Title: 21 DeeDee Truths.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Batman Beyond.
Warnings: Some AU-ness, slight JLU crossover and odd pairings.
Summary: Twenty-one truths about the Deeds from Batman Beyond.

This is a two-shot since, y'know, there are two Deeds and I have a personal take on both of them. They can't be completely the same, after all.

Second Truths: Deidre Denis, AKA DeeDee:

1.
When she was really little, Deidre always wondered why the girls in all of Nanna Harley's old stories either could stand on their own or they would perish. Why were there no brave princes in these stories? Shouldn't the girls at least have a friend? And then she grew up and understood.

2.
There is a perfectly good reason why she loves really old music and hates the newer kinds that come from her sister, the other Jokerz or the general populace. Old music has soul and the new music of their time is just noise.

She often can be found singing the older songs her grandmother sang to them as children, when the other Jokerz are sleeping or she's trying to work off stress by baking in the middle of the night or supremely early morning. Women's Rights songs are her favorites, but there are two particular ones she likes to sing best. Polyester Bride and Lulu's Back in Town. Both are really old, older than her and her sister combined, but they flow wonderfully through her vocal cords and if anyone hears her they feel at ease and content.

3.
The first time she saw the Joker, in the flesh and standing in front of her and her partners, ice ran through her veins, along with the urge to pick up the nearest heavy object and just smash his skull in before he looked directly at her and tried something horrible. She couldn't explain it at the time, but later, after figuring out the connection between him and one of the most important people in her life, she decided that the urge had not been out of bounds.

4.
Despite all the cooking lessons she's taken in her life, she can only bake and make do with microwave dinners. Anything else seems to dissolve or burn under her ministrations.

The other Jokerz can confirm this. The first week after they moved into the Jolly Jack factory warehouse, everyone was too exhausted after a heist to go out and buy some food or do anything much at all, but she was feeling generous and offered to make something edible for everyone.

An hour and a half later, the stove had caught fire from the soup she tried to make, Ghoul and Woof helping her douse the flames and keep from setting everything else aflame. But, the brownies she was making came through perfectly fine, not too moist and not to sweet, but perfect. Everyone agreed from then on that she could use the oven, but the stove was strictly off limits to her.

5.
Deidre has begged her sister on numerous occasions to just come with her and leave the Jokerz—leave Gotham—behind them… and whenever her sister spits or snaps a 'no' at her, Deidre's heart cracks just a little bit more.

6.
An odd thing that Deidre found out just after she joined the Jokerz was that she and her sister were immune to every toxin that was airborne or otherwise. How? Inadvertently, she had knocked over a vile of something Chucko had snagged from a research lab and had inhaled almost all of it before the Woof had noticed and dragged her out of the room, later opening a window and spraying the room down with disinfectant.

She waited with what felt like lead in her stomach for something horrible to happen to her, but when nothing did and she read the label on the broken vile that said she should have been hacking up blood and sent to a hospital immediately, she became extremely confused, but was happy that nothing had happened that could shorten her life. She later asked her grandmother why nothing happened, with the simple answer that the old woman was exactly the same and it was probably passed down genetically.

She should probably have kept this information to herself, though. Seeing as how when the Jokerz did anything with sleeping or laughing gas, she was stuck doing the dirty work…

7.
When the Joker sent their group to hunt down some kid that worked for Bruce Wayne, everyone else simply assumed that the old man had simply annoyed the Clown Prince in his past life. But, Deidre, OCD as she was, went snooping and connected the dots with a shocked look on her painted face.

She shouldn't have expected much, he had only been on the job for a little over a year, but she at least expected him to be over twenty and not her own age, dancing in the club with his girlfriend. It was… Well, it made her feel a little better to know that even vigilante's were screwed up in the most normal of ways. It took the sting out of losing that particular fight.

8.
Batman once, accidentally, landed face first into her chest. Considering she's less than a B Cup, it hurt quite a lot, there being no real padding and all.

After she and the others had gotten away on that particular night, back in her room, she undid her shirt and braw and found the beginnings of a large bruise right above her heart in the shape of the Dark Knight's teeth, nose and chin. Deidre had never been so humiliated and felt lousy for a week because he'd slammed into her so hard she was pretty sure he'd cracked her sternum with the momentum.

The only consolation she got from that event was that he had most likely broken his nose.

9.
Deidre sometimes wakes up in the morning to make sure that if Delia fell asleep in the nude that the older twin has some bed covers over her and her door is locked from the inside. They have (basically) the same body and she couldn't stand knowing that Bonk or Chucko were looking at her and secretly undressing her in their heads because they knew what was at the end of that train of thought.

