Warning: If you are looking for a romancing, loving, changing Joker or smut, lemons, whatever you call it, then I strongly advise you to leave this story alone.

It is not charming, it is not nice. It is disturbing and not, in any way shape or form, a delightful tale.

It is not the usual loving, doting, obsessive Harley Quinn either.

It is first and foremost, a breaking story.

An Unfortunate C a s e

Death. Death and an undeniable sense of false justice. This is what filled the alleyways and all the secret places of Gotham city. The cracked and broken places that were in the line of vision of all the citizens of this monstertropolis. The trained person, on the other hand, looks the other way. They choose to ignore what the government tries to hide, so openly. What the people of Gotham choose not to see is their business, and the top guys liked it that way. Gotham's own city of visible lies…and liars. It's a very mad situation, and if you hadn't lived there long enough to understand the dynamics of such a morbid municipality, it was not a matter of if, but a matter of when.

Screaming. That high manic laughter and ripping noise of the flesh. The searing of the eyes of those who chose to watch such monstrosity on TV. It made some of them turn their heads, and some of them watched just because it was so revolting, that their eyes were glued to their position. Their minds drew a blank at this gruesome aversion to normal life. Why would a person find enjoyment in the torment and torture of another human being? …is what the people would ask. They ultimately came to the conclusion that he wasn't human. No. IT wasn't human. So much in fact that it didn't deserve to be given a sex. One of the determined human characteristics. But while the people hide behind ignorant logic, some knew this beast was indeed very much human. And it was him that made their vindictive actions null and void. It was his false justice and intolerance for the law that frustrated the task force and head honchos. Or what they thought was false justice. To him, it wasn't justice at all. To the joker, it was a random disturbance of artificial order. And it made this man tingle at the thought of screaming, death and lies. Those things fed his internal, restless flame. The fact that he could upturn a city of liars and judges with just a few blood-curdling videos and acts made him laugh. And he laughed all the time. See there was no law for this man. Another man, actually, had no laws. But he was the other side of the spectrum. Entirely. But he unlike the joker had one rule for himself. A rule that made the city love him…and hate him at the same time. He didn't live by the rules they had to follow. And so he was deemed a vigilante. A person who tried to take the law into his own hands. But that wasn't his purpose. He wanted nothing to do with the law. If it had been his purpose, however, he would have taken it easily. This was his city. And he had to give it what it needed, even if the reception for his services was a loathing one.

Shining. A muted clicking noise that came out of the busted TV sitting on top of a busted cabinet. And as another TV came on in another house, quite clearly and without disturbance from an antennae set, two men watched as a host woman talked about the upcoming guest on her highly rated talk-news show. The two men had a higher interest in the guest than the actual show, which was known for its personalized message of what was truly going on in the city. It was mostly just a gossip article for television. Not a great place to get actual information. But today, the guest didn't fit the normal standards of the usual chatty, popular celebrity that made witty comments about their attire. Today it was a scientist. An unknown psychologist who had just emerged from college. But both men knew exactly who this rogue guest was. And as she climbed the stage, barely getting any clapping from the audience that was told over and over again by a bright prompter to applaud, she was greeted and then told politely to have a seat.

Then, much to the anticipation of her unseen viewers, the conversation started.

"Well, well, well! It is such a great honor to have you as a guest here today on our show. As you all might not know, Harleen Quinzel is a just-out-of-college psychologist who has just finished an internship at the much talked about-"
"Much avoided topic these days."
Light laughter.
"Yes, I suppose it's not the subject most want to bring up publicly. But here we go! She's just finished up her internship at Arkham Asylum. And I asked her to be on the show today to tell, to enlighten us, uh, on the position of being on the other side of the bridge, which as we all know has been closed off due to the tragic incident a few years back. Uh, so tell us Ms. Harleen. How, how did you feel going into the dark zone?"
"Well, uh, how do I star-"
"Oh and, sorry to interrupt, to add to the question, with such an agenda?"
"Yes. Well…it certainly is a very daunting area. They actually made the whole island part of the asylum now."
"Oh really?"
"Yes, so it makes the campus a vast inmate playground. They actually have prisoner escapes at least two to five times a day. But since the whole island is a part of the facility, they almost never get past the draw bridge, so it's quite normal to se an inmate rummaging through the trash in some of the sections of the island."
"My, that could get, get quite terrifying couldn't it?"
"To say the least."
"And these just aren't the regular high-jackers and kidnappers folks. These are the psychopaths and the murderers on this island, just to get you all to understand what kind of situation this young lady was in. But please continue Ms. Harleen."
"Alright, well, the agenda. That was also a very daunting subject, and it wasn't that I wasn't ready for the task, but the task itself was a sensitive subject to all of the operatives of the asylum, so I wasn't able to gather much info about the inmate in question."
"And who was the inmate you were put there to study?"

