Author's Note: The cover-art is just a temporary for now, since I thought it was confusing how my stupid avatar was showing up as the cover before :P

I really want to change the name of this story at some point, the only reason I called it 'Abnormal' was because I literally couldn't think of anything else at the time. XD

Chapter 16

Mistake

'We caught him snooping around the back of the steel mill, looked like he was searching for something,' said one of the thugs. 'We think he might be a spy for the Penguin.'

'I swear I ain't part of his gang no more,' Clara defended herself hastily. 'I'll rat on anything you want to know about him. I'm actually on the job market, you see?'

'Seeking work?' the Joker asked, he raised an eyebrow and grinned, then broke into a fit of giggles. 'I've already got a rat in the Penguin's museum, don't need two. Boys, I believe we're currently running low on fuel. And the human body is a form of carbon, so why not throw our little friend here in the furnace? He'll make do until the next shipment arrives.'

They began drag her back out of the room, and Clara knew she needed to act fast. The Joker was insane, he couldn't be bribed or reasoned with rationally... That was it! She had to deal with him irrationally, like a jokester with a sick sense of humor...or someone equally insane. Clara knew she was no good at jokes, but she could tell tales, she had been telling them to herself ever since she had first came to Arkham City to stay sane.

'Once there was a lad who went to the kingdom of Arkham to fight a furious dragon!' she yelled, ignoring the baffled looks of the thugs restraining her. 'A great big dragon with wings like a bat!'

For a moment the Joker just stared at her, then a wide grin split his face and he gestured for his men to stop.

'Was the lad's name Joker?' he asked.

'Yes, the lad was called Joker, and he had gone to fight the black dragon of Arkham so that he could become the rightful king,' she had no idea where she was going with this, but anything to stall being thrown in a furnace was good in her mind.

'That story sounds awfully familiar, Mr J-' shouted a woman's voice from the room where the TV screen's light was still flickering upon the wall.

'Quiet, Harley! You're ruining my fun,' the Joker wheezed. 'Carry on, ratty penguin.'

'The dragon hid, but the lad was cleverer and knew all he had to do was wait for his enemy to come too him. In the meantime though, he had to deal with the other residents of Arkham. A two-headed hydra and one eyed cyclops.

'Was the cyclops fat and short?'

'Yes, the cyclops was fat and short,' Clara replied, knowing that she was describing the Penguin. 'And balding.'

The Joker burst out laughing, only for it to quickly develop into a coughing fit. Harley's concerned face appeared around the corner of the door.

'Snookums, the doctors all said you should get your rest,' she said tentatively.

'And where are all those doctors now?' he hissed back, skeletal fingers clutching at his thin chest as his coughing fit abated. 'They're not around anymore are they? Can't have been very good doctors!'

'Of course they weren't Mr J, they were awful,' Harley agreed sincerely.

'Then shut up! Laughter is the best medicine after all, and you're draining all the fun out of the room!'

Harley quickly disappeared back behind the door.

'Tell me more,' he rasped demandingly.

'The two-headed hydra could never go far before an argument broke out between his two heads, his men all thought he was loopy, and the fat cyclops was so fat that he didn't walk, he rolled. And the black dragon...' Clara paused a moment, realising that the dragon would have to be Batman, but so mysterious was this superhero vigilante that she couldn't actually think of anything to say about him, let alone mock – so she played on what she had only heard secondhand. '...was very sneaky, and he hid from the lad. Never wanting to confront him directly, he watched and watched, hoping that one day the lad would grow bored and go home.'

'Hah, shows what pointy-nose knows!' cackled the Joker, then sneered over his shoulder as the sound of crying filtered through the open door again. 'Harley!'

'I'm sorry, sweetie,' Harley's make-up was running, and as she stood up Clara finally caught sight of what she watching; 101 dalmatians. 'It's just the movie is making me think of Bud and Lou!' And she dissolved into tears again.

Clara literally had no idea what the two were talking about. Then she suddenly remembered the two stuffed hyenas that the Penguin had recently acquired into his collection at the museum.

The Joker continued to sneer, then looked at Clara again, glaring. For a moment she held her breath, scared for her life, fearing that she had somehow offended him. But then he burst out laughing.

Choking again, he shakily got to his feet.

'What's your name then?' he asked her, leaning against his wheelchair.

'They call me Tony,' she recited the script she had learnt in Arkham City, not telling her true name but not lying at the same time.

'Well young Tony, I have to say I have heard better tales, but yours was entertaining for what it's worth. But it simply doesn't stand up to par, it's nothing personal, but you see, it's just that we're not hiring writers at this time. So-' Whatever promise of death or torture he had been about to give her, Clara never found out, because at that moment there was a knock at the door and three men walked in.

