AN: This piece was originally two separate stories; it was also the first thing I ever wrote in the fanfiction universe. Understandably, it was a little crappy. Soooo, I decided that the best thing to do with it was to combine the two (very short) pieces into one, and to try to elevate it to the level of my newer work while still preserving the essence of my original attempt. Here's hoping that actually worked.

Road Rage

"He had a nasty reputation as a cruel dude

They said he was ruthless, said he was crude

They had one thing in common – they were good in bed

She'd say, "Faster, faster! The lights are turnin' red."

Life in the fast lane

Surely make you lose your mind…."

- "Life in the Fast Lane," The Eagles

"By the way, hon, we're having meatloaf tonight."

Charlie glared at the screen on his dashboard, where the clock blinked 5:30; the word "meatloaf" sounded disgusting enough – whoever heard of a loaf of meat? Cows weren't loaf-shaped. And it sounded even more disgusting when it was coming at him through the car's Bluetooth speakers, making his wife's voice sound tinny and mechanical. Then, of course, after he got the disgusting picture of soggy, mashed-up, baked meat out of his head, it was replaced by an image of Meat Loaf the rock star. Charlie stuck his tongue out at the display screen. He hated meatloaf. The dish and the singer.

"Why meatloaf, Sarah?" he cringed. "You know I don't like it."

"Well," came the computerized reply, "I just found out that Mom's coming in from Ohio, and you know how she—"

"Ah, gimme a break!" Charlie sighed. As if today hadn't been bad enough. The raise he had been hoping for hadn't panned out; the company he was auditing was turning out to be more trouble than it was worth, and in with the mob, no less, which put a target on his back; they had moved that snotty, annoying Lowe guy to the cubicle next to him at the office; somebody had dented his back bumper and hadn't left a note; and now his mother-in-law was visiting. Great.

"Charlie," his wife was saying. "I'm sorry, but… well, you know how she likes to show up unannounced."

"Yeah, I know…." Charlie mumbled, eyeing the tractor-trailer in front of him. "Hey, listen, Sarah, I've gotta get off here. Traffic is crazy today. I can't change lanes and talk at the same time. See you at home?"

"K. I love you."

"Love you too, baby," Charlie answered, then he heard the click as she hung up. "Even if you are letting that old hag stay with us," he added as he shut off the Bluetooth. "Now, to get out from behind this guy." After a quick glance at his mirrors, he flicked on his turn signal and began easing over into the lane on his left.

WHOOSH! The little black car came out of nowhere, cutting Charlie off and narrowly missing his side mirror. He watched it zoom on ahead; it was a sharp-looking black Volkswagen Beetle, the kind his daughter had been wanting and was certainly not getting because of the speeds it was rated for. Speeds like the maniac that had just gone by was driving at. It was probably some crazy teenage girl with a new license and a car full of friends. Charlie growled; he had never been one for road rage, but today had simply not been his day. After another glance behind him at a few other shaken drivers, he switched lanes and floored the gas pedal. She wasn't getting away from him, not that easily.

He caught up with the VW as he came around a second tractor-trailer. They were in an open stretch of the freeway, and the little black Beetle was swerving from lane to lane, like it was trying to hit bonus point targets on a video game. Charlie gripped the steering wheel tighter. If they wanted to play, then so be it. A hundred points for squashing the VW. He pulled up alongside and rolled down his passenger side window. It was a girl driving, he had been right about that much, but she looked a little older than a teenager. Okay, he thought, so it's a crazy co-ed girl, on a joyride with her boyfriend, it looked like. It took Charlie a moment to figure out why she looked so funny. She was wearing some sort of red and black get-up with a ruffled collar and sleeves; a matching jester's hat lay on the wide dashboard in front of her. Her face, half-hidden by wavy blonde hair, was painted thickly with white clown makeup and bright lipstick and accented with a black half mask. Charlie puzzled over it a moment, but then again, it was October. Still a little early in the month for a Halloween party, in his opinion, but you never knew. He shrugged and honked the horn to get her attention.

"Hey, lady!" he yelled, shaking his fist at his open passenger window. The girl glanced over at him briefly, with an expression of fiendish amusement on her painted face. She was raising an eyebrow at him as she rolled down her window, as if to say, 'Who, me?' "Yeah, I'm talking to you!" Charlie continued. The girl threw her head back and laughed as she turned her eyes back to the road in front of her.

