Larissa hunched into a ball at the back of the police van, feeling her head split into a different emotions. On one hand, she was dazed and confused. She was so sure that he was going to come back for her, she was convinced that it was all an awkward dream and that she would be reunited with him any minute now.

Any second now.

Or not.

On the other hand, she knew exactly what had happened. She had been played, she was nothing more than another piece in his chess board. That's all. She didn't mean anything to him, did she?

Did she?

She would never know.

The police van came to an abrupt halt outside of what looked like hell in the form of a large brick building. There were layers of barbed wires surrounding the barren courtyard, and the huge prison floodlights broke through the night sky. Larissa glanced past the barred van window and felt her stomach do a flip as one of the police officers opened the door and yanked her out by her arms. Larissa would've fought back on a normal day – but this wasn't a normal day. As she allowed herself to be carried out of the van, her mind floated back to the first time The Joker had ever saved her from the arms of the law.

…

-FLASHBACK-

5 months earlier

"Well!" Officer Larken chuckled as his grips on the top of Luna's arms got tighter. "For once, we don't have a struggler!" Luna let her head hang so that the smirk on her lips was covered. She wasn't fighting because she knew which bit came next.

She knew this plan off by heart.

Officer Larken was a big burly man with a slimy touch – he had been after Copperhead for as long as he could remember. Now he had finally caught her, he wasn't planning to let her go. He marched her toward the guarded prison doors, surrounded by armed men with their loaded guns pointed to her head in case she tried anything dodgy. "Got anything to say for yourself, Copperhead?" he hissed before entering. Larissa looked up and gave him small smile.

"You are soooo…dead," she whispered with the tiniest of giggles. Larken furrowed his hairy eyebrows at her and opened his mouth to ask what she meant when suddenly, they were surrounded by the violent sound of gun shots. Larissa let out a proper laugh and fluttered her eyes shut, taking a deep breath through her nose and embracing the atmosphere of chaos around her. Larken could only watch in horror as every single one of his armed men went down one by one, bullets whizzing straight through their chests and skulls, blood spurting from every angle. Larissa cracked one eye open and waited for it – the beautiful noise that was like music to her ears.

"HA, HA, HA, HAAAAAA," came the manic laugh from somewhere behind them. Larken and Larissa spun round to see The Joker approaching them. He had a machine gun sitting comfortably in his arms and his lusting eyes locked with Larissa's enticing murky green ones. "You got this baby?" he growled with a smirk. Larissa turned to Larken and raised an amused eyebrow.

"Told youuuu," she whispered, before jumping into the air and landing comfortably on Larken's shoulders. She wrapped her legs around his neck and quickly jerked her body to the left, which swiftly snapped Larken's neck and killed him instantly. Larken's lifeless body dropped to the floor. Larissa was left standing on his chest with a strangely sympathetic look on her face as The Joker slowly applauded her. "Strangely enough, I was kinda warming up to him," she hummed. The Joker grinned and held out his hand so that Larissa could take it and daintily step over the corpse to the love of her life.

"Ya did great," he growled into her ear, one hand rested on her hip and the other still gripping the gun. "Did ya think I wasn't gonna come?"

"I had my doubts," Larissa admitted with a smirk, resting her own hands on his chest.

"Never doubt me. If you doubt me, you're technically doubting yourself," The Joker drawled. Larissa blinked at him, soaking up his words like a sponge. She didn't realise how far she had already fallen for him but she really wasn't complaining. She knew he was her protector – even though she could protect herself.

…

NOW

Larissa felt her eyes well up with involuntary tears as the armed security shoved her forward into the prison territory. It smelt like a mix of dirt and sweat, the air was muggy and in the distance was the sound of prisoners yelling and banging their fists against the cell doors. Larissa glanced around her and mentally took in all of the factors that she would need to remember for escaping when she was ready. She had done it plenty of times before, it wasn't a problem.

But she needed the time out first.

She saw this imprisonment as a time to get herself together, emotionally and mentally. Before she had met The Joker, she was the most hard-core, careless assassin that Gotham had ever seen. He had softened her up and turned her into something that she never thought she would be.

