Unsuspecting Hero (Batjokes)

Chapter 5

(Mentions of rape in this chapter)

First things first, he needed to find Harley. "Oracle"

"Hey, Batman. What do you need?" Barbara's voice came through the intercom, ready to help. "I need help tracking down Harley Quinn" A small beep sounded, indicating that Oracle was looking through the city cameras. "It looks like she was last seen in the eastern district with Poison Ivy. I'd be careful, Bruce" "Noted, thanks Oracle"

He made his way there, looking for any indication of the criminal couple. He saw a newly grown plant near the old docks, and flew down. Ivy perched on one of the leaves, Harley stood opposite her. A small thump sounded when he landed, and both women looked ready to fight.

Batman quickly raised his hands in surrender. "I'm not here for either of you. Quinn, I need your help"

"Oooh!" The girl chuckled. "The Bat needs help, for once? Well, who says I'll give it to ya?" She growled, mallet in hand ready to pounce if need be. Bruce sighed, the only way she would co-operate would be to tell her the truth. "Joker is currently staying with me" Those words made her eyes soften. "No wonder we couldn't find him"

"I made him a promise, to make Two-face pay. He says you were the one who saved him"

Harley dropped her mallet, willing to work with the Bat for her ex-boyfriend. "What do you need to know?" She asked, just as Ivy moved to lay a hand on her shoulder for comfort. "Everything. How you found him, Dent's last whereabouts, anything you found at the scene" Bruce asked, secretly pressing a button on his cufflet that would record the conversation for future reference.

"Okay, okay" She sighed, scrambling her brain for where to start. "Mister J asked me to lend him some of my men for that bank heist last month. He didn't really need the money, he just wanted to face-off you. Anyway, afterwards when my men came back, they said that J was no where to be found. He just disappeared from the scene, even before you got to him. One of my henchmen said that he had seen mister J with Harvey" She explained, sitting herself on a nearby tree stump. "So I went to one of Harvey's old hideouts, hoping to find him. I didn't, but he somehow knew I had showed up. He sent me a video, of Mister J being...raped by some of his henchmen"

Bruce let the silence go on, stunned. Joker hadn't mentioned that yet, and honestly, he didn't blame him. Still, after recovering from her last words, Harley carried on. "It was to taunt me, I'm sure. He had covered the background, too, so it was impossible to tell where he was holding him. I needed to trace Dent's cell phone, but he had blocked the signal. So I needed someone who could unblock that, and was also friendly enough with mister J to do so"

"Nigma" Batman concluded, receiving a curt nod from Harley in reply. "Yeah. Riddler and J always got along, so he was the first person I thought to turn to. Eddy traced the call, last seen at the abandoned warehouse near the lake district. But by the time I got there, it was too late. They had already relocated, and Harvey's phone was smashed on the ground so I couldn't trace him again"

"So then what?" Bruce asked, swallowing down the pit in his throat. "Harley turned to me" Ivy finally spoke up, the disregard within her voice proving that she was only co-operating for her girlfriends sake. "I used some plants within the botanical gardens to look over the city. I saw some of Harvey's henchmen moving in and out of a building near Miagani bridge. They were extremely heavily guarded, so entry without backup seemed impossible" Pamela explained.

"I went back to Eddy" Harley carried on, nodding toward Isley as a thanks. "Asked him what the building used to be used for, entry points, that kinda thing. He found something even better. He managed to hack into the buildings cameras" The girl stood back up, pulling something out of her pocket and handing it towards the vigilante. It was a cell phone, with red and blue casing.

"There. It has everything that was caught on those cameras from the past two weeks" Batman took it without a word, plugging a USB into the charging port. Downloading said camera footage, he turned back to Harley, telling her to continue explaining. "It was...hard to watch, but Eddy and I listened to as much as we could. For information that would help us. After a week of nothing, we heard that Two-face was expecting a new weapons crate from Penguin. We had to wait another week for the opportunity. When he left, he took a lot of his men with him. I rounded up most of my men and we charged into the building"

"And this happened on the day you saved him?" Bruce asked, hearing a small beep that indicted the video files had been downloaded. Pocketing the USB, he handed Harley back her phone. She took it with a firm nod. "Yeah. Once the coast was clear, I told my men to leave. I knew Mister J wouldn't appreciate being seen like that. I found him bleeding out. I wanted to take him to a hospital, but he didn't want that. He asked me to leave him for a while. I did, planning to go back to him later, but I guess he ran into you. I haven't seen Mister J or Harvey for three days"

"Thank you, Harley. This has been helpful" Batman nodded to her. "How is he?" She asked, and Bruce hesitated to answer. "Honestly? Not well. He's been struggling"

"His eye?" She asked, and Batman sighed. "He's blind through it. We aren't sure if it is permanent but due to the circumstance of its happening...I'm not hopeful"

"Oh" Harley looked away, quiet and fidgeting in place. "Tell him to visit me soon, okay? I'm worried about him"

"Will do" Bruce spoke sincerely, before disappearing into the night.