"What's up, sweetheart?" she simpered in what Charlie perceived as a strong inner-city Jewish accent, ala Woody Allen. "Got somethin' on ya mind, or are ya just lookin' for a race?" Charlie jumped as the girl giggled and purposefully swerved over into his lane. She must be some kind of nutcase, he thought. Either that, or drunk. And since she looked like she'd just come from a wild costume party, that one was entirely possible. But she didn't strike Charlie as the gangster or Mafia donna type, so he figured she wasn't hiding any large firearms in her lap. It was probably safe to speak his mind.

"I'm looking to get home in one piece, you maniac! What's the big idea, are you trying to kill someone?!" The girl was grinning under her face paint.

"I dunno, sugar, why? Got somebody you want me ta kill?" She laughed hysterically at her own joke, and Charlie thought he heard a chuckle from the Volkswagen's passenger. He growled, digging his nails into the steering wheel.

"THAT'S it!" he spat, steering closer to the girl's car. "I don't have to take any of your crap, not after the day I've had! Now get off the road, you little slut!" Charlie watched the girl react out of the corner of his eye; her expression turned shockingly vicious.

"BITE me, Baldie!" she snapped, and without warning, she reached down by her seat and pulled up some object, which she promptly threw in Charlie's direction. She had good aim; the object, which Charlie saw was a fancy black shoe, bounced in through his passenger window and ricocheted around, coming to rest with its stiletto heel embedded in one of the AC vents. That did it. Charlie grabbed at the closest projectile he could find, which happened to be a half-finished bottle of Starbucks Frappuccino; he flung it out his window and then swerved back into his own lane. The glass bottle made solid contact with the Volkswagen's doorframe and shattered, spraying iced coffee all over the girl and her passenger and sending glass shards flying. One piece flew up and nicked the girl's cheek, and she hissed angrily.

"J, do somethin'!" he heard her cry to her passenger. The form in the seat beside her reached out to push a button above the rearview mirror, then lifted himself up in the seat as the car's sunroof hummed open. He stood in the seat, sticking his head and shoulders out of the opening and resting his folded arms nonchalantly on the car's roof.

Charlie's breath stuck in his throat at the sight of the man looking at him. A pair of dark, burning eyes stared at him from deep sockets caked with thick black paint. Wads of matted green hair whipped like dead Spanish moss over a face smeared in white makeup. A crooked grin revealed a menacing row of discolored teeth, and the smile seemed to stretch all the way up to the man's ears. It was made up of twisted bands of scar tissue covered in bright red greasepaint that, coupled with the garish purple overcoat he wore, made him look like some sort of sadistic circus clown; Ronald McDonald meets Freddy Krueger, a Stephen King nightmare stepped out of a book, something like that. Charlie's lip quivered. He knew that face. All of Gotham knew that face. It had been plastered on every TV screen in the city all summer, cackling and grinning and pronouncing threats of mayhem and destruction. Charlie tried and failed to swallow.

"Sorry for the… ah… young lady's behavior, Mac," the Joker called across the gap between the vehicles. "Student driver, you understand…." He waved a hand slightly and then began cackling, his scarred and painted cheeks wrinkling up in deep folds. Charlie stared, petrified. The Joker. The Joker was a callous, murdering sociopath, void of any feeling, addicted to chaos, Gotham's very own home-grown terrorist, little better than a vicious animal off its leash. And Charlie had just poked him. Thrown coffee at him. Yelled at, insulted, and almost injured his (probably equally psychotic) girlfriend. Charlie forgot how to breathe.

"You…. Th… J-… J-… J-…," he stuttered. The Joker's expression was deviously amused.

"J-… J-… J-…," he mocked, then he smacked his painted lips. "That's right, P-P-Porky, I'm the J-J-Joker! Here, have a card!" He pulled a playing card from inside his coat and flung it in Charlie's direction. It fluttered away harmlessly in the wind; but the Joker's quick motion had startled Charlie, and he jerked his wheel left in a desperate attempt to drive away from whatever the murderous clown was throwing at him. His car lurched violently, its right wheels losing contact with the asphalt. Charlie blanched, frantically trying to control his vehicle's erratic movements. It was no use. Charlie screamed as he and his car careened wildly out of their lane and off the highway, crashing through a guard rail and rolling down a rocky embankment.

