It's with great sadness that I post this particular story in honor of my brother-in-law, who tragically died today. Please pray for our family, for he will be greatly missed by my sister and his three children, as well as his granddaughter.

Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn had no idea the waves that would be created when they busted a minor mafia operation. The famiglia was full of low-level morons who wouldn't last a full week in Gotham. And this particular group of idiots had already pissed off the official Rogue's Gallery of insane masterminds.

Case in point, Poison Ivy had evidence these idiots were part of a massive illegal operation to take out several acres of old-growth trees on protected land and was notorious for dumping toxins into rivers to poison entire forests. The fact that their don was a misogynist was just even more reason for her to kill him painfully.

Harley, being Harley, had tagged along out of boredom.

And then the two criminally insane women found something that had them both positively murderous.

There was an unspoken code of conduct between the Gotham rogues, that to date on Joker ever bothered to break with any regularity and that was rarely.

The code being that they didn't target kids under twelve or obviously pregnant mothers during their big plans. The few that did get caught in their big schemes were never actually killed, just held hostage for a bit until they came up with a reasonable excuse to let them go.

It wasn't out of kindness...children were notoriously a pain to use as hostages and the cops tended to crack down on the idiots who targeted them deliberately hard. Not to mention the crying, the whining, the many bathroom breaks and the fact that it was much harder to guage how much a proper dose was depending on what age the child happened to be if any medicine was required.

As for the mothers, depending on how far along they were it was still a pain to deal with. Besides, if anything actually happened to the infant they were carrying because of being caught up in a hostage situation, then the cops would blame them and never allow them to live it down, ever.

So yeah, kids and pregnant mothers were a no-go for the Rogues.

So you could understand why Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn came to an unspoken agreement seeing a seven-year-old child with distinctly mixed features (though the kid leaned heavily towards an Asian ancestry) being held hostage.

The kid looked terrified, and was shivering while being bound too tightly by rope. Harley could see the marks on the kid's wrist.

The two women shared a look.

"I'll deal with the idiots and you get the kid?" asked Ivy.

"Sounds good to me, Red!" said Harley with cheer. Ivy never disappointed with the bloodshed.

As Ivy went about killing everyone in the base, she heard a cry of alarm from Harley. By the time she came back, it was to the sight of Harley giving the kid CPR.

"What happened?" demanded Ivy.

"That idiot threw a lever and dropped the kid into the river. Poor thing sank like a stone and wasn't breathing."

"I'll make the don's death extra graphic then," said Ivy pissed.

Once the kid was safe with Harley (in a manner of speaking) and wrapped up in the first clean blanket the insane woman could find, Ivy went about murdering everyone she found until she located the head of this particular band of fools.

What she found out about the child (a girl), made her even more irate.

Apparently they had kidnapped her from Japan in order to hold her hostage against her father, who didn't even bother to leave a proper guard around his family. Hell, there hadn't even been a single home security system in the home, and they literally stole her off the street on the way home from school!

Ivy mentally noted the name "Iemitsu" and "Vongola", before she turned the fat bastard into fertilizer.

Only to find the most bizarre sight she had ever seen in some time.

The little girl was curled up against Harley without a care in the world, and was to all appearances sound asleep. There was a positively maternal expression on Harley's face.

Ivy knew Harley actually loved kids and wanted some of her own, but for some unknown reason Joker had never given her any. It wasn't like Harley was celibate and she knew for a fact the two of them did sleep together.

If they weren't careful, Harley would get too attached and introduce the girl to Joker.

In Ivy's greenhouse...

Words could not properly describe the sheer level of weirdness she was witnessing.

Ivy thought she was used to damn near anything.

However nothing prepared her for the sight of Harley acting...well, normal and as close to sane as someone who had been manipulated by the Joker into a life of crime could be.

Ivy was still waiting for Harley to mention the Joker, even once.

Oddly, the little girl (Sakura, once they figured out she only spoke Japanese) didn't seem to mind the attention at all. Far from it, once she got over the strangeness of the plants under Ivy's command she hugged Harley without any thought at all. She didn't seem afraid of Ivy in the least either.

Hell, she would swear that she heard the kid calling Harley big sister!

