Beta: RisqueSno
Disclaimer: DC owns all these characters and WB owns DC and Time Warner owns WB and I'm pretty sure the rest of the world.
Author Notes: I know someone is going to come back to me about being 'racially insensitive' in this piece, so I'm going to stop you right here and ask you to move along if you can't take a joke in stride. The manner in which the characters speak is only because English is not their first language. Is it meant to be funny? Of course, but not offensive.
Panda King
A quick downpour had left as quickly as it had begun in the wee hours of the morning. The neon lights still glowing reflected off puddles in the near vacant street. The odd passerby was stumbling home beneath marquees promising the best shows in town, with female silhouettes seductively posing underneath.
In parts of town such as these, some wise restaurant owners realized that operating non-traditional hours could potentially offer them a whole new cliental and it didn't take long for those that didn't bother to wake before two in the afternoon to catch on. These businesses prospered by charging more for their product due to the simple economic rule of supply and demand, but they also had to learn how to tolerate and respond to a rougher crowd.
One such establishment was the Panda King, offering Asian cuisine at just about any time of day. Living and working in the same building, the elderly couple that ran the shop would sleep during the times they saw the least foot traffic, but would wake if the bell chimed, indicating a customer had arrived. This had become a nuisance on a number of occasions when a member of the homeless community or simply a drunkard who had lost his way would stumble in, waking them not for food, but for a place to crash. They would respond by quickly rushing such individuals out of the establishment. You could never be too careful living on their side of town.
They had become adept at self-reliance, especially after their son had left the nest. Picking up the new language came much easier for him, being young. While they eventually understood most English, they never quite felt comfortable speaking it and left the translation for him when it became necessary. However, the moment he left for college, they had to adapt, but found after all the time they had spent in the country it wasn't too difficult.
The docile panda sign dripped with the passing storm as it glowed above two figures entering the establishment. The bell chimed, rousing the owners from their sleep, their clock showing the time to be three-sixteen AM.
"Usual, Mr. Joker?" the gentleman asked, already retrieving a wok for the stove, his wife drowsily taking her place behind the register.
"Of course," Joker confirmed. "And make it to go," he added, casually taking a seat.
"You too, Mrs. Joker?" the woman asked.
"Yes, the usual," she replied nervously, peeking between the blinds of the barred window at the street beyond.
Typically the moniker of 'Mrs. Joker' never failed to give his Harley the case of the giggles. She never bothered to correct them, enjoying the sound of it, but she hadn't given it a moment's notice tonight. "We lost them, Harl," he assured her, sensing her nervousness.
"It's so quiet," Harley breathed, a dog barking in the distance the only sound that echoed down the street.
"It's quiet because we lost them," he repeated, forcibly.
She still refused to leave the window, her demeanor in stark contrast to the two large Oscars staring out placidly from their aquarium.
"Harley, get over here!" he instructed in exasperation.
She slowly backed toward him, eyes fixed to the street, until she reached his table and he pointed for her to take a seat with her back facing the entrance.
"How'd they manage to get the drop on us?" Harley asked, hugging herself. "I think we lost just about everybody."
"Everyone knows Fat Tony has been pushing his territory this way. I had no idea he'd have the cojones to try and tangle with me or I would have been more prepared. It won't happen again," Joker vowed angrily. "Besides, we've got plenty of places to hole up until we're ready for a little payback."
Harley hugged herself unsurely, which he thought more than a little rude. He did go so far as to say 'we' after all. "Yeah, but-," Harley refuted.
"I'm not talking about this anymore," he insisted, pulling out a deck of cards from his vest pocket. He started dealing out the cards to the both of them atop laminated placemats of the Chinese Zodiac in hopes that a game of Gin Rummy would distract her from her worries...and him from wanting to see if he could remove her eyeballs with a pair of chopsticks for doubting him.
The smell of their food started wafting through the room as they silently shuffled through their respective decks. "GIN!" Harley shouted triumphantly, displaying her hand. Joker looked up from his hand at her and responded inappropriately by barking, "GET DOWN!"
