Why so serious? Why? What the Hell was this guy's problem? Shit, I didn't have time for this and he was none of my concern anyhow. Fuckin' creeper in the fuckin' alley wastin' my fuckin' time.

"I'll ask again." The man said with a wider grin. "Why. So. Serious?"

"Fine, buddy, I'll tell ya why." I snapped. "A chemical truck dumped on my ass and half my neighborhood, and I'm the only one who came out damaged!"

"Damaged?" He laughed. "Sweetheart, ain't nothin' about you damaged."

I ripped the scarf down and got in his face, baring my teeth. "I ain't damaged, huh?! Look at me! What about me looks unbroken?!"

He was mildly taken aback by my ferocity, and, I guess, my guts to get in his face.

"My family looks at me like I'm a freak! My mother wanted to have me experimented on! I can't even go home!" I screamed at him.

I was sobbing for the first time in weeks, the first time since the chemicals burned my skin and set me on a type of fire I had no idea could even exist. I still remembered the hazy green fumes that had encircled the dump site, where the truck had overturned on a bike rack with only one, small girl standing nearby.

It was unfair.

The man seemed uncertain with a crying woman in front of him. Had he ever seen a girl cry before? Didn't seem like it.

"Uh, er…"

"Not the type to get thrown off guard, are you." I muttered, drying tears. With horror, I realized that my tears were red, thick like blood and smeared down my cheeks. "Agh!" I tried to wipe and claw them off my face, causing more to drop.

"Hey, hey! Easy!" He grabbed my hands. "You're gonna claw those pretty little eyes right out of your skull!"

"And what do you care?!" I yanked my hands away from him.

He paused. "What do I care?"

The man leaned into me and I got a good look at his eyes. Black sclera, one iris purple and the other green.

"Because fuck you, that's why." He grinned again.

He was like me? His body was messed up too. What happened to him?

"Wanna come over to my place for dinner? Mom'll love to have guests." He offered. "If you don't have anywhere to go, I mean…"

"Er… I…"

"Come on then!" He grabbed my hand and started dragging me along, whether I wanted to go with him or not.

I watched him. He was certainly not… normal… His skin was grey and his hair wasn't just white, it was pure snow mounted on top of his head. The hands that were wrapped around my wrist were thick and ended with claws, real claws. I was afraid he was gonna cut through my hand, but he never did. In the dark of the alley, I hadn't noticed his mouth before, either. But every time he turned around to grin at me and tell me how much he was gonna love dinner with his family, I saw jagged teeth like mine, except they were purple. He didn't have any lips, either, so it was no wonder he was always smiling. He had stitches in his mouth, like at where the ends of his lips would be. And FUCK if that man was not the tallest mother fucker I had ever met in my life.

"You're awfully quiet back there." He commented.

"Er, sorry. Long… day…"

"So a chemical spill. Or it looks like, anyway." He said. "Chemicals in some form."

"Truck took a turn to hard near where my bike was." I nodded.

"Chemicals are a weird thing. Why do they make one person a monster and another person a flower and another a weapon of mass destruction. And then there's you." He shrugged.

"Yeah. Just another freak show."

"Freak show?" He laughed loudly. "Ha! Nobody I know thinks of themselves like that! My dad was in a chemical vat at one point! Now he's great, better than ever! And look at me! Chemicals made me invincible!"

"You aren't ashamed? You aren't… I hate this…" I motioned to myself.

"Ah, ya look fine." He patted me on the back, knocking the wind out of me.

I coughed and caught my breath as he sheepishly giggled, knowing that he was the reason I was coughing.

"Come on then. In we go." He held a door open for me. I hadn't even realized that we had walked to a residential area.

"Th-thanks." I stepped inside.

"Rex, is that you?" A man's voice called.

"Yep! I'm home, pops!" He gleefully shouted back.

"Rexy!" A red and black blur shot into his arms, squeezing him tightly.

"Hi mom." He laughed at her eagerness.

I felt a sickness in my stomach. I knew who that was. Everybody knew who that was: Harley Quinn.

"Th-this is your mom?" I swallowed dryly.

"Yeah." He nodded. "Mom, meet… Er…" He scratched his head.

"You invited a young lady ova and didn't even as her name?!" Harley stepped back and started tapping her foot.

"I was getting to it." He winced.

"That isn't very polite, Rex." Poison Ivy stepped around the corner, holding a potted blue plant. "I would think that you of all the people we know would ask for a young lady's name."

"Sorry Aunt Ivy…" He scratched his head.

That was Poison-fucking-Ivy and Harley-fucking-Quinn! That meant that the man's voice had to have been—

"I do believe we've put the young lady into shock." The Joker himself stepped into the hallway and straightened his bowtie. He was looking very stylish in a brand-new-looking purple suit. His green hair was slicked back and his bright red lips were wide in a joyful grin, joyful from watching me squirm at the sight of such deadly people. "Well then, Rex: introduce us!"

"Yeah, yeah." Rex muttered. "I'm Rex. That's Pops, Mom and Aunt Ivy. And you're…?"

"H-Harmony." I whispered, my eyes wide as saucer plates.

"Harmony!" He exclaimed. "Mom, Pop, Aunt Ivy, this is Harmony!"

"Hi Haamony!" Harley completely left off the 'r' in my name, extending the 'a' to fill in the gap. She wrapped her little, muscular arms around me. Small she may have seemed, but the woman was strong.

Rex patted her and told her to let me go before I suffocated. Ivy was content with shaking my hand, and the Joker didn't look entirely happy that I was even there.

"You'll be stayin' for dinna, right?" Harley took me by the waist and led me into a fairly large kitchen.

"Uh, um, well, you see—"

"A course she will. I already invited her over." Rex cheerfully followed after us.

"I wish you woulda told us you wanted to bring a pretty girl ova." She frowned, and I had to admit that it was relatively adorable. But did she even know the letter 'r'?

"I don't have a phone. It's not like I can just call you up." He shrugged. "Besides, she has nowhere else to go. Her own mother gave her up to be experimented on. And her being like this is an accident." He emphasized the word like it meant something important.

Harley went into a rage. "WHAT KINDA MOTHA WOULD EVA GIVE UP HER BABY GIRL TO BE EXPERIMENTED ON?!"

I covered my own ear for fear of her shrieking in it again. She started to break things all over the house, kicking and screaming about how cruel that was and how could anybody not love their baby?

I winced and took a step back. Rex put his arm around my shoulder and smiled at his mother. "You'll get used to her. She's a little spacy, but I love her. She raised me. She and Pops."

"You were raised by Gotham's two most notorious villains." I whispered, still in shock.

"Yeah. Best parents a guy could ask for." He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Hey Mom, what's for dinner?"

"Oh, that's right!" She bounced to the oven, all vendettas against the woman she didn't even know lost to feeding her baby boy. "You're gonna like this! Momma made turkey!"

"Made or killed the person who made it and brought it here to cook." He asked her to correct herself.

"Details! Who needs 'em!"