One of the men, the one with the raggedy TV that sat atop the unstable wooden cabinet, leaned closer in, as if the next answer were to be whispered. As though his mind was screaming silently over the room…say it.

"The Joker." (gasps go out across the audience)
"It was a shock to me when I found out I had such a big assignment. If you could even call it that. You see,…this man-"
"I would hardly call it a man, Ms. Harleen. This man accounts for the murders of many citizens of Gotham. All being committed while laughing his…well, manically laughing. It's a monster not a man."
"I hardly see reason for that judgment Ms. Townshend. I must radically disagree with you. To say he is worse than any other murderer would be a slight misuse of the word. Because there are men out there, like Maroni and his gang of ignorant, who kill for financial gain and we can't even get them to a trial."

The man with the nice TV shuttered. The last person he knew to challenge the mob and call them out in public died with half of his mind in check. And he was the DA. This girl would keep him busy.

"Ms. Harleen, I strongly advise against talking about the mob so openly on this show."
"I apologize, but I'm trying to make a point. You see, these people who kill for money aren't any different than a man who kills for pleasure. It's all for the sake of power. Men like power. That's what my theory is. They do it for the sake of knowing they have the upper hand on someone, whether it is a regular citizen who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time or a man who hasn't paid his mortgage to the mob on time. It is all practically the same."
"Thank you Ms. Harleen for your story but unfortunately we have to cut to a break. Coming up nex-"
Click.

Both men turned off the TV. They got up and continued on with their meticulous, unusual occupations.

Bruce reminded himself that he had to watch out for this young woman, especially now that she was back inside the city. Maroni must want revenge on this girl who so candidly spoke about his work on primetime television. It would very frustrating to try to follow her around without being noticed. Something else bothered him though. Something that he saw in the woman as she spoke. The way she spoke about the joker. It was almost…defensive. Hopefully he had not gotten inside her head as he had Dent when she worked with him in the asylum. That would make matters a lot worse.

The joker walked through the slum house, pacing back and forth, thinking. Always thinking. Always figuring out the odds. What would he do about this…girl, who didn't have a proper respect for fear? He had watched her very closely in that interview. She had said nothing about their conversations, which yielded no fear in her then as it didn't do so now. She didn't flinch at his name. She didn't talk of his murderous past. She didn't even look like she wanted to be there in that studio room…with all that publicity. Yes, she looked quite uncomfortable. For one second in his mind he thought it was the conversations they had in the asylum. Maybeee, she just didn't like the fact that her research had yielded no answers to why he enjoyed every minute of what he did out there on those forgotten streets. That's it. She's pissed that she couldn't pry way down deep into his emotions and carve out his insides with a psychological knife. Ahhh, how he would have loved to see her get somewhere! But all of the bashing on his part …also led to the same place. Nowhere. He couldn't give this woman a label. He couldn't prick her with his wit. Mold and fashion her fear and the other little emotions that people so desperately try to avoid. She was an actor, she was. All about complicated eye movements and whatnot. Just to keep her line of vision out of everyone else's. That's what he saw on a daily basis with this woman. She would talk to a wall instead of her colleagues just so she could avoid eye contact.

And then when she got to him, she held it. Oh so, unshakably. When it came to him, she would stare almost the whole session. Maybe she did it to try and seem superior.

What made this woman so uncomfortable in the presence of society?

He'd like to think it was because of him, but deep down he knew.
He knew she'd be a fucking tough one to crack.