10.
She watched Alien VS. Predator once because Ghoul said that there was a hidden romantic angle to it. When she discovered it after re-watching the end scenes three times and saw it was hearsay romance between the Predator and the only surviving human female, there was a part of her that felt bad that the Predator died, and another part that wondered what Woof would think about watching it with her.

11.
Batman has saved her life fourteen times because he was doing his job. Nothing to really think about, since he may have been the Dark Knight, but he was still a Knight. The younger Denis twin has nothing to mull over during her stays in jail when this happens…

12.
Deidre has (inconspicuously) saved Batman's hide ten times and given him an anonymous tip about things overtly dangerous to the public's health three times. One more favor and maybe she'll feel that she's paid him back enough to stop risking her neck for a guy that causes her…friends so much trouble.

13.
During a raid on a notoriously dangerous gangster's hide-out, Deidre was the only one who got caught and consequently, she got thrown out of the window after almost getting shot. She fell thirteen stories and after she dug her way out of the dumpster full of Styrofoam chips, kitchen scraps and metal piping she'd landed in, it was to her great disappointment to find that none of the Jokerz had come looking for her. Not even her sister.

14.
Their mother died on the same night that she and Delia were born. It wasn't from any complications to the birthing process or even a screw-up by one of her doctors on a medical decision. No, Deidre waited until she was four before she even bothered asking what happened to her and her sister's mother. When she asked Nanna Harley, the elderly woman answered as honestly as she could that their mother went drinking to celebrate and while driving home drunk she swerved into oncoming traffic and was plowed over by a city bus. She even showed Deidre the obituary clipping she had for when the girls starting asking.

If Deidre was really honest, after she thought it over for a few years, she decided that maybe it was a good thing that their mother had died before they really got the chance to know her. She loved Nanna Harley too much to miss a mother who didn't care enough to stay with her newborns for more than an hour before she needed a stiff drink.

15.
If she's sure that nobody is awake and are in no risk of waking up too early, Deidre will sneak out of her room in the earliest hours of the morning and make breakfast for everyone. Waffles for Delia, sausage and bacon with eggs for Bonk and Chucko, pancakes with jam and a cup of strawberry milk for Woof and, well, she's not always sure what to cook for Ghoul, so she plays around with the coffee she gives him and does variation on the toast and sandwiches she thinks he eats at diners.

She puts all the food in their individual rooms like hotel room service and then leaves before the smell wakes them up. She walks around the city for a few hours by herself and when she gets back, sometimes they give her small thanks; sometimes they don't realize she did any of it or have even noticed that she's gone. Ghoul and Woof are really the only ones who acknowledge what she does and do something rather similar by buying her dinner from take-out restaurants when she's too exhausted to get anything herself.

16.
Deidre is still very much a virgin.

True, everyone assumes that she's a tramp like her sister, but she just plays it up because she doesn't want men hounding her for that particular part of her anatomy. In the circles that she operates in, she runs the risk of being kidnapped and sold off because of her choice and she dreads the day someone asks her out.

17.
Deidre looked up some of Nanna Harley's old records when the younger twin got curious about the history their caretaker wouldn't tell them about and what Deidre found made her sick and sad. Her grandmother had been the infamous Harley Quinn and had done everything within her power to make sure they'd never know. And Deidre made sure to never let Delia find out. The elder twin gave Nanna enough of a hard time, Deidre wasn't going to make it worse.

Unfortunately, this was one of the things that made Deidre hate the Joker and Jokerz that much more. When Delia got them working with the actual Joker, Deidre had to keep herself from saying something or doing something altogether suicidal. Like beat the son of a bitch to death with a crowbar or send Commissioner Gordon their address.

18.
The first week after coming into service for the Joker to steal a lot of space equipment, the scary-ass clown spent most of his time hitting on the Deeds. If he wasn't complimenting them or making one of them sit in his lap while he spoke of the old days, he was making suggestive comments involving the bedroom and a really old Indian book.

Delia was more than happy to comply, but one day when Deidre was baking with her makeup still on, Woof in the living room attached to the kitchen watching a techno program, the Clown Prince snuck up behind her. He thought she was Delia and caught her ear between his teeth, arms circling her and caused her brain to go into automatic shutdown, the bowl of cake mix teetering on the counter.

When Woof looked up from his spot on the sofa and gave a very nervous growl as large, white hands made for her chest, it was as if something hereditary and primal came out. She slapped Joker right across the face, tiny hand burning from the sensation and causing him to barely take enough of a step back to allow her room to breathe again.

