl into his signature, manic grin. "But where's the fun in that?" He breaks into laughter, mom following suit. I too join in after a moment, unable to resist the infectiousness of the sound. Our harmonising laughter echoes around the room, interrupted only by the door swinging open, loudly.

Frost, heaving for breath, bursts in. As he is met by all three of our guns pointing at him, he holds up his hands.

"Frost! Where the hell have you been?" Says Dad with a grunt.

"I was-"

He catches sight of me behind his boss. I quietly make enough violent hand gestures for him to understand that I've been the epitome of good behaviour for him and he will wake up in the morning without a knife in his throat.

He straightens up with a small cough. "Checking the perimeter, boss. West exit is all clear for a quick getaway."

"Cops?"

"Not arrived yet."

"Bats?" He asks with a grin.

"No, sir."

His smile falls. "Well, that's disappointing."

"Well ya can't expect him ta show up outside of Gotham, can ya, Puddin?"

Not a second later is Harley's arm on her "puddin"'s shoulder snatched into the python-like grip of his gloved hand. She shows pain on her face only for a moment long enough to know it hurts, remaining unreadable as her wrist is bent backwards. Joker's eyes flick to mine, watching this whole affair and he releases her.

"At least we'll be able to watch the place go up in flames without any distracting Bat signals in the sky," he says, beginning to walk out. I follow immediately and after a pause the sound of Mom's clicking heels catch up to me and she links my arm. She's smiling. I take it as a cue to smile as well.

As we exit the building, a few stragglers of the remaining henchmen hurry out behind us. They know what happens if they linger for too long.

The building bursts into flames.

Frost opens the doors to the purple lambo out front. Me and mom climb in but Joker stays outside and pulls out his phone, grinning furiously as he makes the call.

"Penguin! I'm terribly sorry to break the news to you but I'm afraid all the goons you just sent in to interrupt my heist will all be calling in dead tomorrow. You see they appear to have been caught in a mysterious fire and they won't be recovering before 9am." He laughs fully now, allowing the giggles that kept slipping out whilst he spoke to escape into a cackle. I giggle too. He sees me and his expression darkens. He's more firm. More serious. More sincere in his threat. "I told you you would pay, didn't I?"

AN: Phew, got that uploaded with only a minor falling out with the mobile document manager. This will be the first in a multiple story series. I am going quite AU with this by the way and show blantant disregard for most of the current DCEU, including (shock, horror) suicide squad. Let's face it, it's not great. I do plan to do some suicide squad-y stuff later on so bear with. However, I imagine the characters in the style of those movies. Anyway, please review. Feedback is much appreciated!

-Spectre Specs xx