The Joker watched for a few seconds, savoring the sickly sweet crunch of crushing metal and watching the engine go up like fireworks. That's what the guy gets for having road rage, he thought blandly. Then he began howling with laughter. He eased himself back down into the passenger seat of Harley's VW, hooting and cackling hysterically.

"Oh… oh-ho… oh, Harley," he began as he clutched at his bruised ribs and tried to catch a breath. "He… and then he… woo-ha-ha-ha!" He stomped his feet like a giddy child, laughing even harder when he noticed Harley was in shock. Turning and lying sideways in the seat, he propped his feet against the window and laid his head in her lap, staring up at her between her arms. "What's up, Doc?" he quipped, eyebrows raised.

"We just killed that guy," she replied mechanically, staring straight ahead. The Joker's expression didn't change.

"Yeah…" he agreed; when Harley didn't say anything else, he wrinkled his nose at her. "Well technically, That Guy just killed himself in an attempt to get away from a flying joker card, but…." He waved his long fingers nonchalantly. "Details, details. Hmmph. Be-sides. He got frappuccino aaaalll over your new jester suit. And you told me to do something, and I did." The Joker closed his eyes and wiggled his head from side to side, pressing his skull into Harley's thigh as if he was snuggling down into a pillow. "Y'know… you're gonna have to get over this whole 'sympathy' bit if you're gonna hang around me. It's soooo overrated… and it keeps you from enjoying all the fun bits of the job… car chases, machine gun fire, wild explosions…." He opened one eye to peer up at her. Harley glanced down at him before taking a sharp turn.

"Well… I guess it was a pretty cool explosion, wasn't it?" She was attempting a smile; the Joker saw this and began howling with laughter again.

"Woo-ha-ha! Mm-hmm-hm! Oh, Harl... you're gonna be so much more fun than my usual goons! And a lot cuter, too…." At that, he sat up suddenly and threw himself fully back into the passenger seat, convulsing with laughter, eyes sparkling with dark hilarity.

Harley knew what had just happened wasn't really funny. But for some reason, she couldn't help giggling along.

From the Gotham Nightly News at 11:00 PM, October 6, 2008.

Thank you, Summer. Well, if you're just tuning in, let me repeat what the rest of us have already heard. We have just been informed that the domestic terrorist known as "The Joker" escaped from custody just a few hours ago. Police sources have informed us that The Joker, whose real identity is still unknown, was being held under maximum security at the Arkham Asylum, a psychiatric facility for violent and criminal patients, when he escaped earlier this evening after being incarcerated under medical supervision since July. The Joker was responsible for a series of terrorist attacks throughout Gotham this summer. He had been undergoing treatment at Arkham for the past two months under the care of various psychiatric professionals, one of whom has been implicated in his disappearance. Dr. Harleen Quinzel, who was completing her final internship at Arkham, was seen on video surveillance earlier this evening covertly entering the medical ward of the facility, where The Joker was recovering from injuries sustained in a recent failed escape attempt; and hospital directors confirm that her key card was used to open door locks in the vicinity of the escapee's cell. According to one source, Dr. Quinzel is suspected of having an inappropriate relationship with The Joker, who had been under her primary care for some time. The two were last seen on camera leaving the grounds of Arkham in a black car; they then drove south along the freeway, where they were responsible for several serious accidents, and are believed to have been heading toward downtown Gotham. Citizens are warned that both are believed to be armed, and although The Joker is still injured, he is to be considered highly dangerous. Anyone who sees either Quinzel or The Joker is cautioned to maintain their distance, and to contact the Gotham Police Department immediately.

The warehouse had definitely seen better days. That was the first thing that occurred to Harley as she parked her Volkswagen in the grimy alley, tucked behind a rusty old dumpster. The only light trickled in from the street lamp at the alley opening, and that was flickering. There was a homeless man cowering against the graffiti-covered wall, peeking around the corner of the dumpster at them, holding a bag to his chest like a frightened squirrel guarding a nut. Harley smiled and waved at him as she hopped out, and he reacted just like a squirrel would have – he clutched his bag tighter, twitched slightly, and watched every move she made. The little bit of Doctor Quinzel remaining inside her was still trying to diagnose him as the Joker strolled around from the passenger side; he saw the bum immediately and went scurrying toward him, grinning maniacally.

