Author's note

I want to thank you all for your patience.
I know that updates has been incredibly slow lately for I have unfortunately been so busy in real life and I'm afraid I have to bring bad news. I think that next chapter will take as much if not even more time to come out than this one, but it will come out. I'll never abandon the story.

To Jinx,
Thank you very much for all the compliments, it warms my heart and I'm so happy you figured out a part of Malach's meaning. Yes, it's intended to mean messenger, but Malach also means angel and yes this is a clue to something that had been hinted at ever since Chapter 2.

To all, I want to thank you for the support, thank you again for your patience and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Bonne lecture!


Chapter 13

December 22th, 23:48 PM, both men were in the cave, laughing, almost celebrating. The pale man went on grabbing his partner's hand pulling on him while giggling.

"Like hell that we're going to make a communicator so she can reach you. C'mon, why don't we take care of Harley now and finally end it?"

"Not just yet." The detective responded, pulling back. "Harley's our best way of making Poison Ivy actually work on a cure, until then we'll just keep her from doing much damage."

"What if we take Harley hostage?" The clown suggested upon sitting on the larger man's lap. "It's not like Weed-Lady could use the media or project Malach against us, this would lead to her own arrest. She's not suppose to be here, remember?"

"I think that letting them believe in a freedom they do not possess is the best motivation I can give them. We need this cure, fast."

"Good lord, somebody has been reading some Machiavelli..."

The vigilante smirked as a response and went on adding another reason.

"I also want to investigate on Amanda Waller, I'd like to see if she has some sort of connection to all this."

"Yeah..." Joker scratched his head. "I could picture her having a minor role in the case."

"In fact, she was supposed to come to Gotham today, but it seem that everything has got delayed and she couldn't simply take a private jet all due to weather inconveniences."

"Strange, it's not like we've had any terrible snow storms or anything."

"I know." He said upon softly pushing the other man off him to access his computer. "I suspect that..."

His phrase got cut short by the jester's phone ringing loudly, he glanced at it and chuckled.

"My supreme gangster boss."

Bruce rolled his eyes wandering what stupidity might be keeping them from working while taking out his device to listen to the call.

Joker: What is it, Harley?

Harley: Finally found some news channel to give me a spot to go live.

Joker: Wait, why? When?

Harley: In a few minutes and it's related to another project I had about an enemy me and Dr. Crane didn't have in common.

Joker: Let me get this straight... You're making some personal fight of yours public.

Harley: Yeah! Well, it needs to get out there.

Joker: This is such a bad idea, who's the enemy?

Harley: I'm going live in one minute! Quick, open your TV on that news channel with the logo that looks like a queer peafowl!
Joker: NBC?

She hung up, the clown turned to his partner who had already opened his television on the right program and raised the volume. They only got a glimpse of the reporter's presentation.

[...] first time on television since her recovery to address a top secret project even more controversial than the one she is currently running; here's Harleen Quinzel.

The camera cut to a shot of the blonde sitting behind a desk with files and paper in front of her. Her long hair were completely free, yet well coiffed, wearing a tight black blouse and a red butterfly tie.

Greetings everybody! Surprisingly enough, I'm not here to discuss project Malach, well kind of, but... Well, you'll see! For a long time now I've been in some fight with a very important person, important in America, and this person is very powerful, y'see? I thought I could keep this all to myself, but now I'm realizing that I need your opinion, I need your permission to go on.

The larger man turned to Joker hoping for some clarification, but he only shrugged showing he had no idea what fight the woman was referring to.

For months, if not years I've been gathering as much information and proofs to back up what I'm about to tell ya now.

So, Gotham, do ya know Amanda Waller? Because I do, personally. She's a tyrant, a terrorist and she works for your government!

"Dear friends, today's the day the clown died..." The pale man whispered while placing his head between his hands in utter deception.

I've met her while she enrolled me against my will in a program called the Suicide Squad, but don't be fooled by his name that could perfectly fit a summer action movie that gets rich off merchandise, this is one of the most messed up program ever. Basically, she kidnaps a bunch of criminals, like me, put a bomb inside their neck... Hey technician, show the photos... Good...

