A secret meeting with an informant isn't an unexpected occurrence for Batman. It's a somewhat big part of being a vigilante, and it's not a big deal. Having that informant be completely mysterious and undisclosed isn't too unexpected either. It can be a somewhat regular event. The only difference there is that Batman doesn't often bring Robin with him when he doesn't know precisely who he's meeting with.

The difference this time, though, is that Bruce wouldn't have brought Jason with him even if he'd known who the informant was.

The Felipe Garzonas case hit Jason hard. Bruce has tried to express that his worry is more for Jason's well-being than for Jason's reasoning, has tried to reassure that being concerned doesn't mean he's angry, has tried to say that he doesn't know exactly what happened out there but he trusts Jason's word. If Garzonas slipped, then Garzonas slipped.

But Jason is so shaken up about it that Bruce wants to give him some time to deal with his feelings, hence benching Robin in general for a little while, not just for this meeting.

It's for the best, Bruce hopes, but he can't completely shake his concern about his son, not as he suits up, not as he heads out as Batman, not as he does a small amount of pre-meeting patrol, not even as he makes it to the meeting place at the right time.

Then a figure steps out of the shadows of the alley at the park's edge, and Bruce's concern has to be sidelined for Batman's readiness. The secret meeting with an informant is to be expected. The informant keeping their identity hidden at least until the meeting is to be expected.

The hidden identity of the informant being that of a Rogue is not to be expected.

A batarang is in one of Batman's hands and a grappling hook is in his other hand before Harley Quinn can take another step.

"Hey, hey, slow down, chill out," Harley says, her voice unusually quiet. She spreads her hands in front of her, palms up. They're empty, but that doesn't mean much. Back when she was working consistently with the Joker, that would tend to mean she was playing the distraction or yelling orders at goons. In more recent times, after she managed to remove herself mostly from Joker's influence, for the better of herself and of the general Gotham population, it usually means she's not alone and Poison Ivy is lurking around the corner.

Despite the fact that Poison Ivy hasn't been seen in Gotham for several months, or perhaps because of it, Batman gives a subtle glance around. He checks the nearby plants, the weeds poking through the concrete, the ferns crumpled by the park edge, all of it. None of it is moving in any odd ways, at least not yet.

"Hold your horses, or your bats, or whatever," Harley continues, still speaking at almost a whisper. "Sorry about the whole, uh, secret-y thing, but not sorry, you know? I need to tell you something, 'kay? I've got some info you gotta know."

"With the message I received saying that you have information for me, I understood that already," Batman says dryly, uncertain whether to be more or less guarded with Harley's unusual behavior.

Usually, Harley would cackle at that or maybe say a dry quip of her own, advancing toward him to fight. Instead, she nods slowly and stays right where she is, barely out of the shadows, staring down at her feet. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you would've. Right. Yeah."

Batman holds back a sigh. Something is wrong here, possibly very wrong, and he's starting to get more worried.

Harley does not hold back a sigh. She blows out a long, pained-sounding breath. "Bats? I, uh, I've got, oh, I mean… I messed up."

"You messed up?" Batman asks, attempting to leave room for her to continue, both verbally and physically.

"I messed up," Harley says readily. She sighs again. "I… I've been messing up. Ivy's been outta town for a while. And I've been trying real hard to not do the wrong thing, real hard. But that doesn't mean I did end up doing the right thing. I think I did the wrongest thing I could've done."

"And that is?" Batman prompts when Harley pauses for a long moment. He's not sure what she would call "the wrongest thing," but he's fairly certain he's not going to like it.

Harley sighs once more. "...I teamed up with Joker."

He's right; he doesn't like it. Batman tenses, ready to strike or to retreat at a moment's notice.

"Not right now," Harley adds quickly. "I thought I'd known better before, when I got out the first couple of times, but I really thought I'd known better this time. But I did it anyway, but now I'm out again. And I ain't going back to him."

"Why are you telling me this?" Batman asks.

"Let's say it this way," Harley says. "I know Joker's not a team player. I know him better than just about everybody, and I know how he works. He just likes to play his pain games. He don't care about anything else, and he definitely don't care about anyone else. He never cared about me."

She hesitates, but that's clearly not the end.

"But?" Batman says, sensing a little of what's coming.

Harley finally looks up. There are several dried tear tracks running through her makeup. "But I care. I care about other people, at least some of the time. There are lines I ain't gonna cross, lines I won't stand to see anybody else crossing either, and Joker's using one of those lines as a jump rope right about now. And if I'm right, he's been doing it for a long, long time."

"What's the line?" Batman asks.

"There's a kid," Harley says. "He's got a kid involved."

"A kid," Batman repeats tersely. Villains getting children involved is always an awful thing, and from the way it seems to have shaken Harley, it's even more awful than he suspects.

"I think it's been for a while, too. I don't know for sure, but I've been getting hints at this for years, maybe five or six years, definitely before I really broke off from Joker," Harley says. "But this time, it wasn't just a hint. It wasn't anything I can explain away. I saw the kid. Not well, but I saw 'em. It was just a glimpse, you know, and Joker tried to tell me I didn't see nothing, just like every time I've gotten a hint at this, but this time I saw it and I know what I saw. Joker's got a kid involved."

"What do you mean when you say 'a kid involved?'" Batman asks, because there's a few ways that could be interpreted.

"I mean he's got some elementary schooler holed up in his lair," Harley snaps. She breathes heavily for a moment, then she shakes her head. "It's all… I dunno exactly what it is, but it's messed up, Bats, it's real messed up. I don't got a clue what to do, but I thought… Maybe you'd have an idea?"

Batman definitely has an idea. Well, maybe it's less of an idea than it is a blaring alarm bell, but it's what he has. He doesn't know if Harley knows exactly what she saw, and he doesn't even know if she's telling the truth, so he's more than a bit suspicious. However, if there's a chance the Joker has a child involved in his schemes, then Batman needs to act on that chance.

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Batman asks. The more information, the better, and the sooner he can get on with what he needs to do.

Harley sniffs. "There was some stuff Joker was planning for doing soon. He said something about, uh, Ethiopia, and getting some lady named… Shelly Hayfield, I think, or something like that. It sounded like it was a trap for you."

"Shelly Hayfield in Ethiopia," Batman says. "All right."

With a nod, Harley takes a step back into the shadows, becoming an indistinct figure as she moves away from the alley.

"And Harley?" Batman says before the figure can fade entirely into the distance. "Thank you. This means a lot to me."

She stops in her tracks. Barely audibly, she says, "I ain't doing it for you."

As Harley starts moving away again, Batman shoots his grappling hook for a nearby balcony. He moves away from the alley too, going out at nearly his top speed. The rest of his usual patrol will have to be put on hold for now. He's filled with concern to the point of feeling ready to burst.

A kid is involved.