Shivering with both nervousness and anticipation, Hyde made his way through the empty lots and alleyways, flinching every time he heard the distant noise of a police siren.

I still can't believe it…I met the Batman. And I actually CHOSE to stay where I'm at.

He bit his lower lip at the thought, wondering how everything would play out. Now he had a mission, a purpose to his new life as a Joker-henchman. He now had to find out what the clown had in store next for Gotham—assuming, of course, that he had one. It was a good thing that the majority of these escapades just involved tangling with other criminals or retrieving weapons. At least Hyde's slate was still somewhat clean from being a total criminal.

Rounding a corner of another alleyway, Hyde stopped when he heard the sound of a gun being cocked in the background. For a few seconds, his heart lurched at the idea that it was the Scarecrow, come to finish him off before being captured. Swallowing, Hyde whirled around to see Cutter standing before him and he let out a loud sigh of relief as the man blinked and lowered his weapon.

"Hyde! Oh, thank god I found you! I thought the Batman had captured you and taken you away!" The older man looked utterly exhausted and the fierce expression from the fight with Crane was still lurking in his eyes. But Hyde would be lying if he said that he wasn't a bit glad to see him.

"I managed to escape the Batman," Hyde lied.

"Really? Looks like you got bruised up though," Cutter replied, pointing to Hyde's now-swelling cheek.

"He gave me a bit of a punch before I succeeded in getting away. Cutter, where are the others?"

Cutter grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. "This way. The boss is hurt and needs some patching up really badly. The others do too, though they're not as bad. We need to get the hell out of here and fast. I heard that Crane is being pursued by the Bat as we speak and I don't want us to get caught."

"Good thing I got away then," Hyde said. A good thing for sure.

He allowed Cutter to pull him along until they reached their large vehicle in a distant alleyway, veiled by the shadows to avoid being spotted by the GCPD. Harley was leaning beside it, almost guarding it. When she saw Cutter and Hyde approaching, her eyes lit up and she ran forward.

"Hyde!" She wrapped her arms around him and he nearly fell over. "Boy am I glad to see ya! Did ya really get away from the big bad Bat?"

"I'm okay, Harley," he said briskly, turning a bit red in the face. "I need to heal the Joker and the others. Are they all here?"

"Yup," she replied, looking into the van with concerned eyes. "I even got the medical kit out for ya. Oh please, Charlie, please help Mr. J! He's bleeding all over the place!"

"I'll do what I can," Hyde said as he picked up the medical kit and climbed into the van. "And I'll try to do it as quickly as possible."

"When I was looking for Hyde, I was hearing sirens all over the place," Cutter said to Harley as he stood next to her and helped her guard. "I hope we can get the boss and the others fixed up before we have to get away. We only have so much time before they find us."

Harley inhaled sharply and squinted in the distance, looking perfectly ready to tear out the throat of anyone who dared to come near them. "Hyde will be quick. He knows what he's doing. It's a good thing he got away from Batsy!"

"I'd say it was a miracle," Cutter said, cocking his gun just in case. "It's hard to evade the Batman. But as you say, Hyde is quick." He looked over at her with a sudden tenderness and placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm glad that you're back, Harley. I was worried about you."

She smiled up at him. "Aw, don't get all mushy on me right now, Cutter! I'm just glad I found you guys when I did." She glanced inside the van and let out a sigh. "I just hope that Mr. J will be alright. And poor Poke got a good dose of Johnny's fear-gas-stuff! I don't think that was terribly enjoyable. And Rocco and Henshaw…they're all scratched-up and bloody. You're a bit scratched-up-looking too, Cutter. You're still bleeding, ya know.

"Oh, the hell with me right now," he replied soberly. "Let's just keep an eye out. Hyde's got about ten to fifteen more minutes before I get this thing into gear and haul it back to the hideout."

XxX

Inside the van, Hyde was working furiously: wrapping up wounds, fumbling with the antiseptics, and trying to focus on painlessly pulling out the bullet-injury in the Joker's arm. Rocco and Henshaw seemed to be doing okay once they were bandaged up and Poke looked to be recovering from his ordeal as he leaned against the seat and was exhaling gently. But the clown was trickier. He seemed to be somewhat feverish as Hyde went to work on his wound. Hyde knew that he had to be quick in order to avoid the Joker getting an infection.

"Our little medic comes through again," the clown crooned. "Kills a gang-leader, stands up to Crane, and escapes Batsy-boo just to come and help me. It warms my heart, Hyde-boy. It—ngh—really does."

"Keep still," Hyde instructed. "It's going to hurt when the bullet comes out. And then I have to disinfect the wound. So please try not to move around." He began to dig into the wound, ignoring the clown's grunts of pain. This reminded him a bit of when he had had to treat Harley's bullet-wound to the chest.

Once the bullet was out, Hyde grabbed ahold of some gauze and some antiseptic and began to clean the wound before reaching over for the stitching-needle.

"Gonna stitch me up, Hyde?" the clown asked in a surprisingly childish voice. "Stitches and I are like two peas in a pod, as you can probably tell from my face. You wanna know how I got these scars?"

"Hush," Hyde replied brusquely as he started to stitch up the wound. "This will probably hurt too. Just keep still for a bit longer." His stitching was less gentle with the Joker as it had been for Harley. But Hyde attributed to the fact that he had less compassion for the clown.

"This…this is nothing," the Joker murmured, letting out a tiny gasp. "Just going to patch me up until I'm myself again. Maybe I'll have new scar-stories to tell. I can tell them to good ole Johnny-boy if we ever run into each other again and—ghh!"

Harley poked her head in and looked over at the Joker with concern as Hyde continued to stitch. "Is he going to be okay, Hyde? Cutter says that ya only have a few more minutes before we set off for home."

"I think he'll be okay," Hyde told her in his best soothing voice. "He'll probably be really weak for a couple of days, but he'll be alright. I'm almost done."

The clown looked over at her and the corners of his scarred mouth stretched into a grin. "My sweet little pet returned just in the nick of time," he murmured. "My little harlequin came back to me."

She gazed at him adoringly and smiled. "You sound delirious, Puddin'. You should probably keep quiet while Hyde finishes."

"I'm finished now," Hyde said, giving the now-stitched wound another quick cleaning before propping the Joker up. "Let's get out of here and fast."

"Already on it," Cutter replied as he got into the driving seat. "Hold on, folks."

The van pulled out of the alleyway and sped into the streets like a quick bolt of lightning. Harley let out a squeak and clutched onto the seat as Cutter jerked the wheel fiercely and sped off with a roar. Hyde did his best to keep the clown propped up as the others reemerged from their sluggish states and blinked.

The sound of GCPD sirens wailed in the background and Harley sneered out the window. "They found us, Cutter. Let's show 'em what we're made of."

Cutter grinned and Hyde gulped as the van began to pick up even more speed, swerving left and right in an effort to escape the pursuing vehicles. The sound of gunfire was heard, but Cutter managed to pull the van farther up until their enemy was beginning to slowly fade away into the distance.

"Looks like they're not going to catch us," Cutter said with a smirk.

Harley nuzzled him and giggled. "That's the way it's done, Cutter."

In the backseat, Hyde let out a sigh of relief. For now, they were safe.