Note: Sequel time!!!!!!!!!!
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Black Mischief and Red Kisses.
1. Prologue.
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Harley loathed moving.
She managed to heave the last box up the stairs to her new apartment overlooking Robinson Park in the south side of Gotham. Having lost contact—or rather purposefully avoided contact with all of her old friends and acquaintances in Gotham she'd had no one but herself to rely on for the mammoth task of moving her life from New Haven back to Gotham. Now that she didn't have to hide from him anymore there was no reason to remain in the stuffy little New England town pretending that research was actually her calling.
After the Joker's trial and subsequent commitment to Arkham Asylum she'd deemed it safe enough to return. That was at least what people thought her reasoning was. Harley wasn't so sure if safety was what she was most concerned with.
Pouring herself a glass of white wine she set about unpacking her bedroom first, clawing through cardboard boxes full of bubble wrap and trinkets she'd nearly forgotten about. Packing had been a blur—nothing seemed more important than getting out of New Haven as soon as possible and returning to life. Somehow Gotham promised that.
After making her decision to return—sometime around her last talk with the Joker at MCU—maybe about ten minutes after she'd left the holding cell—Harley had quickly turned in her resignation at Yale and began hunting for work in Gotham before heading back up the coast.
Jeremiah Arkham wanted her to work for him, citing her internship three years earlier as proof that she was desperately needed at the institution. Harley imagined it had more to do with her former relationship with the Joker.
Joan Leland, who had also been at Arkham during her internship offered her a low paying position at a clinic in the Narrows. Though she respected the older doctor this adventure in charity did not appeal to Harley's new found sense of life and adventure. Treating homeless schizophrenics? Boring.
Of course, the last thing she had expected was the pair of burly Italian men waiting outside her hotel only days before she was set to return to New Haven. Harley instantly knew they were there for her and rather than feeling fear that the mob were taking an interest she felt only excitement. Adventure. Freedom.
Harley finished making her bed and sat down, feeling exhausted already and she'd only been at it for an hour. She pulled a box up labeled 'Crap' up on the bed and began sifting through it, opting to throw most of it out. Some ridiculous neon orange champagne glasses, a pair of old ballet shoes she hadn't worn in years, a medical bag, a few gymnastics trophies that meant nothing to her; nothing of any real value.
The Italians offered her a ride to the airport which she accepted warily. They said they'd heard she was returning to Gotham. And then they said that Maroni and the rest of the family could use her help if she was willing to give it—for a hefty salary of course.
"What could Maroni possibly use me for?" she asked slyly.
The fatter one wearing too much gold jewelry grunted. "You know people, babes. You know a lot of people. And you're a doctor—a shrink—Jonathan Crane is locked up in the nuthouse so he can't help the boss when we's needin' a uh—professional opinion."
"Maroni wants me to be his psychiatrist?" She asked, wrinkling her nose and fighting the urge to laugh..
"We'd just bein' doin' each other favors—" the skinnier one with overly oiled hair explained suavely. "You scratch our backs we scratch yours."
"So," Harley crossed her arms primly. "Would I be doing anything other than lying to keep you guys out of prison?"
"Well, that's down to you now, babes, isn't it."
"That depends," she said frostily.
The two men looked at each other warily. "On what?" the fat one asked.
She couldn't help but crack a grin. "On how much you're going to pay me."
The conversation still thrilled her. Working for the mob. It wasn't like it was exactly new to her and it was at least something to keep her mind from rotting.
Two months ago she had been a reclusive little shrew smelling of old books and dirty hair. Her run in with the Joker, her ex lover, had snapped her out of it somehow and she was back to her platinum blonde, crimson lipped, snappy, confident self again. And it felt so good. She wasn't going to waste it by being a family therapist in the suburbs. No. She would use her talent to make her life mean something.
All the better if her life meant anarchy.
He would love that.
Harley's hand scratched over something cold and metal in the bottom of the box and she felt her skin prickle with fear and excitement simultaneously. Slowly she pulled out the gun; it was larger than she remembered it being—the silencer on the end made it look less threatening somehow but Harley couldn't stop the memory—or rather the sensation that came with killing a person, of taking life—from slipping over her like a cold wave.
