((once more, i own none of this c: ))

Duela smiled to herself as she walked into their little shack. Maybe she shouldn't have gone off looking for Lonnie—Anarky—but she wanted to know what he was up to. If he wanted a second chance, maybe. She walked in and looked around at the dark house, setting her purse down and kicking off her heels. He was probably asleep, she decided.

She made her way into the kitchen, but she was blindsided. All at once she felt the Joker on top of her, his knife at her neck menacingly. "Welcome home, honey. Have fun?" he asked, sarcastically, and he cut open one of the white scars. She winced and squirmed, but otherwise didn't fight it. Instead she just glared daggers up at his wide smile. "Did you ever think maybe, perhaps, it was a possibility that I would want to know where you were going? It's not that I don't trust you, I don't trust the things that go bump in the night," he teased, flicking another scar open.

"I didn't think it was necessary," she said through a wince, tearing up a little. "I was just going out to find…err…I just wanted to talk to Edward, is all. That's all," she mumbled, looking up at him.

"The Riddler is what he prefers, and I spoke to him. He said he hadn't seen you. You're lying to me, Duela, and I would suggest not taking me for a fool." All of the fun in his voice was gone, now, and instead he had nothing but darkness and insanity. "If you go see Lonnie again," he said, standing her up. "I won't be so lenient."

"I didn't go to see him--!" Like lightning he grabbed her hair and slammed her face into the wall, hearing the delightful crunch that was her nose snapping. Where did she get this little attitude from? Surely not from him…

"Again, I don't appreciate liars," he said, now a bit bored. He pulled her face from the wall and shoved her in the direction of the bathroom, to wash herself up. "I have eyes and ears all over my city!" he yelled, and continued to ramble in the kitchen, to himself.

Duela went into the bathroom, looking at her bleeding nose and she winced, trying to get the blood to stop. "You can't do this anymore," she mumbled to herself, her eyes going wide as she stared at her reflection. "Lonnie had a point…no respect, at all…I'm ready," she mumbled, and she looked at the mirror.

"No, I'm not," she answered herself, giving up and shoving a tissue into her nose to catch the bleeding. She sat on the toilet, her head hanging. "How could I possibly be ready? I can't even keep a hold on a citizen, he felt he had to run off and do his own thing. Because he's a moron," she continued, talking to herself quickly and quietly. She blinked a little, wiping away some tears.

"But he's so awful to you…me," Duela said, shaking her head and wiping off the blood that was slowly coming from her cheeks. She bit her lip as she poured alcohol onto the tissue and wiped down her own face this time. "He's horrible. I can't stand it any longer. I have to do something. Do what? Don't I get a chance to learn something? And I'll have to take that chance…but he's so awful…"

Duela continued this battle within herself for a while, cleaning her face thoroughly. The Joker listened curiously from the other side of the door, licking his lips as he thought about her and what she was doing. Saying. She wasn't talking to anyone else…only herself. Only Duela. He frowned and went to his room, having heard enough. She would make the decision to stay or leave, knowing what was there for her for each decision.

Duela sat back on the toilet, carefully removing the tissue from her nose. "He's horrible to me. But he's wonderful at the same time. I'm in love. No…no. I'm infatuated, with what he has to offer. Not with who he is. He's a former person…there is no soul to connect with. There is only what he has to offer me," she grumbled, and she looked down to her lap.

----

A few days passed, and because Duela had managed to do well with a bank heist, she sat in a tree. She'd earned more of his trust, which she was sure she rightly deserved. Pamela sat next to her on one side and Talia on the other. "What happened?" Talia asked, and although Pamela was busy brushing some dew off of a flower, she was actively listening.

"I went to go visit Lonnie. He found out." Pamela let out a little 'pfft', leaving Duela to frown. "What? So he broke my nose…"

She made a face, and Talia cleared her throat. "We just…don't understand why," she admitted, looking over to the bruised face that was Duela.

"Why what? Why I'm with him? What do you care? You're with your dad, and he beats the crap out of you. On a more regular basis. Of course, that could be because you fuck up on a more regular basis," Duela spat, defensively.

Talia glared, but let it go. Just this once. "I never had a choice. He raised me in this world. You were raised in…the slums, for lack of a better word. Tough life, but nothing compared to what Two Face gave you. And now this."

"It's stupid," Pamela said with a soft frown and a little pout. "To stay with him…to be here. Like us. You should be better than us…we had no choice," she said softly, and went to go tend to some bended leaves, pointing them to the sun.

She looked down, frowning. Why did she choose to live this life, when so many others just…have to? "I've never really been my own person. I've always…belonged, to someone else. I was raised in my mother's image. A whore, looking for the next high. Then my dad and Two Face came in. They turned me into something better, someone who meant something. I was finally Duela Dent. And then when he died, I had no one to belong to."