The two thugs holding Clara pulled her to one side so that the Joker could see his new audience.

'This better be important, today's a busy day for me,' he told them warningly. 'I've got important business to attend to! Party favours to prepare, bombs to plant, unwanted guests to kill.'

'Of course, boss, it's just that word got back that the Penguin's turned smart on us,' said one. The three were out of breath and Clara could see snow on their clothes, they'd been running.

'Oh, and why's that?' the Joker snarled questioningly at them. 'What's old bird-brain done now?'

'Well, actually this is about the snitch, sir. This is the second night running that he didn't show.'

'We think he may have gone dark on us, sir,' said another. 'It's not like he can't contact us. But his comm has been off since yesterday, nothing but static.'

'Though word on the street is that Frankie the snitch has been wasted,' spoke another of the three. 'We didn't see a body, but all of the Penguin's men are crowing about some guy they just offed. Saying that he was one of ours.'

'Ooh, it looks like there might be a job opening after all,' the Joker grinned at Clara. 'How about-'

He was interrupted by another knock on the door and several more people making their way in.

'Oh for the love of-' he suppressed a growl, the newcomers tripping over their feet in fear as they realised they had angered him. 'Is this a surprise party?! What is it now?!'

'The schematics you ordered, sir,' said one of them nervously. 'You asked for them.'

For a moment the Joker regarded the newcomers sourly, then nodded and he looked over his shoulder again. 'Hey, Harley? Could you be a dear and come in here a moment?'

'Coming, Mr J,' replied Harley's sickly sweet voice. Unabashedly the woman walked into the room, her make-up smeared, but with such confidence Clara immediately recognised her rank. This was Harley Quinn, second-in-command, crazy as the Joker himself.

'Harley, dear, you see this scrappy pup here?' he gestured to Clara.

'Sure do, Mr J.'

'Well I need to have a word with him later, he might be auditioning for the part of the new snitch, you know?' the Joker choked briefly. 'Just make sure the others don't smear him into the ground in the meantime.'

...

Harley was surprisingly cheery up at being given something to dote over. Perhaps it was because she was still mourning the loss of her pet hyenas, and the fact that she couldn't see the Joker at this time, that she decided that Clara would have to do as a sort of substitute in the mean time.

'You're just a young boy, aren't you?' she crooned, putting away the pot of white paint she had just used. 'I'm going to have a baby one day, you know? You're not a baby, but you're young. Do you think I'll be a good mother?'

'You'll be a great mother,' Clara replied, forcing herself to smile.

'Aww, you're such a sweetie,' Harley had pot of purple powdered paint and was now vigorously rubbing it into Clara's short hair. 'I bet you were a right mama's boy before you got put in Arkham city, I can just see it in your face.'

Clara looked into the mirror in front of her as Harley colored her hair purple. Her face was a solid white now thanks to the face paint Harley had provided, it was a thick oily substance that smelt acrid and probably would have normally been used on walls but she wasn't about to dare complain. She almost looked the part, except for the two glaring white symbols on her jacket of penguins - Clara knew they would make her a walking target here, Harley was apparently oblivious to this and Clara didn't dare point it out.

'You'll fit right in,' said Harley, admiring her handiwork. 'I'll find you a mask too, but you probably won't need it. Horribly clunky things, masks are. That's why me and Mr J don't wear them.'

'Thank you, Miss Quinn,' Clara knew she had to get away as soon as possible, this was not like the incident with when she had first been brought into the Penguin's gang. The people the Joker hired were different than the Penguin's, she had seen it in their eyes. They were not mercenaries or trained criminals but rabid dogs, seeking any way to survive.

And she was easy prey, no matter how much Harley liked the look of her new style. And even if they didn't hurt her now, they might well do later - and that was only if the Joker decided that he wanted her a replacement snitch (in which case it would probably be someone from the Penguin's gang shooting her because they certainly wouldn't want her back now).

'Ooh, how polite,' Harley cooed. 'It's going to be Mrs J soon, me and my sweet pudding are going to get married! Isn't that swell?'

'Will the wedding be in Arkham City?' she asked, knowing that she had to keep the conversation flowing smoothly. Who knew what Harley might do if she thought Clara was judging her. She had yet to see it for herself, but she had heard stories about Harley's mood having the tendency to flip dangerously at the slightest provocation - the Joker's doting nurse one moment to a homicidal maniac in seconds.

'Gee, well of course,' Harley tilted her head to one side, grinning at Clara's assumed stupidity. 'This is Mr J's kingdom now, it would only be right for me to be crowned queen here. But I mean if I really wanted it could be elsewhere. Mr J is so clever, he would know how to get us out if he wanted to, like maybe through the docks. That's how me and Mr J got in here in the first place, you know? Just the two of us on a speedboat, it was such a romantic night.'