She didn't waste any time questioning his command and they both immediately fell to the floor underneath the table as a barrage of bullets shattered the glass windows and continued on until the door could scarcely be recognized as a door anymore.
A momentary reprise followed the initial assault, assumingly because the attackers were trying to determine if they had been successful. Harley wailed next to him, her arms over her head and the couple behind the counter were jabbering on in a language he couldn't understand.
"Would everyone kindly shut up!" he demanded, crawling toward the entrance, gun in hand.
He lay flat against what was left of the front wall, underneath what was once a large window with the words 'Panda King' embossed across it, protected by the small amount of wall between the windowpane and the floor. Decades ago, the window proudly displayed the wares within, but with the degradation of the area came thin black bars bolted to the frames.
Slow footsteps from one of the assailants approached the establishment to scout out the situation. Gun ready in one hand, he grasped one of the bars of the now shattered window and peered into the room beyond.
"Always remember to check your blind spot," Joker advised the corpse, who he had just shot through the bottom jaw, exiting out the top of his head. The body slumped over and was quickly followed by another barrage of gunfire, so thick that it was scarcely possible to move, much less set up a counter-strike.
Possible options ran through his head quickly, most notably the lack of them, when a bullet shattered a gumball machine, scattering the candy across the floor. Joker army crawled as quickly as could, across the now colorfully debris-strewed tile, back to Harley under the table, who was frantically emptying out a very large purse. "I don't have much left," she admitted, looking at him with scared eyes. "Maybe the cops will show up soon," she added, as though it'd be something of a relief.
Joker grimaced at the thought. "What we need is some breathing room," he instructed, noting that even if he got it, he was low on ammunition given the night's events.
"I'm working on it!" she barked, deciding to dump the contents of the bag onto the floor, a collection of cosmetics, toiletries, and weapons scattering around them. "HERE!" she announced triumphantly, handing him a small grenade. "Then we run like hell!"
"We've already tried that," he retorted darkly, clearly unwilling to retreat.
"We don't know how many of them there are," she persisted, but he was already moving, grenade in hand.
An explosion quickly followed, eliminating what little was left of the front wall. The hail of gunfire mercifully stopped as a result. The Joker wasted no time and, before their assaulters could catch their bearings, strode onto the street with his glock and started mechanically taking them out one at a time with precision until he had to reload. Emptying his gun, the tinkle of spent shells littered the sidewalk as he went back into the restaurant once again, stepping over a couple of large Oscars flopping on the ground, their aquarium having been shattered in the grenade's explosion.
Unfortunately, the building no longer provided any sort of adequate cover and his assailants were beginning to regroup. A fact he was all too aware of as he rapidly placed bullets into the chambers of his gun.
Suddenly, he heard a loud bang come from the back of the restaurant, blasting the head off the shoulders of one of his opponents and momentarily disorienting the rest of them. From behind the counter came the restaurant owner holding a shotgun tight to his shoulder.
"Nice shot," Joker complimented in surprise.
"Ji-ok-ga-so ssog-o-ra!" his wife spat out angrily to the group of men outside.
"You tell 'em, sister," Harley enthused, emerging from underneath the table and heading toward her. "What else you got back here?" she asked, leaning over the counter. The woman responded by handing her another shotgun.
Between the three of them and how much the assailants had been thinned out already, it wasn't long before the remaining few decided to wise up and flee. The fight had stopped almost as quickly as it had begun.
"Nice!" Joker exclaimed, quickly taking in the body count. Harley dropped her weapon and whooped cheerfully at their victory. "Looks like twenty plus versus the two of us. …'Course, Jackie Chan here helped a little." He turned to regard the man, only to find him now aiming a shotgun at his head. Harley slowly stopped jumping, her smile turning into a frown.
"Problem?" Joker hissed.
"Jja-jueng na!" the elderly man yelled at him furiously.
"I don't speak Chinese!" Joker boomed back.
"WE KOREAN!" came an equally angry voice, emerging from the debris that was once the front of her restaurant and taking her place at her husband's side.
"…The sign says 'Chinese' restaurant," Harley commented meekly.
