HEART OF DARKNESS
Author's Note: To any of my readers who may be affiliated with or knowledgeable about the US military. Yes, I know this is not how any of the branches of the service work, but I have taken some liberties for the sake of continuity in a superhero universe, especially considering the quasi-military status of S.H.I.E.L.D. Also, yes fellow Watchmen fans, I know that Operation Wrath of God was in 1970-71. I have fudged the dates by months to fit into this slightly expanded universe. Mea culpa. I assure you, however, I am NOT taking out the squid.
WARNING: The allegations and situations described in this document do not correspond to the documentation and files of the United States government, NYPD, the JLA, the Avengers, the X-Men, S.H.I.E.L.D. or any other official source.
Prologue: Blood Oath
I: Eddie
Eddie Blake, you old son of a bitch, you're getting what you deserve.
It took a lot to make the Comedian sick, but while the rest of the American forces were celebrating their victory, he was lying in his bed, in his tent, stricken with fever.
The fever was a special gift from the large, festering wound crawling and oozing all over his face.
And there was no worse place to be laid up with on earth than the middle of a fucking jungle.
God Almighty, do I hate this fucking jungle. This fucking jungle and these fucking gooks and that crazy bitch, all this time I looked after her and she tries to kill me with a bottle because I refuse to stay in this fucking jungle with her and somebody's kid.
She says it's my kid.
How the fuck would she know?
What, I'm the only guy who walked into that bar who ever fucked her?
No, I'm the only guy who ever walked into that bar who didn't just fuck her and forget about her.
And this is the fucking thanks I get.
Don't feel goddamn sorry for yourself, Eddie, you did kill her.
Jesus, what if it was my kid?
Well, she didn't have to be such a cunt about it.
I would have sent the dumb bitch money, got the little half-breed a nice government job when it grew up, but she had to do it.
Try and kill me, slash my face, for all I know the next shot could have been at my throat.
Well, you may get your wish, you crazy gook bitch.
I may never get out of this bed, alive, I might just die here in this fucking jungle, like a dirty fucking dog.
God Almighty, I do hate this fucking jungle.
I wish Doc B had brought a fucking nurse, I'd at least like to see a real American girl, one more goddamn time before I die.
You had one of those, Eddie.
She wanted to be here until this thing was finished.
And you wanted her in New York.
For her own good.
Yeah, right.
Look what happened to her.
I should have had her here with me, she woulda been alright.
I woulda looked after her.
And she'd be here now to look after me.
Because Eddie needed looking after.
The cut on his face had become very, very infected.
Doc B had lots of theories.
The bottle was dirty.
His face had been dirty.
Whatever it was, Doc B never came back to figure it out.
Merrie would have known what to do.
So would her daughter.
The Comedian was lying there in his tent, dizzy and in pain, in just his underwear, under the blanket, sweating and suffering, and thinking this was it.
Going to get what I deserve.
That was when a glowing blue arm held the tent flap open.
It was the other doctor, the big blue one, and unlike Doc B, who hadn't been around for a couple of days, he had an expression of concern on his face.
Ostermann had actually been helping him.
Surprise, surprise, surprise.
"Hiya Doc. Gonna empty my bucket for me, again, today?"
"Yes. You look much worse, today, Comedian. I brought you some more water."
"I can't lift the canteen, Doc."
"Then I will help you."
Well, this is fucking humiliating.
"I think Dr. Bieganski has left you to die, Comedian. I don't think he ever gave you proper treatment, and now he's abandoned you to your fate."
"That's what I was thinkin'. I guess I'll be seein' you in Hell, Doc."
"No. You had a point. The other night, in the bar. I could have done something, no, I should have done something. At the very least I could have stood between the two of you. I'm not going to compound my mistake by letting you die, too. I'd help you clean yourself up, but I'm going to get you help, from someone who knows more about it than I do. I'll be back very soon."
The Doc was gone in a flash of blue, and in about ten minutes, he was back, in another flash of blue.
And there she was, like a sweet little angel from Hell, carrying Merrie's book under her arm, and with her old familiar WWII Issue medic kit in hand, decked out in her combat fatigue costume.
"Oh Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ and all the saints, Great Thor, Mother of All!" she exclaimed.
That about covered every religion you could think of.