"You're your own person," Talia reassured her, awkwardly.

"No, see…I'm not. I've been so many different people, so many different things, I kind of…don't remember who I really am. I have so many personas…Duela, Dent, and Harlequin. They're all kinda important, but they're all…" she sighed a little, looking utterly confused. She looked around, losing grip on who she was even supposed to be right now.

"So what's stopping you from finding yourself now?" Pamela asked, looking into her curiously. "Or do you think you're doomed to be a chameleon your entire life?" she asked.

"I'm not…anyone. I'm people. Just look at me," she said, pointing to the red, irritated cuts on her face. "Half of my face is gone, but…it was his knife that did it. I'm both. But, at the same time, I'm neither," Duela said, staring forward with her eyes glassed over. "Do you get it?"

"No," the other two said in unison, and Talia grinned. "That doesn't make any sense. You're you. You're Duela, you're the Harlequin of Gotham City." She paused, looking forward. "And you always will be, now. But you don't mind, do you?"

"Well, I wasn't going to medical school," she mumbled with a little smile, as it hurt her cheek to smile too much. "Sometimes I forget who I am."

"Even in the Freak world, that's never a good sign," Pamela mumbled, and she hopped down from the bark flawlessly, going off and leaving. Duela watched her go with distant eyes, as this conversation had confused her to no end. She looked over to Talia and she shrugged before jumping down herself. Duela followed suit, but headed off to her car, her eyes down.

----

A few weeks passed after her conversation with the other women, and her confusion wasn't getting any better. She found herself in her room, lost in one of the zones she got into when confusion struck. "He's not very nice, I know, but he does it for a reason…it's like hitting a dog…I'm not a dog, I know, I'm not a dog, but…" Duela said to herself, her eyes wide and alive.

"This hurts, what he does, what he's been doing. I'm no one, but I don't have to be him…but he's what I have, he's what…he's what I am…" she continued, sitting in her dress. Over her eyes, she'd painted big black diamonds with small red dots on her cheek. "I'm his little Queen of Diamonds. I'm someone." And then she sighed.

"I'm Duela Dent. I'm…fuck, I'm…" she mumbled. She had no end to this internal battle. The Joker sat outside her door, listening in and deducing to himself, his eyes going wide as he did. "Harlequin. That's what they call me. That's what they call me now. They used to call me Duela…Two Face called me Duela. Harvey…dad, called me Duela," she said, her voice getting softer and smoother, like velvet. "But…they also call me Harlequin…" she seemed to go back and forth, every day, and she never came to a conclusion. Her heart raced as she rose up, and the Joker stood, looking as if he was about to knock on the door when she opened it.

"You're talking to someone…" he accused her, quietly, his eyes narrowing. Always watching, always analyzing.

"No. No one," she said confidently, though she still looked dazed. "How're you doing, babe?" she asked, her hand going up to touch his skin. The contact brought her from the fuzz. Her index finger trailed along his scar and she smiled to herself, finally meeting his lips. They were soft, so…vulnerable. Of all things. She shuddered and met his eyes, smearing his makeup and smirking a little.

He gaped at her as she touched him. How dare she, how dare she touch such an intimate part of his body. Who did she think she was? But then, at the same time, he didn't stop. He gazed, taken aback. Finally she pulled her finger from him, took a deep breath, and moved away from him, rubbing her index finger and her thumb together until the red lipstick turned to pink. He watched her walk off, stunned for just a moment.

"Are you ready for something new?" he asked her, following her as she stood in the kitchen, looking around as if she was lost again. "Because I've hatched another plan, another—"

"Duela," she said to herself. "No, no…the coin…the coin is right here, don't panic…" she continued, and she held the coin in her hand tightly, smiling over to him. "What were you saying, babe? Another plan?"

At once he knew what he had to do. "Give me the coin," he said, switching from curious to dangerous in a blink of an eye. Duela did a similar change, going from lost to found, and she moved from him quickly. "The coin's in the past. Should've melted it like the piece of scrap metal it is when you first joined me…"

"It's not scrap metal!" she screamed, at the top of her lungs. She screamed so loud, her voice cracked into nothingness for a moment. She protected the coin like it was her livelihood. "It's mine! And it's staying mine! You can't have it!" she continued, and bowed her back up to him quite literally, glaring at him.

The Joker, while not surprised by this reaction, was still…put off. He went dangerously for a knife, smirking. "You wanna know why you're protecting that coin? Not because it was his, no, but because you want it to mean something to you the way it meant something to him. And with good reason—he kept the coin because of his father using it to do horrible, horrible things, correct? It gave him strength, and in the same breath, it brought him down. I…don't have time for that. Harlequin."