"BOO!" With a squeak of terror, the vagrant jumped and ran away, nearly dropping his precious bag in his haste. The Joker hopped up and down and cackled before remembering his various injuries and wincing. Then he grabbed Harley by the wrist and unceremoniously dragged her inside, up a set of dilapidated stairs and into the cobweb-draped upper room that had previously served as his hideout.

This was it, Harley thought. Her brain was ticking off a mental checklist of accomplishments for the day. She had gotten him past Arkham security; they had evaded police; they had managed to sneak back into the Narrows undetected, back to the Joker's most recent base of operations; and now they could get down to business. Now he could get back to being the Clown Prince of Crime. …Now they could be together. And that, admittedly, had been the goal all along. Screw all this crime stuff. She hadn't busted him out for the purpose of restoring his reign of terror…although she knew that was going to happen. She had busted him out because the hacks in the med wing were going to kill him…and because she loved him. Because deep down, she knew she could fix (with time) what the docs at Arkham had given up on.

"…have to hire a whole new crew of goons…" the Joker was saying as she drifted back out of her thoughts. He was roaming around the room, checking to see what remained of the munitions and supplies in his old stockpiles. "I don't know… hmm… suppose they all got taken in… Prewitt Building…."

"Umm, Mistah J?" Harley began; the Joker glanced up at her for a brief second before turning back to the stacks of crates and boxes piled in the corner.

"Buuuuuttt… no, no – not Billy… no… too smart… have to get Billy back…."

He kicked open one of the boxes to inspect its contents.

"Mistah J…" Harley simpered, reaching out to touch his sleeve. "Come on, you can count your guns later! You're back in business, we gotta celebrate, savor the moment!" He turned away from her again, ringlets of green-tinted hair dropping down to hide his face as he kicked open each of the old crates on the floor in front of him. Small cascades of guns and ammunition fell out of them, and he nodded and murmured at the piles as if taking a mental inventory. Was he ignoring her? She tossed the idea aside vehemently. He was just distracted, that's all. She collected herself and shuffled a bit closer.

"What's the matter, Puddin'? Aren't ya happy? You're outa Arkham now, and all your old stuff's still here, see? You can get right back to goin' after Batman!" She watched him walk over to an old table and pick up a fallen rickety chair from the dusty floor beside it. There was a box on the table top, covered in cobwebs, and he reached out a purple gloved hand and flicked it open. Harley sighed inwardly; he had such nice hands, she thought. Then she almost gagged at herself. God, Harley, you're such a fangirl today…can you stop that, please? the mental voice cautioned. You're going to piss him off, and that's not the best way to start, now is it? Not to mention she had let herself slip back into her native accent, and she knew it annoyed him to no end. She had to regroup and try a different angle.

Cautiously, she sidled towards him, hands clasped behind her back and her most fetching look plastered on her face. "Don't you, um….. Don't you want to thank me?" She smiled up at him (sexily, she hoped), and this time he actually half turned. Through the curtain of fading green curls, she could see him staring at her, sizing her up, his left eyebrow cocked up quizzically. She grinned a bit wider, hopeful. The tip of his tongue had crept out to caress the scar tissue at the corner of his mouth, like it always did when he was thinking. Harley found herself staring at it, and felt her cheeks flush under her thick white makeup. All at once, he straightened and moved away from the table, and the sudden movement broke her reverie.

"Not while you're wearing that, I don't…." the Joker answered. Harley frowned.

"You don't like my costume?" she whimpered, heart sinking. And after all that trouble breaking into the costume shop…. "But I picked it out just for you! It's Harlequin. You know? Like my name?" He had started to walk back around the table and was loosening his tie as he turned to answer her.

"No… no, no, it's too… cartoony. Comic book-ish." Harley stuck out her lower lip and dropped her head. Of course, how stupid could she have been? It had been a crappy idea. The Joker wasn't the kind for polyester costumes. None of that superhero/supervillain cosplay crap for him. Ostentatious purple suit? Yes. But even that looked like it had been rolled around a grunge rocker's Seattle apartment for a month or so. She should have known he wouldn't have been exactly impressed by her choice of a catsuit and jester hat. Not that she could ever do anything right anyway. She started to whimper again, but the sound caught in her throat as a thumb and forefinger covered in purple leather snaked out in front of her and took hold of her chin. "But… that can be… fixed." Harley looked up; the Joker's eyes wandered over her figure as his fingers walked down her chest to the white bib collar of her costume.