A square in the left corner of the screen showing a series of old and more recent photos of the girl's scar on her neck appeared while she continued.

We'd have tasks such as assassination, destruction, stuff a government should never do to his own country and that's why she chose criminals instead of using agents of, let's say, the CIA, so they could blame the mayhem on us later. If we were to disobey or fail, we'd either be kill by the neck-bomb or arrested for the mission. I've managed to record small parts of some missions using my victim's phone and hiding the SIM card afterward. It's not much, but Waller has got more eyes than even God! Other members of the squad's face has been blurred in order to protect their anonymity and I invite them to contact me and come forward one day to help me expose Waller. What you are about to see is very violent, very shocking. Play it, technician!

Although the videos weren't bringing any news to both men, they were quite amazing. Containing so much proofs that those thugs were acting against their will. Some videos were replayed with the volume enhance and you could clearly identify Amanda's voice through the communicators some of the members had.

"Impressive..." The vigilante stated.

"The slave becomes the master."

"Not only that, but this means the Reds project has been existing for years."

"How so?"

"She would've never tried to expose the Suicide Squad while completely insane."

"So you think she's been on Reds for what... Maybe two or three years?" The jester asked completely puzzled.

"Not the Reds, but prototypes. You don't end up with such a complex formula in one try." The pale man went on laughing, and the detective questioned him. "What's so funny?"

"It makes everything worse! Think about it, Ivy literally worked for years to find a way for Harley to exit Arkham and finally be free and be with her forever or whatever, but instead she gets back stab because her little girlfriend decides to form a new gang. She escapes from her, angry, only to get kidnap a year later in order to put an end to her useless years of work. I'm officially giving Harley the honorable award for biggest jerk in the world!"

"I don't think she meant for all of this to happen..." Bruce responded before the videos ended and the blonde was back on screen.

I'll be making all of these videos accessible on the website so ya can analyze it all ya want, since I know it's a lot to take and ya might be skeptical about whether it's true or not. I've also successfully accessed, thanks to some good friend of mine, a few reports concerning abduction of important citizen throughout America, all ordered by Waller. Those will be posted online too. I'd also love it if Gotham's greatest detective, that's ya Bats, could hold on to all these. I fully trust ya with this case and I know that the people of Gotham trust that if ya were to find out I was lying y'wouldn't hesitate to lock me up, project Malach or not. I'll be waiting and of course, y'know where to find me, always do.

"How convenient!" The clown commented.

My message is simple, I'm not out to arrest ya, Waller, I'm out to let the people of my city know what's going on, I'm out to protect them from ya. I want ya to know that here in Gotham we believe in real democracy, we will not tolerate a rise in kidnapping after this message, we will blame ya if anyone close to me or related to project Malach goes missing. We know what kind of monster y'are and this no longer should be tolerated. I believe in democracy, I don't believe that terrorists, such as yourself, should have such an important role in our government. I may not be able to stop ya from damaging this entire country, but Malach will protect this city, Batman will protect this city. Speaking of him, don't even dare try to destroy him whether physically or by revealing information that might lead to his true identity! Y'don't want any problem with us, it's fine, just stay out of this city, leave my people alone!

After this intense rant, the hero actually caught himself nodding in agreement, to the surprise of his partner. The seconds of silence that followed where heavy in seriousness and hopes for a better Gotham. It was glorious up until Harleen slapped her hands on the desk and smiled upon speaking.

Th-th-that's all folks!

The small man burst into an intense laughter.

"She's dead, baby! Bon débarras!"

"No, we need to protect her. We need her."

"What do you say we do? She just exposed an enormous government secret. Trust me, it's over."

As he was speaking, the hero had already started gearing up, completely ignoring his ally's opinion on the matter.

"Go to your place, put your suit on and join us at the lab." He ordered the pale man who slightly lost his smile.

"I shouldn't. According to the plan we shouldn't already be working together. According to the plan Malach hasn't even started yet."

"She needs your protection."