"I can be both!" she continued to just bark, desperately. "I can be Dent and Harlequin. I'll be the superpower Gotham has never seen, never…I can be that for both of you. Both of you are so important to me and what I am, I have room for both of you."

"Remember the last person who made room for another person in his head?" Joker spat, advancing. Destroy the coin, destroy Duela.

"One was weak and one was strong. Both of me is strong…" she reasoned, her knuckles going white with her grip. "Both of me can have it all. How selfish are you that you can't share me with chance?" she asked.

"Pretty selfish," he said. "If you don't hand it over, Harlequin…"

"I'll die!" she yelled, more than desperately. "I'll die if I lose the coin. The coin is as much a part of me as the dress," she said with a small smile, loosening herself up a little as her twisted logic washed over the Joker. "I'd die if you took away the dress. I'd die if you took away the coin. And we both know you're too impatient to create another masterpiece from scratch. Not when you have a perfect one in front of you. I'm everything you are, babe. And everything he was," Duela cooed, trying to calm her down.

He watched her. After a moment he threw the knife in her direction, but nowhere near her, and left.

----

He'd left the house for nearly three days. Duela had done small things, in his absence. He returned with the biggest grin on his face—why, she wasn't sure, but fine. "Remember when I said you looked bad in green?" he asked right off the bat. She'd sat in the living room, flipping through local channels when she walked in.

"Vaguely," she mumbled, and decided not to mention their big argument to him. He'd obviously blocked it out. If only she could be so lucky.

"I lied," he continued, and tossed her an…elf outfit. She inspected it with a flat expression. "You like parades? I love parades…all those people, all those people, all those moments to grab—" he took her face in his hands, meeting her eyes. "—all those things that can be done. And it's a Christmas parade, too, which makes it all the more…" he fluffed her hair a little. "Fun!"

"So we're going to be in a parade?" she asked with a small blink. "What is worth dressing up as an elf?" As in, what was the point of all of this?

"His name is Bruce Wayne, and he is very happy to be a part of this parade—and very happy to be held for ransom. I assume," he said with a small smile, finally letting go of her face. "Who wouldn't? We're a lively bunch of coconuts!" he continued, simply full of glee.

"Coconuts," Duela said with a faint smile. Until she looked down at the elf costume, and the smile wavered, but…this would work. It should work, anyway.

----

A few hours later, Duela found herself cooking in the kitchen with the Joker watching curiously, chatting away about his plans. "He's worth quite a bit," Duela said with a small smile. "But he's very…guarded. And he spent all that time in Vietnam, or something, training to be a…ninja. Or so I hear. There's also rumors he went off to join the circus, and become a trapeze artist, but…" Duela sighed, and shrugged. "I can't do tae kwon do."

"Tae kwon do is Korean," he corrected her automatically, wrinkling his nose. "Nope, nope, this is going according to plan. Because, you see…we know him better than you think. We've run into him a couple times…he always got away, but this time we'll get him, no, this time we'll have some fun…"

Duela was afraid to ask. "Babe, he's not…" she mumbled, her eyes going wide as she gazed at him. "How did you find out?"

"Remember Coleman Reese? I caught up with him, I wanted to…apologize, for what I did to him. It was really rude," he said with a little snicker. "Anyway, before I sent him to the big corporation to the sky, I asked him. And you'd be surprised at how persuasive I can be," Joker said with a small smirk, looking over to her curiously.

"You'd be surprised at my lack of surprise," she said with a small smile, and positioned her body invitingly. He'd noticed her doing this a lot lately. It was annoying…her infatuation. Of course, he was a man, he saw her body and enjoyed her, but…he didn't want to enjoy her. She was not enjoyable. Duela looked down, feeling the rejection for the millionth time.

"Babe," she said, mostly to the quesadillas, or so it would seem by her hanging head. "Why aren't you attracted to me?" She was not attracted to him, but it bugged her that he was not attracted to her. It made no sense to her. She was young, and attractive, but…he didn't want her.

"Because you're a monster," he said simply.

"But so are you," she retorted, finally looking at him. "We're the same breed. Monsters go with monsters," Duela said.

"We are the same species," he corrected, looking at her very seriously. "I'm a wolf. You're a…poodle. A standard poodle, but a poodle all the same. Wolves and poodles do not go well together," he said. This was also a control thing for him…if he could keep her under his thumb with this, too, then good for him. She was not getting him.

"That's not true. Maybe a poodle wants a wolf…no harm in that. It works. It's not socially acceptable, but since when are a wolf and a poodle really all that socially acceptable in a sea full of golden retrievers?" she asked, daring to smirk down at him.

"Poodles and wolves do not mix!" The Joker yelled, and rose up, knocking the boiling pot of water onto the floor. Some of the water splashed onto her bare feet and legs, burning her. She winced but grabbed the mop anyway, her bottom lip shivering.