Without warning, he grabbed one of the fluffy pom-poms hanging from the collar and yanked. It ripped off, taking a whole section of the fabric with it. He did the same with the rest of the puffs, leaving the collar in shreds. "Mm, much better. Much… better. Now, let's see…." He reached down and took her hands, and she tensed excitedly in spite of herself. With a jerk, he ripped the lace off her wrists, in the process doing away with the bottom third of her right sleeve. "Mm-hmm," he mumbled, and began humming absently as he scanned the rest of the costume. "Hmm, mm… hm-hmm… ya ta-ta-ta…." Slowly he moved his hand up her right arm, his middle finger tracing the seam in the cloth, stopping just below her shoulder. A quick jerk, and he had ripped a hand-sized gash; then he stepped back to decide on his next design alteration.

"Symmetry," he mumbled after a few moments, and he tore a hole in the costume's left elbow and in the thigh, just above her left knee. When he stood back up and looked at her face, his tongue was in the corner of his mouth again; after a minute or two, he pulled out his knife. Harley jumped instinctively, then watched in fascination as the Joker took the blade to her hat, chopping the pom-pom off the left side and shredding the right. Then he yanked it sideways, exposing her hair. He stepped back again. "It still… needs… something," he said, licking his red-painted lips. She watched his eyes trace her shape and silently wished it was his hands. "I know," he said finally. Harley drew in a sharp breath; the Joker flung his arms around her waist, and she felt the knife moving behind her as he cut loose a few of the suit's stitches. His fingers slipped into the hole he had made, and Harley felt a tingle shoot up her spine as the leather of his glove touched her skin. He made a couple more small cuts. Then he pulled, and a long strip of cloth tore away from her torso, tapering off to come loose just above her belly button. She fingered the torn edges as the Joker rolled up the scrap of cloth and tossed it over his shoulder.

"Hands," he demanded, and she dutifully obliged by holding out both. His knife went to work quickly; in a few minutes he had sliced the tips from all ten of the gloves' fingers, and her own porcelain digits could be seen poking out of the red and black leather. The Joker kept hold of her hand for a moment, a slight grin playing around the scarred corners of his mouth. "Just one more thing," he tittered in a sing-song voice.

There was a broken wall mirror on the other side of the table, and as the Joker began rummaging in the old cobwebby box behind her, Harley wandered over to survey herself in it; she looked a bit like she had lost a fight with a chainsaw – and she sort of liked it. She wondered for a minute how on earth she was going to go about getting in and out of the body suit now with all the holes – it would be awkward finding which were the arm and leg openings and which were aesthetic tears. But it did afford a wicked view of her abs. She grinned at herself. "I look like an extra in a freakin' Rob Zombie video," she commented, trying to elicit a response but getting none. Behind her, reflected in the cracked glass, she could see the Joker pulling things out of the box and laying them on the table: tubes of Halloween makeup. Frowning, she looked at her own face – she thought the coat of white and the half mask had been a good idea, but apparently he was going to grunge that up, too. She started to turn and ask him what he had in mind, but he caught her and spun her back around. Harley watched in the mirror as he slipped an arm around her waist; the purple fabric of his coat slid across the bare part of her stomach, and it was all she could do to stay standing.

"Now…. Let's put a different smile on that pretty little face," he whispered into her ear. He hopped up to sit on the edge of the table, pulling her backwards towards him; his knees closed in on each side of her to hold her still, and the arm wrapped around her ribs tightened its grip until her back was pressing hard against his chest. Harley closed her eyes. She could feel his stomach swelling and shrinking against her lower back with each breath; the throb of his heartbeat vibrated through her shoulder to where her own was beating double time. He leaned around her so they were almost cheek to cheek, and a few tendrils of his hair fell down and brushed her face.