"Copperhead," came a booming voice from somewhere above her. "Look at me." Larissa didn't look up. She didn't want to. She felt like her energy was slowly draining from her body. The guard closest to her grabbed her dark wavy hair in a rough ponytail and yanked it back, so that she was now face to face with the voice. Larissa gasped as she felt tears spring to her eyes from the sudden pain. "Ah there you are." There were a long set of stairs going up to a single metal door and the top of stairs was a short man in a suit. He had thick black glasses on and a bold disposition. He looked like a man not to be messed with.

"Stone," Larissa whimpered, shoving her teeth into her bottom lip in an attempt to slow down the tears. David Stone, the owner of Arkham, had her on his hitlist for as long as she could remember. Being face to face with his smug little face was the last thing she wanted today.

"Well. We've finally caught you," Stone called out, turning his head to the side in what looked like mock sympathy. "This, is exciting. No Joker to save you this time? I heard he…left you?" Larissa squeezed her eyes shut and bit back her sobs. Stone let out a chuckle. "Look at me, Copperhead. I want you to look at me. OPEN YOUR EYES." The same guard that had yanked her hair immediately prised one of her eyelids open with his thumb and forefinger. He guessed that Larissa was particularly sensitive in her eyes, since her whole persona and build was based on a snake. She let out a scream of pain and her eyes shot open, forcing her to look straight at the man in front of her.

"You've got me now," she panted, her energy draining straight out of her body at this point.

"I asked you a question?" Stone frowned.

"WHAT?" Larissa hissed.

"Did, he, leave you?"

"Yes, yes he left me." Stone sighed, looking more than pleased with that answer.

"Well then. Looks like you're stuck here. Welcome to Arkham," he grinned sarcastically, outstretching his arms. "Is there anything we can do for you here?" Larissa pulled herself together and forced out a nod with the last bit of energy she had.

"Yeah. I just want beams in my cell. Just wooden planks across each other in the ceiling, for me to climb. That's it," she whispered shakily, the pain getting too much. She knew that she could heal but it was taking longer than expected.

"Oh like hell we will," one of the other security guards growled.

"Why should we give her anything?" the guard that was practically torturing her asked his boss, spittle flying from his mouth hitting Larissa's cheek. "She killed Larken. Just cos she got betrayed by the crazy one, doesn't mean we should give her sh-" That did it.

Larissa exploded.

She twisted her wrists, getting straight out of the handcuffs that supposedly restrained her. In the space of a second, she swiftly grabbed the closest weapon to her, which was the taser in the guard's belt. Stone simply watched with his eyebrows raised as Larissa grabbed the guard's neck with one arm and shoved the taser into his mouth with the other. Stone held out his hand to the guards so that they didn't shoot her. He was strangely curious.

"Either you give me what I want, or I'll kill your right hand man here, just like I killed Larsen," Larissa threatened him, looking dead into his eyes as the officer struggled to get out of her surprisingly tight grip.

"What would I get out of complying with YOUR demands when you're MY prisoner?" Stone questioned her. His head was thinking a hundred thoughts a minute. He couldn't figure out why she wanted the beams so much. Was this all some elaborate plan so that she could hide in there and then kill the first thing to walk into her cell?

"Fine, I won't escape this prison if you give me the damn beams in my cell," Larissa compromised casually, not breaking eye contact. "I won't escape and I won't kill this guy. Those are my two terms. It's not too much to ask."

"Don't do it," the hostage officer yelped, even though he was sweating like crazy and his voice was muffled from the weapon touching his throat. "She won't do a thing, boss. She's all talk." Stone knew that Larissa wasn't all talk. He knew what she could do – he had seen it in the case files and with his own eyes. "Boss, don't give her-" Larissa rolled her eyes and held down the buttons, automatically tasering the man and sending sharp electric currents straight down his body, leaving him to drop and writher on the floor. He was dying. She dropped the taser as the rest of the guards pointed their guns closer to her head instead.

"Now, you only have one term to work with," she shrugged, feeling the strength slowly flow back to her body. Stone raised an eyebrow and turned around.

"Give her the damn beams!" he waved them off. "Then knock her the hell out."

A/N: WOW so thank you so much for your lovely reviews and messages. I wasn't going to introduce The Joker properly until later on in the story but actually, I think it's a good idea to keep in little flashbacks of their relationship. But I thank you so much anyway. Copperhead's pretty badass and I love writing about her! - J