Gotham
A city in only description, but not in identity. Most people would call it a hell, a ses-pit, a breeding ground for crime, while others were forced to call it home. The occupants only considered it one thing, a home. There were though, two gleams of light in the shadows of the city. Well technically one, but very few new or understood the implication of that knowledge. Those two lights were Bruce Wayne and the knight in the shadows, Batman. A man who worked in the light of the cameras and sun to better the city for the average citizen, while the other worked in the shadows to protect the weak.
A recent development had plagued the city of Gotham for many years, but now it had lifted like the early morning fog in the afternoon. The Joker, a madman bent on tormenting and amusing himself with the antics he thought of on a weekly basis against the Batman. To torture, to hear the citizens scream, and most of all to enjoy his psychopathic games of madness with his best friend in the world, the Batman.
This clown of crime had suddenly disappeared from gotham leaving a distraught and confused Harley Quinn, the joker to the Jokers King.
It had been recently that Harley had been found and apprehended by police. Was she terrifying people? Arming bombs? Letting loose her hyenas on citizens?....no. She was drunkly spray painting the words, "Where are you sugar?" across the statues guarding the Library of Gotham Congress.
"What am I going to do with you Harley?" Gordon asked with a deep sigh. Looking across his desk at the chained up girl.
Gordon was the head of the Gotham police force, though most of their job was cleaning up after Batman's antics.
His mustache twitched as he took a sip from his white mug, long since turned muddy with use.
"You weren't always like this, you know."
I yank roughly on the handcuffs shackling me to the chair, glaring angrily towards Gordon. The metal digs into my wrists, peeling a layer of skin from me as I struggle. The pain transports me to another time - another place.
I imagine being locked up, cuffed to a wheelchair which Puddin' had retrofitted with rollercoaster wheels. It was incredible, I tell you... Like something straight out of the mind of a genius. I remember the clickity clack of the chain pulling me up the hill, the rush of looking onwards towards the unfinished rollercoaster. The thrill of dropping down the hill, riding through the loop, flying upwards....off the rails....and into a wonderfully deadly slumber dedicated to my Mr. J....
"Oooh....Mr J....where are you pudding...." I sigh, the illusion fading as I return back to the present. I'm sure to Gordon, I must seem delusional - or worse. I don't care though. No, there's only one man I care about what he thinks....and he's gone! GONE! Gone without a trace...a phone call....or even a booby trap. I don't have the faintest on where he could possibly have gone.
The air atop the police station was bitter cold. Gordon's hair and tan trench coat blowing with the wind. The steam from his foam cup dissipating against the roar of the wind, the smoke only slightly illuminated by the light of the bat signal.
"I...hhh...hate winter", he muttered, as he reached into his pocket for a lighter.
"Thought you quite" replied a voice from the shadows.
An almost inaudible click, then the signal illuminating the sky disappeared, once again shrouding the roof in darkness.
Gordon shrugged, his hand returning from his pocket empty. "I'm trying, but old habits die hard", looking up at the shadow. "You should know that better than most!"
Apparently that reply didn't warrant an answer, as an awkward silence passed between the two. It was Gordon shivering from the cold who decided to break that silence.
"You took longer than usual" his almost frozen mustache twitching in irritation. "Get stuck in traffic?"
The form the comment was meant for silently shifted into view. Tall, dark, with a willowing cape and an attitude for action, even violence.
"I've got a new....complication....its...taking more of my time" he growled in reply.
"Make that two" Gordon wordlessly replied with a sigh. "I've got that favor from you to turn in"
The glare could be seen from the shadows even with in the dim light.
"I want you to take Harley Quinn in. I think you might be able to fix her, since the Joker is no longer in the picture."
*meanwhile, back downstairs*<|im_end|>
Harley was lost in one of her fantasies again, thinking about when she first met her Mistah J, how scared she had been of him. Now she knew who he really was, she prided on being the only one that did. Her puddin' meant the world to her and his happiness was all that really mattered to her. She could remember him flirting with her, telling her he understood her pain, understood how it felt to be cast out. She'd fallen for her puddin' quickly. She talked aloud now, as if he were here. Tears rolled down her pretty cheeks, the white clown paint mingling and leaving white puddles on the floor.
"Mistah J why'd you leave me? I know you'll be back for me," she murmured before bursting into hysterical laughter. "It's a test right Mistah J? You want to see how much trouble I can cause?" She pulled against the handcuffs and screamed out in anger and frustration. She kicked over the table in front of her and laughed as the papers came down around her. "OH JIM!" she shouted before laughing her head off.
Outside the room, other officers just shook their heads. "Why doesn't he just send the crazy bitch to Arkham again?" one of them asked as she continued to laugh and talk to herself.<|im_end|>