Liv was on the floor beside him in seconds flat, pushing his sweat-soaked, bloody, dirty hair away from his clammy forehead.
Woman's touch.
"Jesus, this is bad, Jon! Eddie? Jesus, Eddie, are you conscious? D'you know where the fuck Doc B is?"
"He left me to die. What the fuck are you doing here, kid?"
"Where you have been, I have been. What you have done, I have done. What you must do, I must do. And where you go, I will follow. Didja forget that?"
"Do you know what I did?"
"Fuck, Eddie, I know everything you did in your whole fuckin' life. What you ain't told me, I figured out. Two days after JFK got shot I asked you why you didn't bring me any cowboy stuff back from Texas, knowin' how much I liked Westerns. She tried to kill you, didn't she? You got an infection. You prob'ly got blood poisoning. You're lyin' here in this shithole tent, sweatin' it out, burnin' up with fever, left to die, aint'cha? She tried to kill you an' she almost succeeded. Maybe she got what was comin' to her."
"Trivelino!" Jon exclaimed.
"Jesus Christ, kid!" the Comedian added.
"C'mon, don't piss on my head and tell me it's fuckin' rainin'! Shit, after we pulled out, if she went home pregnant with a white man's child, her own family mighta killed her. And you keep prayin', Eddie. We're both gonna need it. Jon, I might need your help."
"What should I do?"
"Boil some water for me. And go into Doc B's tent. Get me some gloves, and sterile dressings. I think I've got the rest covered. And see if he has anything stronger than penicillin in there. And if you see him, you tell him to run. Tell that Polack motherfucker to keep runnin', and never stop, until he feels like dyin'. Real hard. Because I'll be comin' for him."
The Doc looked like he was going to say something about that, and then, after he put some water in Eddie's cooking pot and put it on the camp stove, he left.
The kid looked down at him, and for a minute, she really did look just like Merrie.
She wrapped an ice pack in a towel, and put it on his forehead for a minute, before she gently lifted his head and put it under his neck.
Only she was giving him the same look Merrie reserved only for Jack, touching the uninjured side of his face, again.
Woman's touch.
"I'm gonna fix you up, Eddie. You're gonna be alright. I promise."
"Didn't I ask youse to wear a skirt for me, next time I saw youse, kid?"
"You said when you came home, Eddie. I was gonna go out t'day, with my friend Jean Grey, ta go buy it."
"Yeah, well, after youse fixes me up and you go back to New York, don't you forget it."
"I won't, Eddie. I promise. Hell, I'll even buy a pair of panties an' a fuckin' bra. That match."
She opened up the medic kit, and went to work.
Chapter One: Concrete Jungle
Excerpt from Blood, Sweat and Tears of Laughter: The True Story of Harlequin & the Comedian
Everybody knows the story.
They made a movie about it, with Oliver Reed and Mila Jojovich in it.
That was her first American movie.
Deep Red.
Wasn't that a great movie?
Sure was.
I saw it, two, three times.
You probably did, too.
Didn't they give it an NC-17 because of all the sex and violence and cursing?
Then, even with some of it cut out, man, could you believe what they let past as an R?
And the NC-17 version?
Holy shit!
So, we all know the story.
The Comedian, he knew the Harlequin since she was just a kid.
He knew her family.
Shadowy mask stuff.
But Harlequin, she was a bad kid.
And when she got to be a teenager, well, she was a bad, bad, bad teenager.
She went for him, but he still thought of her as just this kid.
Then, after he got back from 'Nam, she saved his life in a bad, bloody way, in a bad, bloody riot, and he decided to take her on as an apprentice, like Batman wanted him to, and, in the fullness of time, the Comedian and the Harlequin fell into a bad, dirty kind of love that has lasted longer than the lives of some of their fellow masks.
And thanks to Infinity Formula, he's in his 80's and she's in her 60's but they both seem to have got stuck around 35, and after all these years, and many, many, many dance partners on their respective cards, they're still working together, and they're still in bad, dirty, violent good bad guy love.
If you don't look too closely at the body count, and shrug and say, well, they were all scumbags, anyway, it's kind of nice.
Yes, I remember the part in the movie where Oliver Reed and Mila Jojovich get in this big ultraviolent superhero brawl, down on the waterfront, and beat the hell out of one another, and she has him on the ground, and she's on top of him with a gun to his head, and then she throws it away and they kiss.