For the Joker it was like a love tap, but when he tried to move in again, despite the fear radiating off of her, identifying her as herself and not her sister, a voice that was not entirely her own and made something in the Clown Prince stop in his tracks sprung through her, demeanor changing to mildly amused to freak him out even more,

"Sorry, Mr. J, but this merchandise ain't for sale."

Whatever was in that phrase worked like a whip and seemed to make the white skinned demon turn impotent in less time than it took to blink. He muttered something dark and hissy and walked back into what he liked to call the Throne Room, leaving Woof to look at her like she was someone else completely and herself gripping onto the counter and trying not to cry.

19.
In the old history cubes she and Delia used to watch at home, Deidre was actually really appreciative of the Justice League and what they put themselves through in order to keep the world safe. Of all of the League, she appreciated Batman the most since he had no powers and basically risked death every time he came back to Gotham.

She told Nanna Harley this when she was especially young, helping the elderly woman clean dishes while Delia went out to play in the woods around their house, and the blond girl even admitted that she had a little crush on the Dark Knight. Harley had almost dropped a glass plate and just sort of looked at her grandchild for a few minutes; then she laughed sincerely for one of the first times in years, patting Deidre on the head and whispering so if Delia came in she wouldn't hear them, "You and me both, darling."

20.
Surprisingly, when Deidre actually got up the nerve to leave the Jokerz, it was not for her own sanity or even for her sister; it was for Batman himself.

The Jokerz, pros and amateurs alike, the Royal Flush Gang, Blight, the Splicers and a few other big names had come together to kill the Dark Knight and had succeeded in catching him. That night, after being beaten into a bloody pulp, he was hung by his arms in chains attached to the ceiling of the hideout, like a display for all to see. When Blight was about to unmask him, all the lights went out and sleep gas was pumped into the entire building, everyone being knocked out.

Quickly, considering the sleeping agent in the gas only lasted so long, Deidre opened the locks on the chains, got Batman out of the building, hotwired the Batmobile to function on autopilot to send him to Commissioner Gordon's office and went back to the hideout and pretended to wake up like everyone else, on the floor so nobody would be the wiser.

Unfortunately, since her luck sucked no matter how careful she was, Blight and Inque had coated the chain lock and keys with phosphorous dye that exposed who had been screwing up everyone's plans for months on end. Every one of the Rogues had a neon light shined on their hands and Deidre felt her heart stop when all eyes directed onto her form with murder and rage.

Deidre isn't exactly sure how, but she got out of there with only a few broken ribs, three stabs wounds, first degree burns on her left arm and one bullet through her shoulder when she got out of the hideout, ran seven blocks, stole one of the other Jokerz motorcycles, lost her wig and hat and made it out of the city alive. But she had. She had survived, but with the knowledge that there would be a price on her head after this and there was nowhere for her to go.

Though, hitch-hiking out of the city she'd never left in her whole life, only a few creds and some clothes she had hidden away if it ever came to this, a happy, liberating thought kept going through her head,

Goodbye, Gotham. You will not be seeing me again. I'm free…

21.
After months of living in a tiny apartment in Metropolis, spending her nights as an entertainer in one of the many nightclubs, Deidre appreciated the irony when the one person from her past that came looking for her was Batman.

When he actually found her, she was at work, dancing and singing 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' in a provocative red, black and white dress, with her flowing blond hair hanging behind her with nothing restraining it and near the end of the song, she spotted him near the back with Warhawk, Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne. Only, they were in civilian wear without their masks. She smiled their way and was actually glad to see them when they came into her dressing room afterwards, obviously well aware that she already knew who they were because of her previous antics.

Batman, Terry (as he liked to be called when he wasn't being chased down by lunatics) and Mr. Wayne came right to the point and thanked her for what she put herself through for the new Batman's sake. Warhawk, Rex Stewart, just stood near the door, trying to ignore their conversation as a whole, obviously very uncomfortable to be in the same room where women undressed and left their underthings lying around in plain sight. And Barbara stood near Warhawk, just looking Deidre over with a sort of melancholy that she would later learn to understand meant she was thinking of Harley and how similar the two of them looked at such a young age.

The conversation had been short and sweet after they explained her situation to her, Terry saying rather pathetically that if she ever needed anything she had but to call and, much to her humility and utter surprise, offered her a job as a hacker for the League if she wanted it. They left just afterward, unknowingly giving her the idea for her new name in the process in Terry's goodbye,

"I hope we'll see you again soon, darling."

Deidre didn't know what to say at the time. And now that she is a fully recognized member of the League and friend to the Batman, she still doesn't know what to say.

Maybe that's a good thing.