She chuckled to herself.
Feeling around the bottom of the box she sighed, thinking maybe she was moving to fast. Coming back to Gotham, getting involved with the mob, now finding an old gun—a trinket from her past criminality and finding it amusing rather than disturbing. It was a slippery slope she was on.
Her fingers rubbed against something soft and Harley frowned, unsure what this new object could be. If it was in the 'Crap' box along with a gun maybe it wasn't as boring as a pair of old ballet shoes. She lifted the small, soft article out from under the bubble wrap and examined it with wide, nearly shocked eyes.
A black velvet box, just bigger than her palm and heavier than it looked.
"I love it."
"Really?"
"Of course I—"
He'd cut her off by grabbing her and kissing her, the box left open and forgotten on the table as they pawed and kissed one another with unrestrained passion.
Harley opened the box, her heart beating fast, her leg twitching with anticipation and just as she'd expected the diamond necklace sat innocently inside, glittering up at her with more meaning than a necklace could ever possibly hold. Her breath caught in her throat and Harley let out a choked whimper, similar to how she'd felt upon seeing the Joker in court that first time six months earlier.
Shocked and overwhelmed—unprepared for the onslaught of emotions.
Except at the trial all she'd seen was green hair and wild, manic eyes that threatened to kill her for leaving him. To ruin her life all over again and crush her spirit and send her further into her own version of insanity.
But this little piece of jewelry didn't remind her of hospitals, crying and fear—of being thrown out of windows and loosing control of her life and her sense of self. Quite the opposite.
She was propped up on her arms reading a medical text, naked to the waist where a sheet covered her lower half. He was lying with his head against the small of her back, also reading one of her medical text books—this one on anatomy and dissection. It was a warm, sunny afternoon and the windows were open, letting in a soft breeze.
Harley rolled onto her back and he adjusted so his head was propped up on her stomach, his blonde curls fanning out across her flat abdomen. In the summer his curls lightened up from dirty blonde and it annoyed him endlessly, feeling as though he looked like an adorable child who would not be taken seriously. Harley had laughed at this and he'd glared, as if to say "See!"
But now he was quiet, turning pages, his lips moving, twitching from side to side in his inability to remain completely still. Harley felt herself sigh happily earning a crooked look from him.
"Pathology that good, hmm?" he joked, then rolled over, the anatomy book now forgotten at the foot of the bed. He pressed his face to her abdomen and for a moment Harley though he was going to blow a raspberry but instead he just dropped a soft kiss near her navel.
She let out a shaky breath and allowed her fingers trip through the soft blonde curls carefully.
Velvety green eyes jerked up to look at her coyly and upon seeing the way she bit her lip and seemed to hold her breath he leaned down and pressed his lips to her stomach again, this time a rib—then her left hip, her right—hands running under the sheet that covered her, exposing her thigh as he kissed upwards, moving haphazardly towards her breasts.
Her hands were shaking as the memory assaulted her. Curly blonde hair. Soft green eyes. Unscarred mouth so soft and yet brutal—but always beautiful.
There were tears coming now, and before she could control herself Harley had ransacked her purse for her phone and was dialing the number Jeremiah Arkham had given her in case she ever felt like contacting him. She got through the first four digits, trying not to cry but feeling blinded by the memory of her lover before he was the Joker. Before the Joker took her lover. Before—what had happened?
Her fingers slowed on the key pad and Harley slid her phone shut resolutely.
The Joker was not her lover, no matter how similar the two might seem, they were irrevocably different. Going to Arkham would be a mistake. It would prove to him that she still needed him and it would prove to her that she did too. But that wouldn't happen.
Harley slammed the lid on the necklace closed and shoved it violently back in the box. She picked up the gun with the silencer still attached and ran her fingers over it almost lovingly, like a long lost pet.
She did not need him.
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Note: Soooo, Harley's back and she's a bit feisty.
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