"Tell you what. Give me the link to access Eddie's web page and with it I should be able to find enough information to get into government's communication and keep an eye on what Waller is planning to do with Harley-girl."

The dark knight had finished suiting up, he thought for only a few seconds upon responding.

"Fine. Keep me updated."

Both men went on quickly leaving the cave and heading toward different directions.

December 23th, 01:23 AM, it was a freezing night only made worse by the strong winds that never quite seemed to catch any break and simply went on unceasingly. He had ran into Harleen as she was making her way back to the laboratory. Without being noticed, he had followed her watching over her in a state that closely resemble paranoia. It was as if every car that crossed her path seemed to slow down, that each windows were decorated by the dark silhouette of a government agent and that she could have suddenly fallen to the ground at any moment, hit by a hidden sniper. Batman felt there was no way the blonde could win against Amanda Waller and all he could do was delay the inevitable

She entered the lab and he got down from the roof where he had been hiding and knocked. The door opened.

"That was fast."

They went inside and she lead him to the room in which Pamela's cell was located. The laboratory was a cold place and the red head truly did not seemed appreciative of it. She was sitting on her bed, holding her knees to her chest, under the two thin blanket she had. As soon as she saw the detective, she turned her attention to the ground wishing to ignore his presence. The younger woman headed toward a small table and placed her bag atop of it.

"So in there, there's all the files, videos, photos, everything as I promised." The vigilante went on grabbing the bag, but was stopped by her hand. "I'm keeping the bag, use something else like eh... We got garbage bags here."

He served himself and as he was placing the evidences in the bag the blonde spoke up.

"So I was wondering if I could get a communicator, y'know, so I could reach ya?"

"No." He coldly answered. "I've got my eyes on you, in here, 24/7, you don't need a communicator for me to know what's happening."

"So much for trusting me. Speaking of which, I need your help. I need ya to get me clearance to access the evidences on Claire Williams' case."

"Why?"

"Why, because she's innocent!"

"No, she isn't. I've investigated this case myself, I know she's guilty."

"But you're wrong! Everyone is! I just know it!" She went on hysterically stating. "Just give me a chance to prove it."

"Out of the question." He harshly responded, annoyed that she is once again bringing this case up. "You have bigger issues to take care of anyway."

"Like what?" She dumbly asked and the man simply could not repress a sigh of disappointment.

"You've just declared war on one of the most dangerous member of the American government."

"Oh yeah... Well, I'll be fine, I can defend myself."

"You're planning on defending yourself alone? You won't make it. Know that I always keep an eye on you and still believe that I'm not enough to protect you from her."

"So what? I'll be fine."

"What about Joker?"

"What about him?!" She quickly asked with a sudden worrying expression on her face.

"He could help protecting you."

Harleen glanced at her girlfriend who did the same with an amused smirk upon starting to laugh at the idea. The larger man could hardly understand what was so funny about all this.

"I think you should all stick together for now." He continued. "Harleen, you've just put yourself and your friends in a very dangerous situation."

"Yeah, guilty..." She said while the detective was taking the bag and started walking to the front door. "... unlike some other girl."

He stopped and turned his head, looking at Quinzel over his shoulder. Her arms were cross and she had that proud smug face for some reason that was beyond him.

"I don't even know what you're trying to achieve." He stated upon exiting.

Before heading back to the cave, the hero took the decision to make a quick stop at his partner's apartment in order to verify what he had discovered so far and request his help for Quinn's protection. Stealthily, he entered by the bedroom window and walked through the dark rooms until he reached the living room in which the man was sitting on a chair, laptop on his knees, his attention on the opposite direction of the dark knight.

"Hey, Brucie!"

"What have you discovered so far?" The large man asked upon approaching the jester, not surprised that he had somewhat felt his presence.

"She's absolutely fine. So far, Waller seems to be taking her threat very seriously and has been moving her meetings outside of the city."

"I wonder what kind of contacts she could have made to possess such leverage against Amanda Waller."

"The clan of ninjas?" Joker theorized.

