Author's Note: I would like to dedicate this to my very friendly and helpful friend TitansGirl1234 for always being a muse and sounding board.
I'm unsure as of yet if I will continue this story into a multichapter piece, but as for now, the first chapter can stand alone as a oneshot.
Please remember to read and review.
Silence filled the room. It settled in the corners and swept through the windows, hushing the scattering glass, and the twinkling sounds that they produced; it muffled the footsteps banging across the wooden floors, the creaking floorboards beneath black boots. No voices could be heard shouting, a sea of uniform helmets blurring faces into anonymity.
She felt her heart pounding in her chest, the blood rushing through her ears. Her stomach was deep down by her feet, nauseatingly far away from its home. She closed her eyes, crushing the light from the streetlamps away from her vision. She held her breath, felt her shoulders shaking.
She was terrified for her life, squatting in the corner of a dark building, gun clutched between her hands. She willed her muscles to steady, and opened her eyes, brow set, jaw clenched. She looked around for the Joker. He was about 20 feet away, crouched low to the floor, looking straight back at her.
His eyes were dark, a frown pulled across his face.
He heard a shout and he snapped his face away from her direction, looking through the single doorway separating them from sure death. The silence still filled her ears and she looked towards the empty blackness, eyes wide, hands steadying her weapon, ready to draw at the drop of a hat.
She glanced back at him, his chest swelled full of air. He was shouting something at her, his whole body moving as he barked at her.
Move! Move! Get out of here! She could see his mouth forming the words before she ever heard them hit her ears. She stood slowly, bent almost in half, and darted towards him. He leapt up when he saw her move and the two charged for their escape.
She wasn't entirely sure how their plan had failed - not to this degree anyways. Sure, there were always a couple hiccoughs in any heist they pulled, but it was as if the two of them had walked into a trap: like they had stupidly waltzed into the hands of the Bat and Gotham's police.
Harley worried they had a mole. There was no way that the police were clever enough to figure out the next move the duo could plan. They were supposed to rig the whole building to blow: it was to be the first of several historic landmarks that the Joker was planning on destroying. They hadn't even blown their first building to pieces yet, so there really was no way that the police could have known what they were up to.
Time slowed for a moment as they crossed the threshold of their haven into Hell. Gunfire erupted into a deafening roar as the Joker began firing (the best defense is a good offense he'd always say). He grabbed her arm with his free hand and dragged her behind him, the couple bursting from the doorway in an explosion of bullets.
Harley kept her gun trained behind her, looking over her shoulder to send a spray of cover fire as they rounded the corner. It was up to her to keep them off their trail. Them… the swarm of faceless soldiers nipping at her heels. The Joker kicked through the wooden door at the end of the hall and screamed at Harley to hurry up.
They had rigged that door to blow…
She let out a shriek behind him, and he let her hand go to bolt towards the half dozen or so helmet-ed strangers that blocked their escape. The Joker swung his arm in front of him, slamming the butt of his gun into the first helmet within reach. He swirled around, kicking a gun that was point blank from its owner. The crack of gunfire stunned Harley and she lifted her weapon to cover the Joker, landing several solid hits on the strangers surround them.
"Move, damn it!" He yelled back at her and she took off for the next door she could find. He followed up behind her . Bangbangbang!
She felt the air around her move and felt the heat blow past her face as the fuse finally lit its target. It erupted into a roar of fire, deafening her and swallowing the men they left behind in its hungry blow. The Joker's fingers wrapped firmly on her shoulders and he slammed her onto the floor, falling on top of her as they went.
She hit the wooden floor with a smack, the air sucked from her lungs by the heat from the explosion and weight of her fall. He was scrambling on top of her, pulling at her arms, dragging her along as he stumbled to his feet.
"Damn it, Harley! Don't make me carry—" he raised one hand and shot over her head. She never saw if he hit his target. She cringed and pulled herself to her feet, quickly gaining speed as the two of them pushed through the final set of doors to the outside world.
The building creaked behind them, wincing from the blow it suffered. Harley heard it begin to crackle, the fire licking up through the holes in the floor it had created. She turned, wide-eyed and looked back at the disaster she had helped create, marveling for a moment in the glory of the chaos.
A shadow passed in front of her, blocking out the light of the fire. She locked eyes with it, the Joker yanking at her arm to keep her moving. He stood tall, turning everything but his face away from the fleeing pair. The Bat… He was too far away to stop them now, having made it safely into the cover of the night.
The building erupted in flames, a loud crack followed by a hollow silence screamed through the hot night air. The structure gave way, crumbling to the ground with a deafening roar. Smoke, dirt, dust, debris all came tumbling towards them in a tidal wave of aftermath, swirling past their feet as they ran.
The building would be a first of many that would fall that night. They had timed the downfall of the city perfectly, like a well-written symphony. It would be a matter of minutes before the next building would be left in shambles. 20 more minutes for the next, and an hour and a half until the one after that. They wanted to leave people afraid to leave their homes, send them scrambling in fear for the next attack.
The power was out for blocks in all directions. She felt the gravel passing beneath her feet, and she finally turned her head away. Her heart pounded and her lungs opened, gulping in the thick, hot air. They ran until they couldn't run anymore, until she was sure her feet her bleeding and thought her whole body might cave in. Sirens wailed in the distance behind them, motivating their feet to keeping moving, urging their blood to continue to pound through their tired veins.
They had hit the edge of town, where the beginnings of greenery were starting to creep in near the collapsing buildings. Vines wove in a out of the windows and cracks of the desolate structures, trees splitting foundations, bursting through every imperfection in the abandoned warehouses, family homes and businesses.
The Joker stopped the first car he saw then, splitting the man's head in two with a single shot between the eyes. He needed no witnesses to his escape, and wasn't about to let his freedom hang in the balance by some castrated idiot.
The two climbed into the car and raced as far from the city as they could. They drove for what felt like hours, the city burning behind them. The dawn began to break over the small, country-side towns they rocketed through. And finally, when Harley was sure her eyes would no longer stay open, the Joker pulled the car onto a two-track, and the forest consumed their car whole.
She wondered if they would ever be able to return. But for now, she was simply grateful to have been able to escape with her life.