"Can we keep her Red? Pretty please?" asked Harley, hugging the girl to her.

Ivy felt it said volumes that the kid didn't even try to get away from the psychotic older woman. In fact Sakura was snuggling into her side contently.

"Only until we find out whether or not the entire group is wiped out. Next time she might not be so lucky. And Joker is absolutely not to know of her existence," said Ivy sternly.

Joker was insane, even for the Gotham Rogues. He would be just as likely to kill the poor kid or turn her into another version of Harley.

"Yay!" cheered Harley, hugging Sakura closer. "Hear that Chibi, you're staying with us!"

"Aneki?" said Sakura cutely, causing Harley to squeal. Ivy wondered if Harley realized an innocent little girl just called her 'big sister'.

Either way there was something positively magnetic about the kid.

At least Ivy's plants liked her and the girl was remarkably well behaved by someone semi-captive to a pair of criminally insane women.

Sakura did not like this "Batman" person. He was a lot scarier than Harley-nee-san and Auntie Ivy (Harley had gotten hiccups when she called Poison Ivy that the first time...Ivy just got any odd look on her face) and she found it highly suspicious that he lead around a young boy a few years older than she was in tights and a mask.

Since Ivy knew that being sent back to Arkham was a high probability, she decided to introduce her new 'charge' to the other Rogues. Or at least those she knew for a fact wouldn't harm little Sakura.

Much to her amused bafflement, Riddler, Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze and even Deadshot took to her almost immediately. In fact Deadshot introduced the kid to his own daughter Zoe, since he knew Sakura was unlikely to rat him out to the cops and it meant his kid would have a new friend who didn't care about what her dad did for a living.

(On an unrelated note, the unlikely friendship caused a major spike in his daughter's math and science grades. Who knew Mr. Freeze and the Riddler could act as excellent tutors while he was on a job?)

Sakura running into Killer Croc though...that was entirely Batman's fault.

Sakura POV

It was that creepy man who made a young boy run around in tights. He had apparently overheard about her existence among the rogues and wanted to take her away.

Sakura liked the Rogues...most of them anyway. Sure they weren't 'good' people, but they were a lot nicer than people thought once you got to know them.

Just take the Riddler or Penguin...they put on a tough act but the truth was that they were really lonely people who wanted someone to talk to.

Besides, Penguin's birds were all really cute and she didn't mind spoiling them with fish the rare times she visited.

Riddler just made her head hurt, but upon hearing the trouble she had at school he at least toned his riddles down to something she could actually answer until her grades got up.

And then there was Aunt Kitty, who had all those cute cats. She even said that Sakura could have one once her birthday came around, or right before the Rogues found a way to get her back to Japan.

Batman might be a 'good guy', but he wasn't a very nice one. Sure, it was sometimes scary in Gotham but it was honestly preferable to Namimori where everyone save for her mother hated her. Even if it took her a few months before she figured out how to speak English.

If Batman caught her, then she would either be sent home or placed with a family that wouldn't understand why the Rogues had kept her in Gotham rather than return her to her mother.

Ivy had long since found out that the family that had kidnapped her had been wiped out. However what she heard about Iemitsu made her disinclined to send Sakura back, as the man was a complete idiot.

Iemitsu bragged about his civilian family and was so incompetent that he failed to realize someone had followed him right to that family the last time he visited. Hell, they still didn't know Sakura had been taken in the first place!

Considering his occupation and arrogance, Ivy refused to send Sakura back when there was a high chance someone would take her again, and would likely not take her to Gotham a second time.

Besides, Sakura had most of the 'good' Rogues wrapped around her tiny finger and wasn't afraid of them at all. Some she avoided like the plague (Joker), but most of them she had wormed past their defenses.

She ducked, narrowly avoiding Batman's grab.

Seeing a mostly open grate, she slid into towards it and down. Her hand lashed and grabbed the ladder, and she slid down that with ease.

Harley-nee's lessons about gymnastics were coming in handy.

Something nudged her to go down one way, rather than towards the light. Sure it smelled bad, but it wasn't as overbearing as Aunt Ivy's green house when she was pruning the bad leaves.

