Chapter 59

Ladybird/Marinette's P.O.V:

I found that this guy had no pattern when it came to fighting. Everything he did was wild and unpredictable just as Robin said. Taking time to asses his moves gave almost no information besides that he was probably ambidextrous. He would swap his knife from hand to hand and never really showed a favorite towards one or the other.

Throwing caution into the wind, I decided that defense wasn't the best strategy for me at this moment. Hard and fast attacks was probably the only thing that may catch him off balance. I side stepped his attack and reached for his wrist that held the knife. I was prepared when he used his other hand to grab at his weapon and quickly, I tied his wrist together.

The knife was still firmly grasped in his hands and he wildly swung at me but I was still too fast. I swept his legs out from underneath him and he fell with a loud thud onto his back. Before he could try to stand back up, I kicked the knife out of his hands and it went clattering onto the ground a few feet away.

Quickly, I got on top of the man to keep him from standing back up. I held firm onto his legs so he didn't try to kick free while his hands were still tied up with my yoyo.

"It's over. Give up." I spoke harshly at him.

Again, the Joker began to laugh manically at me and without warning he reached up and headbutted me in the face with as much force as he could muster, which probably wasn't his best because of his angle and position. I never let go of him but I began to taste blood in my mouth. Tired of treating this lunatic with any sort of respect, I too, attacked without any warning.

Swing after swing, I repeatedly punched him in the face. The whole time I was doing this he never stopped laughing until he hit unconsciousness, and even then, he still had an unsettling smile on his face.

When I was finally sure he was out and wouldn't get back up any time soon, I got up off of him and swiftly hog tied him like I did to Tim the other day. Satisfied with my work, I turned around to see the rest of my team finishing off the remaining stragglers.

"Anyone need any help?" I asked out loud.

"We are doing fine back here." Red Robin spoke up from the comms. "I don't think they were expecting us. Penguin, Scarecrow and Two Face are taken care of. Only a few stragglers left."

"Check on the officers." Batman ordered as he swiftly punched the man in front of him in the face. "The gunfire has ceased."

"On it." I looked back at Joker who was still tied up with my yoyo and decided to jump back over the fence to go find Jim.

Jim was easy enough to find as he was still ordering around his men and could be heard over all the commotion.

"Need any assistance, commissioner?" I asked.

"Oh, Ladybird." He looked down at me in surprise. "I'll never get used to you guys sneaking up on me like that." He shook his head. "No, we did pretty well. No casualties so I count that as a win. Only two wounded but its non-life threatening and we have paramedics on the way."

"Wounded?" I looked a bit worried. I wish I would have been involved in any way so my miraculous cure would work but sadly this had nothing to do with me or any miraculous so it wouldn't work.

"Yeah, Officer Wilks had a bullet graze his leg and Officer Lee got shot in the shoulder but it went clean through and we are applying pressure. Nothing left to do but to book these criminals." He smiled down at my worried gaze. "If it wasn't for all of you, this would have been a whole lot worse. Thank you, Ladybird. You should be proud."

"Yeah she should!" Harley cheerfully spoke up from behind me. "She really busted up Mista J's face. Ya did him in real good, girlie." Harley frowned when she got a good look at me though. "But he split your lip, didn't he?" She gently tilted my face up to get a better look at it. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, it's not your fault Harley and I'm fine, really." I wiped the small bit of blood from off my chin.

"I promised myself I would be the last girl he would ever give a busted lip to or to ever lay his hands on and I failed. Look at what he did you your beautiful face." Her frown deepened as her Brooklyn accent began to slowly fade the more she looked at me.

"It's okay, Harley." I gave her a tight hug. "He won't get the chance to do that ever again. I promise."

"You're damn straight." Red Hood stomped his way up to the two of us with Robin not too far behind. "Let me see what that nut job did to your face."

"Red Hood!" Batman spoke up from the comms. "Don't make a scene."

"Guys. I'm fine." I finally let go of Harley to turn my attention to the two boys in front of me. I noticed that Robin seemed to be seething in silent anger. I reached down to grab each one of their hands in each of mine. "We all knew something like this might happen."

"Yeah, but why'd it have to be him?" Red Hood huffed.

Harley watched as the two boys radiated anger and thought it best to defuse the situation. "Because he was askin' for trouble. Ya shoulda seen her. She was amazing, really. Did better than either of ya did when you two first fought him. Gave him quite a run for his money and then some if ya ask me." Her bubbly personality coming through yet again.

"I would expect nothing less." Robin finally spoke up and he had a ghost of a smile on his lips. Jason's tenseness even seemed to relax at Harley's assessment.--------It took over two hours to clean this whole mess back up. They had to do a head count of all inmates to make sure no one was missing and they had to reseal all the exits and fix any and all broken equipment caused by the inmates such as the blown off back door.

Joker and the other high-level patients had to be locked away in sub level five for isolation for the time being.

On the way back to the Batcave, Red Robin found himself riding on the back of Nightwing's motorcycle because Selina had priority in the Batmobile.

By the time we all made it back to the cave, everyone felt exhausted but unfortunately there was always debriefing after every patrol or mission they partook in.

As soon as I saw Bruce take off his cowl, I let my transformation fall. Tikki immediately flew over to a plate of cookies that Alfred had just sat down.

"Pft... lucky." Jason remarked as he took off his hood.

"You're just jealous." I playfully elbowed him in the ribs as we all followed Bruce to a large table made just for team debriefs.

Damian caught my hand and smiled at me before we both sat down at the table hand in hand.