"They all Chinese," the woman replied, as though it had been a sore point for her for quite some time.
"I don't care if you're Kryptonian!" Joker retorted. "What the hell is his problem?!" he nodded to the man still brandishing a weapon in front of him.
"YOU FAULT!" he answered with a nod of the head toward his demolished establishment. "YOU PAY FOR THAT!"
"…The stones on you," Joker breathed in disbelief.
"Puddin', couldn't you just…," Harley began.
"Harley, if you are even suggesting that I-," he seethed.
"We did bring trouble their way," Harley reasoned.
"Are you taking their side?" he demanded. "Fine. We'll play your game. Just know that one day I'll be back for your wife. I might return her, if I feel like it, missing a part or two."
What followed was yet another incoherent babbling session from the couple, far from the usual response to his threats. On the contrary, if their tone and stamping of feet were any indicator, they seemed all the more determined to receive compensation.
"He's joking! He's joking!" Harley quickly intervened, trying to break the tension. "He doesn't mean it really."
"Are…Are you apologizing for me?" he asked, astonished.
"NO! Of course not!" she assured him, before quickly turning to the couple and silently mouthing, Yes, I am. She held her hands up in a manner that asked for patience in letting her handle the situation.
Harley turned back to the Joker and got within inches of the man before lowering her voice to a whisper. "Let me tell you what is about to happen."
"Are you dictating to me?" he hissed, his volume following hers, fist clenched.
Harley smiled sweetly, ignoring the question. "I'm not dealing with this. I'm just not. This has been a horrible night and you are not capping it off by killing these two. Do you remember how long it took us to find this place? I do. It was a nightmare. The first place's sesame chicken was too grisly. The second's kung pow chicken wasn't spicy enough. And so on and so on it went forever and a day. Nevermind the ordeal we had to go through to get service at each and every one," she explained. "You like this place. A lot. And, miracle of miracles, they are actually willing to serve us without any trouble. You are going to leave these two alone because, if you don't, I will never hear the end of it," she finished with determination.
She turned away from his dumb-founded expression to address the restaurant owners once again. "We've reached a compromise," she started. "He is not going to pay you a dime." The couple looked ready to protest again before she continued, "But I am."
She then reached into Joker's pants pocket and divested it of his wallet. "I assure you that we carry plenty of money with us at all times," she assured their suspicious glare. "In our business, you never know when you'll be in a situation when you only have the clothes on your back."
She started doling out bills of large denominations to the woman's out-stretched hand, her husband beside her still holding his shotgun at the ready. "Is that good?" Harley asked after what she thought to be a suitable amount.
"Ah-nee-yo," the woman shook her head, prompting Harley to place two more bills on top of the pile.
"Hotel," the woman expounded. Harley handed her another bill, eyes narrowing.
"Lost wages," said the man.
"You're pushing it," Harley warned through gritted teeth, handing over one last bill.
The woman fanned out the cash and held it out for her husband to see. He grunted in approval and said something that Harley assumed was an instruction of some sort because she disappeared back inside the restaurant. They heard the ding of the register, followed by the woman's return carrying a doggy bag, which she handed graciously over to Harley.
The transaction over, the man lowered his weapon, smiled broadly and bid them farewell with a, "Thank you. Come again."
As they walked back into their destroyed establishment, presumably to pack for a long hotel stay, Harley took a deep breath and faced the Joker again.
"I'm-I'm not sure what just happened," Joker admitted, still stupefied.
Harley sighed and tucked his wallet back into his pants pocket, patting it in place. "What just happened was you once again triumphed over impossible odds, enjoyed a high body count, and we saved your favorite Chinese restaurant all at the same time. Not a bad night after all, all things considered."
"You think you're awfully clever, don't you?" Joker asked, beginning to resume his former swagger.
"From time to time," Harley returned, smugly. "Let's get home before this gets cold," she said, holding up the bag of food, the faint sound of approaching sirens in the distance. "Also, there's that."
Joker smirked. "It'd better be amazing. This is the most expensive meal I've ever had!"