'Aren't the docks mined?' Clara asked, this was a question she had wanted answered for weeks now.

'Well actually, not at all, at least back then but they're watched all the time now,' Harley said, cheerful that she knew more about the subject than Clara did. 'Mr J sent some guys down there the other day to see if they could sneak out and establish a trade route into the city, but they got picked off by the TYGER guards as soon as they set down their boat in the water. The only way anyone would get out is if they went underwater, but they'd have own a submarine or be a like a really good swimmer to do that.'

And like that Clara realised she now knew the way out.

Why did he care for her, he asked himself over and over. Wouldn't it have been a safer option to simply get rid of her, pretend she had never existed? He wouldn't even have to hurt her, he could just chase her away and forget about her. His mind balked at the idea of losing her though. She was the first thing in his life in a long time that had meant something, a reason to live other than for himself.

Croc pulled himself up out of the water with one arm, the other held an old deck-chair and some tattered blankets he had gathered for her. It was all rubbish as far as he was concerned, he didn't need any of it, but he knew it was what she wanted and that was good enough reason to bring it back for him.

For a moment he paused, listening and taking in lungfuls of air. Once he was satisfied no one was around, he continued on his way back to his new hideout.

He had stumbled across a large abandoned train station, where he proceeded to have a look around there. In the end he hadn't gone to get anything from the old place. She deserved better than the old stuff he had in that place, it was all covered in blood stains and grime anyway. He carried the new stuff back to her, hoping it would suffice, but what he had really been after a mattress or something for her to sleep on, but those were not easy to come by as he had first thought.

To his disappointment though, he found the place empty and cold. She still hadn't returned.

No big deal, she could be gone for hours still, he told himself.

Croc set about throwing the stuff he had gathered around the room in an orderly manner as he could imagine, hoping that the blankets and deck-chair would dry out from the swim he had taken to get back rather than rot where he left them. After that he stared for a while, trying to figure out how he could improve the place, but upon realising that rubbish was always rubbish no matter what he did with it - and he had no idea what to do with it anyway - he sat down and waited.

He tried to relax, make a plan. Croc hadn't eaten that night and he knew he should be planning around this. He needed to set out again, find something to eat, come back later, the usual sort of plan. But even basic thought soon proved impossible, he simply couldn't concentrate.

It was hard for him not to picture her wounded and dying somewhere. He knew that if she did disappear here he might well never find out what had happened to her, erased from reality like a dream.

It had only been a few hours since she had set off, she had plenty of time to return, but he was restless. He kept remembering the night before, when she had had a gun pressed to her head, and he had felt so helpless, so pathetic and weak because there was simply nothing he could have do to save her while she was being held hostage.

He knew he didn't actually know really anything about her other than that she had been Arkham Asylum the year before on the night of the breakout. Why she had been there was still a mystery to him, she could have been staff, a patient, a visitor, or for all he knew she could have lied to him and never been on the island in the first place. Perhaps he shouldn't have let himself get so attached, maybe he was just a method of surviving for her, but she was different than anyone he had met in a long time. She didn't scream at him, didn't frown in disgust at his appearance, heck, she sought him out in Arkham City because she wanted to be near him. What sort of crazy chick did that?

She had never asked him directly about what had happened back at the Penguin's the night he had been forced to leave, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that she was trying to pretend that it hadn't happened. While she wasn't necessarily scared of him any longer, he knew she was still scared of the danger he could pose - the image of her scrambling to get away from him the day before when he had rescued her was painfully seared into his mind's eye. He wouldn't scare her again.

Croc looked up eagerly when he heard the distant clatter of stones. He listened intently for the sound of footsteps. But it became all too clear to him soon enough that the sound was just the crumbling of the ancient brickwork.

There was no one there, she still wasn't back.

Making his mind up, he got to his feet.

He would go out to look for her, he decided, and he would get food for her, so that she wouldn't need to go up again any time soon. The food drops the staff gave this facility were a joke, there wasn't possibly enough food to go around, and even if there was it was all being jealously hoarded by the big three. How was he supposed to get anything substantial for her? The Joker's men were the most likely to have something edible in their pockets, if he could get one of them. Or maybe he could raid a storeroom.

For one moment, he allowed himself to imagine her returning tired and exhausted, but then he would offer new gifts: clothing, food and whatever he could scavenge. Her face would light up with a smile, she would be so happy, and then maybe she would never want to leave.

He would not lose her the way he had always lost everyone else that had ever mattered to him. He was stronger now.

Croc promised himself that he would never let any harm come to her.

...

Initially he had tried to track her the way he had done before, but found that half way along the route she took a narrow tunnel that he couldn't possibly have gone through, and he had had to head back again. So he put into motion the second part of his plan, finding something for himself to eat and then find food for her as well.