"You mean the League of assassins? Their ideologies are more extreme than Malach's, plus I haven't seen Ra's al Ghul nor members of the League being active in Gotham for quite a while now."

"Maybe he's trying to get back in, by appealing to the most important movement of the moment, which would be Malach."

"Could she even have contacts with the Court of owls?" The detective thought out loud.

"What if she just met one of them crazy conspiracy nerds, but this one truly was on to something?"

Both men stood silent for moment, reflecting on all the possibilities and new leads they would have to follow in order to uncover how Harleen had become so powerful.

"Anyhow, I'd like you to give me all the sources to the information you have discovered so far. I'll be continuing watching Waller from now on." Batman said, breaking the silence. "As for you, I want you to head to the lab and stay close to her. I want you to protect her."

"Waste of time! It would be better for me to stay with you. You and I, together, we can figure all of this out way quicker than if you're alone." The clown protested.

"I agree that we're more efficient as team, however Harleen is the key to all of this and we need her alive. Working together in this moment would just turn this investigation into a race in which we'd have to solve everything upon her death, and this may be sooner than what we could expect."

The pale man sighed in annoyance, remaining silent for a minute or so. He then placed his laptop on the floor upon getting up and turning to his partner.

"You know what? I may no longer be a killer, but I wouldn't want her death to be wasted in a government assassination. A woman of this new found legendary status deserves something grandiose and unforgettable."

He proceeded to make his way past the caped crusader who simply nodded unable to find a right answer to this uncanny and unlikely compliment the man had just made toward Harley. While the smaller man was packing a few things for the days he was about to spend at the laboratory, Bruce was making notes of all the information his ally had found out about Waller so far. They rejoined in the living room, shared a kiss upon leaving one another for an undetermined amount of time.

4:12 AM, he's in the cave, a screen focused on his partner who unexpectedly seemed to be collaborating to find a cure with Pamela. While glancing at it from time to time, he had started reviewing the evidences about the Suicide Squad. Unfortunately for him, he had to come to one conclusion; Joker was right, analyzing all of this by himself would take too much time, although he hated to admit it to himself, he needed help. Considering he had to go to work in the morning, he decided Alfred and Lucius Fox could surely give him a hand with all of this.

In the morning, he wasted no time to explain the situation to both men and went on assigning tasks to them; Fox would be taking care of verifying the legitimacy of the files while Bruce and Alfred would be analyzing the content.

Many days of constant investigation lead the detective to a surprising theory. He started believing that maybe the evidences in itself were enough for Quinn to have power against Waller. Not only was the content highly incriminating, but there was so much of it he actually was somewhat in wonder of how Amanda was not already in trial for her crimes.

Both Alfred and Fox was agreeing with him that Harleen probably had only one or two contacts max to pull this off and all they did was retrieve governmental information. The hero thought it was funny to a certain level as his partner had already theorized that there was a possibility that this woman's ally was nothing but a lonely intelligent nerd.

He went on sharing all of this new knowledge whenever he could get a moment alone with Jackson at work. Solving this case was already a challenge in itself, but doing so with so little contact was even worse. Furthermore, the pale man was not bringing good news from his side. Beside the fact that they were testing many things on Quinzel, they still had not even came close to finding a cure. Plus, Joker complained that she kept wasting their time by meeting officers, private detectives and what not in order to try and access the evidences from Claire Williams' case. The bat knew this was problematic for he could see her leaving the lab, bringing the small man with her, for many hours, every single day and all that for something so useless. No matter what the jester would tell her, nothing could convince her that the cure, Waller, project Malach was more important at the moment. As the vigilante thought things could not get messier, his ally went on telling him another bad news, whenever Harleen would get a tip that Batman was being active in the city and therefore not in front of a screen, she would give a disguise and allow Pamela to roam Gotham freely.

Although this was quite a lot of problems to solve, Bruce had already formed some sort of uncanny idea to solve half of them. He told the clown to hang in there and that he would proceed on dealing with almost everything in the next twenty four hours.

December 31th, 19:45 PM, the caped crusader is knocking on the laboratory door that opens shortly after.