She slipped past the opening that was just big enough, and waited. The sewers were strangely quiet and Batman had enough technology that he could probably figure out which direction she went if she tried to run. He had a weird cutting tool that would go through the iron bars like butter if he knew where she was.

She wasn't quite good at that soft run like Aunt Kitty just yet.

Hearing Batman run in the opposite direction after her, she sighed softly and slowly made her way towards the other grate. She was tired and hungry, and Aunt Kitty was probably worried since she was watching her as Harley-nee and Aunt Ivy got arrested again. Riddler was up to some big plot so she left him alone and Mr. Freeze wasn't in Gotham at the moment.

Deadshot was on assignment as well.

It was the movement that tipped her off to the fact she wasn't alone.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, alerting her to actual danger, so she froze.

Predators had a habit of chasing animals that ran. She learned that from the nature documentaries she saw with Aunt Kitty. Zoe (Deadshot's daughter) had gotten extra credit using that as the topic of her science fair assignment.

Something rose from the waters, shaped mostly like a man save for the reptilian skin.

Sakura knew who he was immediately. Aunt Ivy had warned her about him.

"Are you Waylon Jones, aka Killer Croc?" she asked curiously.

Considering how the 'normal folk' of Gotham reacted to metahuman powers, Sakura had the sneaking suspicion Killer Croc's criminal history had more to do with being unable to find anyone who accepted him for him and less to do with his animal instincts.

"What's a brat doing here in my turf?" he rumbled, though she could tell he was more interested in why she wasn't running away screaming. And how she recognized him so fast.

"That creepy guy who makes his apprentice run around with tights and his underwear showing chased me down here," deadpanned Sakura. "I'm more surprised the Gotham police haven't called him on being such an irresponsible parent or asked him why he makes the 'boy-wonder' run around in such an outfit."

Croc blinked, ran that through his head and had to ask.

"Are you talking about Batman?" he asked incredulous.

"Yes. Aunt Ivy told me about bad people who like to hurt small kids and I'm shocked no one has said anything about the fact Batman lets Robin run around in that ridiculously skin-tight outfit on school nights no less, chasing dangerous criminals who could just as easily kill him," said Sakura flatly.

The first time she voiced such an opinion around Aunt Kitty, the woman had snorted milk out her nose before cackling.

Though it did make Aunt Kitty wonder why she had never heard anyone question Batman's parenting skills. Robin couldn't be more than ten or eleven, and Batman had him out chasing dangerous criminals on school nights in a rather revealing outfit that made it look like he was wearing his underwear on the outside.

Killer Croc stared at her...before something happened that made her danger sense calm down.

He started laughing.

"I don't believe this! A tiny kitten is actually calling that stupid bat out on his bullshit!"

Sakura beamed at him.

"Don't get me started on what a hypocrite Batman is," she said cheerfully. "If he wants to be a good guy, then why isn't he Mirandizing the criminals? I mean shouldn't a jury throw out his so-called arrest because he doesn't follow proper procedure? Instead all he does it beat up other criminals and leave it to the cops to deal with the bad guys. Which makes him a criminal by accessory, since assault is a crime."

Croc looked thoughtful at that.

"You know I never thought of it like that."

"Don't forget destroying public property, breaking and entering, or taking people hostage!" chirped Sakura. "Or the fact he has a lot of tech that isn't available to private citizens and might even be considered government property by default since they paid for it. I seriously doubt any of that had been decommissioned."

"The first two I get, but what about the hostage taking part?"

"He ties people up and leaves them for the cops to find, sometimes for hours. Isn't that the definition of holding people against their will?" she asked. "And he's not a private detective...even they bother to follow the proper procedure for evidence or at least work with the system. He's little more than a criminal who likes going after other criminals to justify his own actions."

Croc snorted.

"You're alright brat."

Sakura beamed at him.

Aunt Ivy and Aunt Kitty were fondly exasperated when they find Killer Croc being counted among the 'Sakura-converts'. That is, in between cackling at the way a child was calling BATMAN a criminal.

Ivy fully intended to use that very argument in court the next time she was caught.

Thought not even she could have expected the ripple effect it would cause.