Croc did not have to go far.

The Joker's men swarmed like rats. There was so many of them cramped into one small area of the city, all of them ridiculously loud and raucous - easy to find, easy prey, but they were also all armed to the teeth and he knew he had to be cautious.

He stayed below water, watching and waiting, below a bridge, for an opportunity, because he knew sooner or later someone would have to use it to get out. Croc didn't have to wait long, he saw the indistinct shapes of the Joker's thugs passing overhead.

It was too easy, he didn't even have to follow them, they stopped directly above him. For a while he made no move, sizing up the situation. The bridge was high and he would have to swipe and grab a victim first try because he wouldn't get a second chance once they knew he was there.

How convenient it was to him, when one of the little idiots trotted right over to the edge of the bridge. He could see the white mask on their face flickering through the water.

They didn't move, staring into the water, and it appeared they had caught sight of him, or at the very least were suspicious that there was something below the surface. It was now or never.

He attacked without a second thought.

There was yelling and gunshots as he leapt from the water, but the figure he was after strangely made no move to run.

It was only when they had fallen back into the water that his prey began to struggle frantically, clawing at him with blunt fingers, kicking to get back to the surface. The water frothing around them.

And then, just for one moment, one of the victim's feet landed a solid blow directly over where he had been shot the day before.

Croc let go, and the figure managed to surface again, but he wasn't going to give up so easily.

He caught his prey by the ankle without having to surface himself, pulling them back under water while they thrashed and yelled.

And when they tried to kick him again, he sunk his teeth deep into one of their legs.

Croc might have finished his victim off then and there if it were not for the fact that the Joker's crew above decided it was good time to start lobbing grenades into the water. They couldn't see him through the dark waters, they missed him completely, but he still felt the pressure wave go over him - if it had been much closer it might have stunned him.

He swam back the way he had came, dragging his now unmoving prey with him.

He didn't spend long under water, surfacing as soon as he was out of the Joker's gang's line of sight. He climbed up onto dry ground to see his prize, hoping that perhaps there was something he could salvage from the body for Tony before he sated his hunger. Maybe clothing, or-

It was only then he got a good look at who he had caught.

The world seemed to grind to a halt, he felt as if he was falling head first off a cliff.

Collapsing to his knees, he found he couldn't breathe. In the struggle before, his victim's mask had been knocked off. Her face was painted beneath, but even then he instantly recognised her. It was Tony, her frail body hanging limply in his hands like a rag-doll.

This was all horrifyingly familiar to him, except this time, he had no one to blame but himself.

A/N: I like to think there was foreshadowing to this event, with how Croc nearly attacked her before and how Clara has previously mentioned a few times that Croc could easily hurt her without even meaning to.

Don't worry this is not the end.

On a slightly brighter but random note, I thought I'd share an old story fact with you guys:

I originally had this stupid idea (in the very early stages of drafting this story) that Clara's manner of dealing with the stress of living in Arkham City was that she viewed the world in a rather warped/schizophrenic way (she was more delusional and insane in that version), she would write down what was happening to her every so often in a note book, summarizing the day's events like a fairy tale. She wrote Killer Croc as a dragon, the Penguin was a cyclops, Two-Face was a hydra etc, and she herself was an adventure/hero called Dereck (because she had this freaky idea in her head that she undo her brother's death by living on as him, all because she believed that if she had never been born then Dereck would still be around) - needless to say I also completely removed this idea very early on because it was so weird and strange that I knew it simply wouldn't work as a story.

Really hoping that Croc didn't come off as too sentimental in this chapter. My excuse is that he is currently in an isolated environment (below ground and alone) and doesn't feel threatened enough to be acting aggressively as he normally does.

Response to reviews:

Sunnycroc - I presume that's you, you're labelled 'Guest': So glad that you're enjoying the story :) On another note, Enrique is never actually named in the game, he's just called Officer Sanchez, I pulled the name Enrique out of thin air (I didn't know there was already an Enrique in the batman universe, I really need to watch the old show again!).

Kit Williams: Thanks ^_^

Quick summary of this chapter:

Clara is able to convince the Joker to spare her by amusing him with some stupid twisted tale based around the clown himself. A bit later on Harley inadvertently tells Clara the only way out of Arkham city is through Gotham bay, but the guards would either have to be distracted or the escapee under water.

Meanwhile Croc begins to grow worried that Clara still hasn't returned. He sets out to find her. Unable to follow her trail through a narrow route she has taken, he sets out to find himself something to eat. The Joker's territory seems like an obvious choice, he heads there immediately and snatches some poor unfortunate individual. Only then he finds out that the person he has attacked is none other than Clara.