I'm Gunna Make You Bleed
It actually hurt. She hadn't felt pain in this form before, her diamond body usually providing her with the ultimate protection. Yet, her chest ached like someone had detonated a bomb from within and she was finding it harder and harder to breathe. Lying across the cold, wet stone as she stared up toward the steadily clearing sky, Diamante realized that they had actually done it.
The bad guys had gone and saved the world.
The very thought caused a laugh to start to bubble up from her chest, through the pain and causing more in its wake. Her body shook as the hysterical laughter increased in volume, the haunting sound starting to echo through the now silent courtyard. Flag and Deadshot were frozen in place, still standing next to one another awkwardly after Flag had hugged the hitman, as they watched Diamante's blood begin to seep out through the cracks in her body, the diamond flesh no longer strong enough to keep her alive.
She'd been broken, weakened, and there was no chance of saving herself anymore.
The laughter continued to leave her, blood beginning to spill over her lips as tears flowed from her eyes, pain and hysterics leaving the rest of the team standing at a distance, unsure of what to do with the woman. Finally, it was Deadshot that stepped up to her and knelt down beside the broken woman. He could see the she was in a lot of pain, her face contorted in a strong grimace and her diamond fingers gouging into the stone at her side, the other still clutching the witch's heart.
"Flag," he called calmly as he reached over Diamante to take the heart. It was dry and cracking, green light emitting from inside.
Diamante's laughter steadily turned to sobs, her body jerking with the force. Red spilled passed her lips as the internal bleeding began to reach her even through her diamond form, painting her lips completely cherry-red. Just like Daddy J's. Her eyes were green when she looked over to him, though her body remained broken diamond, and a pained smile stretched across her lips. "It was a good shot," she praised teasingly.
Deadshot's lips thinned as he looked down at the dying woman. "I guess…if you wanna hug me, I can make an exception." The laugh she let out only brought on more tears and more pain, but she didn't care.
"Rain check," she gasped out. She didn't expect this. For someone she barely knew to be kneeling at her side as she died. In complete honesty, she expected her death do be by the hands of the Joker, deciding that he'd had enough of her and Harley was all he needed after all. She'd always feared that being the second of his toys to join the family would result in her death, so she'd lived and embraced all the insane, wonderful moments that happened between the three of them.
She loved them. And she knew that, if Hell was real, then she'd be seeing them real soon. And if it didn't, then at least she didn't have to try and live without them. The thought brought a tearful smile to her lips, tears continuing to drip down her cheeks steadily. Deadshot frowned down at her, swallowing against the thickness that had come to his throat as her watched the dying woman before him.
"See ya…in hell, hot shot."
Dia's eyes fell closed as those around her stood in silence, blood ceasing to flow from the cracks in her body but leaving a pool of crimson spread beneath her prone form. Deadshot's head dropped down, hiding his face, as he forced himself to look away from the agonizingly peaceful look eternally etched onto her diamond features. Flag, standing just behind them, looked down at the heart placed in his hand.
Whirling around to the witch, he held her heart up as he marched up to her. "Bring her back," he demanded. "You bring her back now!"
"Never," the witch hissed out, refusing to save the woman who had ripped the heart from her chest. "Let the stone rot away, tarnished and broken."
"You bitch," he growled, squeezing at the heart. The Enchantress hissed in pain as she writhed on the ground. "You won't bring her back then you give me June. Give June back to me." The witch remained silent in her refusal. "Bring her back or I crush this!"
"Go ahead," the Enchantress hissed. "You don't have the balls."
Flag's teeth clenched as he fought only a moment before grasping the heart in both hands and squeezing, crushing it and ripping it open in the same instant. The Enchantress gave a final shriek as her chest bloomed with green light before she collapsed back into the mud, finally still. Yards apart, the bodies of the two women lay still among the ruins left in the wake of magic. The creeping sunlight made Diamante's still body glitter like the finest jewel, resting among rubies. June's body was masked in shadow, covered in black mud and hidden from sight.
But one rose again; June Moone pulling herself from the dead skin of the Enchantress as Flag raced back for her, uncaring of the mud that caked the woman's body.
Through the somber silence of Diamante's death, June's spontaneous awakening was a faint glimmer of hope.
A hope that shattered with the echoing shriek of agony, drawing the attention of each person in the courtyard to the back entrance, near the Enchantress's destroyed weapon. Standing in burned clothes and disarrayed makeup, Harley was staring down at Diamante's body with pure agony across her features. She trembled, tears streaking down her cheeks and legs shaking just the slightest bit.
"Harley," Deadshot mumbled in awe, then looking down to the still form of her lover. Diamante had been firmly convinced that Harley and the Joker were both dead, they all had been, yet here she was. Burned and bruised, but alive. Diamante had made peace with her death knowing that she wouldn't need to live without Harley and the Joker. It seemed that even that was in vain.