"I wasn't expecting ya..." The blonde said with a confused look. "What do y'want?"

"Who is it?" The pale man asked in the distance upon approaching and happily shouting. "Hey, Batsy!"
The dark knight walked past them, ignoring his friend's greeting. He turned to Quinzel and started speaking.

"I know you allow Ivy out of her cell whenever you think I'm not looking. I am always looking, Harleen, and I suggest you never do the same again or I will take her to the cave and she will remain there until she finds a cure."

"What?!" She reacted. "If you're always looking, then ya know she never did anything wrong out there! So why are ya being so controllive?"

"Controllive isn't a word, Harley." The jester lowly pointed out.

"Why can't ya trust me, Bats?"

"It's not about you, it's about her." He responded, turning his attention on the meta human who was surprisingly asleep at the time.

"She's not a monster."

The woman continued, but he ignored her, caught up in his thought for he had something else to tell her, something that would possibly shock his partner.

"I have done you a favor, Harleen. I know you've been wasting most of your time searching for a way to access evidences regarding Williams' case and I know I can't convince you to stop. Therefore I successfully convinced the GCPD to grant you access to it. It's time you move on."

"Seriously?"

She asked in a relieved breath, eyes wide and with a slight smile. Joker was standing behind her, giving the hero a baffled expression, moving his arms around in a sad attempt to express all the questions he had at once.

"You will get to investigate, but keep in mind that any damage done to the material that doesn't lead to more information will be considered to be tempering with evidences and you could very easily end up in jail. Be careful."

"Thanks, anyway..."

She said, turning her attention to her coat which she grabbed and started putting on. The pale man went on doing the same, but she grabbed his arm to stop him.

"This is personal, I'm going alone."

Just like Batman, she left in a hurry.

He had waited longer than he had expected in the Batcave for his partner to join him, but finally there he was, coming down stair with a bottle of champagne in hand.

"Batsy, you have no idea how far I had to go to find an open store that still had one of these. Oh! And the things I had to do, let's not get into it..."

"Did you really think I had no champagne in my manor?" He replied chuckling.

"I don't mean to insult you but I think you mispronounced – Joker, you're an amazing human being and I'm very thankful for the champagne. Also, you look very handsome." He went on laughing at his own pathetic impression of Bruce upon sitting next to him and asking. "So do you have any glass in the cave?"

"We don't have time to celebrate, we finally have moment together, we need to work."

"We already missed Christmas because of work, I'm not missing New Year for the same reason." He complained.

"I agree with him."
Alfred's voice surprises them. Both men turned their attention on the butler who was approaching them holding on to a tray on which there was two empty flute glass.

"With all the good things you do for Gotham every single day, it would be more than fine for you to just lose it on New Year."

"I'm not keeping you two from celebrating, but I won't be joining."

The clown rolled his eyes, exited the chair and went up opening the bottle sending the plug somewhere far and dark in the cave. He served Alfred and himself a drink and the older man waited for the pale one to take a sip upon taking one for himself.

The larger man suddenly addressed them.

"Files and a video has just been uploaded to the Malach website."

"Play the video." Joker said.

It loaded for a few seconds and then a picture of a very depressed Harleen sitting at a desk in an empty room appeared and she went on speaking with a broken voice, unable to look at the camera.

Claire Williams' case has just been reopened, because I just found some proof that someone else was involved in the murder of Jervis Tetch. All of the evidences I have found are in the new files I just posted.
For now I want y'all to help me find this murderer. For some reason, he's dangerous and he needs to be stopped as fast as possible. You've known him as Joker, today he's Jackson White. Photos of him as been uploaded too.
What does this means for the Reds, I don't know yet. But maybe his problem wasn't insanity, maybe he's just evil.

"Traitor!" The jester shouted in anger. "She killed Eddie, kicked Crane out of Gotham and with Tetch's death saw an opportunity to end me without having to murder me! She wants it all to herself!" He stared directly at the vigilante who was looking back at him silent and in shock. "She's trying to frame me! She framed me!"

"I'll need to see this for myself..." The detective whispered perplexed.