"And… here… we… go," he whispered, his breath against her neck making her shiver excitedly. She watched in the mirror as he pulled the glove off his right hand and reached for the makeup behind him. Then she closed her eyes and let him work. The paint was cold, but she felt the warmth of his fingers through it as he pulled away her black mask and smudged on wide rings of black around her eyes. His thumb came up and smeared the edges into her eyebrows, onto her temples, down over her cheekbones. It smelled sticky and acrid, and she could feel it clumping in her eyelashes, but she did her best not to move. When he stopped to reach for more, she opened her eyes and looked into the mirror.

"Oh, J," she breathed. He had done her eyes to match his own, and the more she looked at it, the more she loved it.

"Shush…." he murmured, and as he shifted positions behind her, it was almost as if she could feel every muscle in his body move against hers. He reached his hand up to her mouth and dragged his fingers across her lips, continuing past the corners to streak the red paint up her cheeks. She allowed herself a tiny moment to imagine his fingers lingering there on her lips. Then she realized that he had stopped, and she opened her eyes. The Joker was staring at their reflections, his tongue just barely touching the scarred edge of his mouth.

"I think it looks great, Puddin'!" she heard herself whisper, accidentally slipping back into her native voice in her distraction. The Joker breathed in deeply, and as he exhaled, his warm breath covered her shoulder like a blanket, seeping in through the costume and making her stomach turn somersaults.

"No…. It needs to be more… smudged," he answered. He reached up to her face, stopped, and then turned her bodily until she was facing him. His knees were still locked around her waist, and now his breath mingled with hers as he took hold of her face roughly and brought it close to his own. Tangles of blonde-and-green mottled hair fell down to frame his face and brush her freshly painted cheeks. He tightened his grip on her chin. "And I told you not to call me… 'Puddin'…" he muttered – and then before she could reply, his lips were on hers, warm, enticing, a kiss that was at the same time commanding and possessive, yet somehow curiously yielding. And it was, Harley thought absently as he pulled her backward onto the table, a very effective way to smudge that red paint.

Harley woke up later that night with a stiff ache in her lower back from sleeping on the floor. Weak, dingy light from a nearby bar sign pooled lifelessly in through the far window, and she thought she could hear the noise that had awakened her – a trash-can-lid-noise, made probably by the homeless man getting over his scare and coming back to his accustomed spot. Harley was freezing. The new holes in her costume only added to the chill that was held against her skin by the slick fabric, and she didn't have anything to wrap up in. Sitting up awkwardly, she glanced over at the sleeping form of the Joker stretched out under his purple wool coat. He had pushed her off the table earlier, mid-make-out session, after she'd made the mistake of reaching up to touch his scars, and he hadn't touched her since. She had a strong suspicion that being pushed off the table had contributed to the stiffness in her back.

She should have known that touching his scars would have been a bad move; but she hadn't really been thinking very clearly at the time. Harley sighed. She understood the psychology. It would take him time, of course, to be able to move deeper into a relationship after all the emotional trauma that had turned him into the Joker in the first place. Whatever that was. She couldn't expect him to be willing to sleep with her on the first day out of Arkham. And he had every right to be upset about her touching his scars.

She just wished he hadn't pushed her off the table. Her hip was going to have a bruise.

Shivering for a moment, Harley looked around for something to sleep under, a bag or an old tarp or something. Nothing. With the exception of the Joker's stored boxes of ammo and the table and chair, the warehouse was empty. She had bags in the car – but to get there, she'd have to get even more cold and achy by going out into the night air without a coat. Harley pouted for a moment. Night One of her criminal adventures was turning into a very uncomfortable flop.

On the floor beside her, the Joker stirred in his sleep, and she watched him for a few minutes. She would have to convince him to take his shirt off for her tomorrow and let her check his stitches; the docs at Arkham had probably done a poor job anyway, and with all the movement and excitement of the escape, she was willing to bet he had pulled a couple loose. The ones above his eyebrow were holding, but barely. Harley bent down to inspect them, and had to resist the urge to kiss his forehead. Oh well, she thought. There would be time for lots of things tomorrow. Maybe sleep would help him forget her touching his scars today.

Shivering again, Harley cautiously lifted the very edge and sleeve of the Joker's wool coat and, making herself as small as possible, she inched her way under it. It only covered her about half way, but she could feel the heat coming off the Joker's body through her thin costume fabric, and she smiled.

She'd try again tomorrow.