"No," Harley muttered, reaching out as she took quick steps toward Diamante. "No, no, no, no," she began to chant as she reached her, dropping to her knees in the cooling pool of blood. Diamante showed no reaction, her face peacefully expressionless as blood stained her lips and jaw, the cracks all along the right side of her body no longer bleeding but forever marked with the red of her death. "No!" the Queen of Crime shrieked loud enough to make those in the courtyard jump or flinch.
"Well, that's one less annoyance."
Harley's anguished expression morphed into solid rage at the sound of that bitch's voice. Teeth bared like an enraged animal, she looked over to where Waller was standing with her phone in one hand, the app for the nanites opened, and a gun trained on Harley with the other. She knew that Harley couldn't be controlled with the threat of the nanite anymore, but she also didn't have her bodyguard to keep her safe from bullets.
"You cunt," Harley hissed, looked entirely ready to lunge at Waller whether the gun was trained on her or not. "You're fucking dead!"
"You won't do a thing, Quinn," Waller sneered, the gun holding steady as it aimed directly at the woman's head. "No Joker to save you now, no Diamante to stand behind. You'll do as I say."
All other members of the team remained as still as ice, refusing to put themselves between the enraged Queen of Gotham and the psychotic Government official that truly would do whatever she thought was best for her country. Flag kept June behind him, doing his best to keep her out of sight and out of danger, while Katana looked between Harley and Waller, wondering who truly deserved to die at her blade.
Harley had murdered with her own hands, but Waller had probably killed so many more through her verbal order. The only difference was that one could hide behind justice.
A malicious grin stretched across Harley's features. "Shoot her, Puddin'!"
Waller didn't even have time to flinch before the crack of a gunshot broke the silence following Harley's words, Waller's body jerking. No blood was visible where they were, but they could tell she had been shot as her face went slack in shock, both the gun and the phone slipping from limp fingers. Like a puppet with its strings cut, Waller dropped to the ground as nothing more than deadweight. Deadshot instinctively readied his gun, looking for the source of the shot.
The haunting laughter that echoed in from behind Waller announced the Clown Prince, who strolled forward as he continued to laugh, though there was raw anger in his eyes. Stepping up to Waller, he used his foot to roll the woman onto her back. The Joker was a little worse for wear; in a pair of dress slacks and a white button-up, both with singe marks and burns, his green hair slipping from the usually pristine slicked back placement and black burns decorating the side of his face, he looked all the more deadly for his new scars.
"Tell me, Amanda Waller," he drawled, drawing out the woman's name as he stared down at her. She blinked, still alive, though completely still. "Can you feel…this?" Holding the gun over her leg, he shot her in the calf, straight into the bone. Waller didn't flinch—she couldn't. He'd deliberately shot her in the spine, paralysing the woman from the neck down. He'd practiced that shot, having intended to use it on the Bat once upon a time, wanting to ruin the man's chances of doing his 'job' of saving the city. It didn't take much to transfer the knowledge to Waller. "No? Well, how about right….here?"
This time he shot her in the arm, which had been holding the gun trained on Harley.
The blonde woman herself was staring in satisfaction as the Joker continued to taunt the immobile woman, laughing when she glared at him. Flag remained back, not doing a single thing to stop the insane Clown from torturing his boss. Waller had manipulated him just as much as she had the convicts, and even though he felt sick to be standing by watching, he refused to move to help. It would only put June in danger, anyway. Glancing over the Harley, the woman had turned her eyes down to Diamante, gently stroking her hair as she whispered down to the dead woman's body.
"Puddin's not gunna be happy, Baby Jewel," she was saying softly, looking at the peaceful, resting expression that Diamante usually wore when she slept, though without the blood on her lips. "You broke your part of the deal."
Moving a hand down to gently lay it on Diamante's lower stomach, she leaned down to rest her cheek against the cold stone of her chest.
"I…I can't give him what he wants anymore, mia Dia. That was supposed to be your job," Harley's voice cracked as she continued to whisper to her lost lover, her hand over the cold, useless womb hidden with Diamante's body. "You were supposed to be Mommy Dia, I was gunna be Mommy Harley." Tears began anew, dripping down Harley's cheeks as she softly began to sob into the hardening stone of Diamante's body. "Daddy J was gunna help us raise the new Prince of Crime…"
"Take her," Deadshot called out suddenly, drawing the Joker's livid eyes in his direction. The hitman nodded his head over to where Harley was sobbing into Diamante's body. "Take her body, before her backup gets here."
"You think I want sentiment?" Joker sneered, beginning to approach the man. He knew who he was, the man who never missed. He'd treated his girls well, so he decided he's let him pass just this once.
"Nah, but you probably know what the Government'll do to her if they get their hands on her body," Deadshot countered.
"Puddin!" Harley cried, lifting her head to look up at again. "Let's take our Treasure home. Please."
The Joker's icy eyes landed on Diamante's still form, his hand tightening on the gun as he looked at the blood that painted her—and now Harley as well. "What happened to her?" he growled out, eyes turning to Deadshot once more.