"She knows where I live." He went on throwing his glass away and screaming. "Oh God! My suit! Francesca! We have to go, now!"

"Francesca?"

"My annoying neighbor, I... It's a long story, we need to go and you can't come as Batman."

The hero knew they had no time to lose and although he was full of questions, he simply got up and started running to his garage with his ally. They jumped in a car and the small man went on going through his phone, his list of contacts for some reason.

"What's going on with your neighbor?"

"Why do you think she never actually called the cops to complain about the noise? Francesca's actually a very important, not so legal, surgeon who also tends to sell organs. When I first moved there, she recognized me and we made a deal, I would protect her from the law and she would not only keep my secret but if I ever happened to get sick or hurt, she'd heal me for free. Now, Harley's heading this way, she'll found out about Francesca and she'll end up in jail because of Malach."

"So? She deserves jail." The vigilante coldly responded.

"I'm out of Reds, as for now she's my best chance at surviving whatever might come after the 14th of January." He kept on scrolling through his contacts upon stopping at one. "Bingo! This guy owed me, I know where we'll be going next."

A moment of silence filled the car, tension grew as distrust had now settled between them. They were nearing the building when Bruce abruptly stopped the car and turned to Joker.

"Did you kill him?"

He stared back, anger in his green eyes and quickly licked his lips upon answering with an annoyed tone.

"What do you think?"

No one spoke up, they got out of the car and ran to the building.

The pale man went to his neighbor's while the detective went to retrieve the suit. Upon looking through the apartment a thought that sent chills down his spine crossed his mind. If Francesca always knew that Jackson White was Joker, then surely she had figured out that he, Bruce Wayne, was Batman. He would never have the chance to bring such a violent criminal to justice for she had him in her hand. He wondered how he was supposed to deal with this issue and when will he ever had the time to do so. Everything felt loss.

He headed next door and knocked, she opened without saying a word, only glancing at the defeated expression that was marking his face.

"Don't worry..." She said and he was expecting such statement, followed by a classic declaration that she was no snitch. "Don't worry 'bout your man, he got out of worst situations. He'll make it this time too."

He could not repress the smile this beautiful imbecility was bringing to him. She really believed they were nothing more than a happy unusual couple. She really never had made the connections in her head.

His partner went on grabbing his shoulder in a comforting manner, while giving him a smirk. The larger man went on looking directly into his eyes and while repressing his laughter he stated.

"I'm so glad to hear it."

Francesca had packed a few things, Joker only grabbed his laptop with him and they left as fast as they could, leaving the scene in Bruce's car. Following the jester's order, they ended up in a small isolated house in front of which the key had been left. It looked like the person who lived there had just left a short moment ago for there was an unfinished glass of Pepsi on the counter, everything was somewhat of a mess, clothes on the floors, fresh food on the table, etc. Francesca went on installing herself in the master bedroom while both men headed to the basement in which there was a bar and the garage.

"I've got more bad news..." He told his ally upon taking off his glasses. "We missed the count down." He stated in seriousness.

"I don't care."

The dark knight responded while sitting on a stool, unable to figure out what was next. He needed to see Harleen's evidences for himself, but couldn't find the courage to leave Joker behind in the city nor could he find the trust to leave him in the cave anymore. Then again, he was trained, he had his suit, he could surely take care of himself.

His moment of reflection was abruptly interrupted by his phone ringing, glancing at it he saw it was Alfred. He headed to the garage and closed the door behind himself upon answering.

"What is it?"

"Sir, the city is turning into chaos, not only is it New Year but people are rioting both against and for the Reds and that's without mentioning the many groups who are quite literally searching the Joker through Gotham as if this was some kind of witch hunt. GCPD is requesting your help."

"Of course, I'll be there shortly."

"What about the Joker?"

"Well, let's just say the gang made a mistake when they decided to train him as their Champion. There's no way they could arrest him now."

"The Champion?" The butler asked surprised.

"Yes." He responded unsure while a minute of stressful silence settled in between them. "Alfred?"

"Sir... We have made a terrible mistake."