"She killed the Enchantress," Deadshot answered. "Took the blunt of an explosion to save Diablo, then ripped out the witch's heart." Deadshot didn't point out where Diablo was—the Joker would probably kill him on precedent by his involvement in Diamante's injuries. The Joker growled low, turning away from Deadshot to march in Harley's direction. Of course she had to die a fucking hero. The blonde looked up to him with tearful eyes, recognizing something more than just rage in his expression as he looked down at the still body of his jewel.
"She broke our crown," Harley whimpered.
"She'll never feel anything ever again for what she did," he assured her, though he assumed that she would bleed out from the various gunshots he'd put in her body. Kneeling on Diamante's other side, he reached beneath her, much as he had when they had first found her on the ground outside of the Belle Reve truck, and lifted her limp form from her pool of blood. She was still moveable, but he could feel her body was beginning to solidify as the last of her life fled entirely.
Croc and Flag both looked down as the Joker lifted Diamante's body, blood splattering to the ground beneath his feet and staining his burned up white shirt. Harley leaned down to press a lingering kiss against Diamante's forehead, stroking the silky strands of her diamond hair, before she stepped back to give the Joker room. Glancing over to the team she had started out with, only Deadshot met her stare. Boomerang was tucked away behind a pillar, Diablo was either dead or unconscious somewhere and Croc and Flag couldn't seem to look her in the eye, the Enchantress's host hiding behind Flag.
"Cities are gunna burn for this," she warned, eyes flickering over to where Amanda Waller lay still and bleeding. "Starting with where her loved ones live."
Together, the two left the team behind as they carried their broken crown from the courtyard, merging into the shadows once more. Once out of sight, the Joker leant down enough to press a lingering kiss against Diamante's cold cheek, placing a red stain that matched nearly perfectly with the blood that painted her lips and jaw.
Frost was waiting for them out on the street, a car ready for them. He'd had to hotwire it, but there was plenty of experience when it came to such trivial things. Bowing his head in respect, he silently mourned the woman in his Boss's arms as he held open the back door for them. Harley sat on the floor as the Joker laid the woman out across the seats, arms folded across her chest. She immediately began whispering to Diamante's body again, stroking her hair lovingly as the Joker sat on the edge of the seat by her legs, watching.
Looking at Diamante made the rage inside of him continue to burn. He wanted to go back and maim Waller for what she had done to his girls, resulting in the death of his Jewel. Gently caressing her side, feeling the cracks that littered her once perfect skin, he growled low. His hand came away with bright blood on the tips, matching with what stained his ruined shirt. Leaning down again, he pressed his lips to Diamante's still ones as Harley leaned into the Joker's shoulder, continuing to cry quietly.
Snarling, he looked to Frost through the rear-view mirror. The man nodded knowingly.
Diamante's life had been taken from them. And anyone who dared take what belonged to the Joker paid in blood.
҉
Deep in the heart of the Joker's most fortified home, a sleek metal casket was locked deep within the lower levels, locked away behind a fortress of locked doors and trip-wires, sitting atop a dais in the center of the room. Only Harley, the Joker and Frost knew all of the hidden traps that stood between the first door and Diamante's body. Washed of blood and dressed in a silk dress of black and gold, the woman had appeared to be slumbering as they laid her down in the casket.
Harley was the one to visit her the most, lying across the cold surface as she told Diamante about what was happening, telling her everything that happened no matter how pointless it may be. She would cry silently as she spoke, her fingers caressing the cold metal as she tried to imagine what Diamante would say to her in reply.
Frost would visit her now and then, replacing the candles and flowers that Harley insisted be littered throughout the room. Diamante had loved candles, she could sit and watch the dancing flames for hours, sometimes changing her fingers and watching as the flame lit up the diamond with each swipe across. He would stand silently at the foot of her casket, bowing his head. He didn't speak to her, he hardly did when she was alive, but they had always had a mutual respect for silence around one another that was a rarity with Harley or Mr. J.
The Joker was the one would visited her the least, though he spent the longest when he did. He'd disappear into Diamante's room for days depending on his mood. He'd go and sit at the head of her casket, his cane between his knees, as he looked down at the sleek, perfect metal that encased her body. He didn't speak. He knew it was pointless to talk to the dead woman's body. And he only ever touched the casket twice each time he visited. He would press a hand atop the lid where he knew her chest lay beneath whenever he entered, and a kiss above where her lips were forever out of reach each time he left.
Harley knew each time something happened that sent the Joker into a fit of rage that he would go and visit Diamante, and that she was not to follow. The three of them each had their moments with her, and would never dare to intrude on one another's time.
And they kept each of their promises. No member of Waller's circle of friends or family had survived the month after Diamante's death. The minimal connection didn't matter to them, they killed them all. No member of the team commented on it, though they were each aware. And Gotham did in fact burn, not even the Bat able to keep up with the raw anger and rage that Harley and the Joker unleashed upon the streets of their city.
After all, there was a debt to be paid.
I hope I did Diamante's death justice. This one's for Kyra, who requested via the main story. Hope I met your expectations! It's kinda concerning how much fun I had writing a chapter like this…