Am I trying to tell you that didn't happen?
No.
It happened.
But I am trying to tell you that long before that fateful night on the docks, long before the Knot Top riot, long before the Comedian ever took Harlequin on as an apprentice, and turned her messy, tough chick, mad genius, old-fashioned crazy Irish drunk life around, there was something more between them than his ignorance and her longing looks.
What you saw in the alley that began not in 1971, but in 1968.
Miles and years between 1968 and 1971, entire lifetimes.
She was 18.
Young, brilliant, reckless and drunk, she had two years as the most ultraviolent, ruthless and effective street-level mask since the Comedian hit the streets when he was 16, and was already the veteran of battles in which she had one side of her face smashed in with rebar, got her throat slit, and took a thirty-aught-six bullet in the guts that was only partially impeded by a bulletproof vest.
She knew what she wanted out of life; she wanted to be a good mask, to be the best mask she could be, and just to be good rather than evil.
She wanted the Comedian, and had always been the kind of son of a bitch who took what she wanted, no questions asked.
He was 44.
A big, brash, bad, bullying 44, a Mack truck of a black Irishman still in the prime of his life. Forged in a violent home, tested by the war in Europe and the war in the streets, he was a man who had raised all the children in his care and was still good-looking, strong and ultraviolent.
He was a man who had and lost everything a man could want from life before he was thirty, and was, in the second act of his life, looking for another chance to have just a little bit of what every other guy got who wasn't a guy like him.
They came together by accident, and stayed that way in secret, and the tumultuous years passed them both, neither one knowing what to say next, or what to do. They were torn apart and thrown together by war, and by violence, by drunkenness and jealousy and promiscuity, by bravado and machismo and stupid pride, until something clicked on that hot, dark night down on the docks that made them realise that God went down to Hell and made The Comedian, and then He made the Harlequin for him, out of the hottest of hellfire.
Do you remember, in the movie, the Harlequin puts the gun to the Comedian's head, and she says:
"I'll either have your love or your blood on me, you son of a bitch, I can't take it anymore!"
And the Comedian takes her head in his hands, and he snarls.
"You are my blood."
And she throws the gun away, and they just kiss the hell out of each other?
Even if they didn't say that to each other, they should have, because isn't that just crazy and tragic and sick, but yet somehow strangely beautiful?
It is.
And so is the truth about them, which is finally going to be told.
Who am I to tell it?
I'm nobody.
But I know everything.
Interlude: Wayne Manor, Long Island, New York, 1962
Like a thief in the night, Liv Napier, 13, streaked up the three flights of stairs, three or four long, winding spiral staircases, pounding her legs down harder on every step as her knapsack pounded against her back, and her heart pounded against her rib cage.
She pulled down the hatch for the attic and climbed up to her secret spot; the comfortable old mattress with the big blanket, and the milk crates full of her secret porno stash.
Her brother, Dick, with whom she shared a bedroom big enough for five people, he'd found out about it, somehow, but nobody else knew, and good old Dick, he was kind of a goody-goody, but he kept his lip zipped about it.
He called it her Super Secret Whack-Off Cave.
And Liv spent a lot of time there.
But, tonight, tonight, she could hardly make it up into the attic, because her head and her belly were on fire and her legs were like jelly.
Because tonight, tonight, tonight was going to be the absolute best night of her whole entire life so far.
The cheapest, dirtiest thrill that a nasty little pervert like her could ever have.
It promised to be about ten thousand percent better than screwing old Popeye MacTavish in the back seat of the '33 Ford V-8 when she went around the back of the pawnshop at Fulton and Rockaway to buy beer.
Hell, it more than made up for Popeye giving her the shoe.
She made sure the attic hatch was shut, and dragged a big box over it, just in case.
Then, furtively, she scuttled over to her corner.
Unbenknownst to Dick, this was also where she kept her booze, too.
Then, looking around as though, somehow, someone could still see her, she opened her knapsack.
From it, she took a cheap fifty cent dirty book.
Liv, although a lover of great literature, was a big buyer of cheap fifty cent dirty books, but not any old cheap fifty cent dirty books, just the ones about superheroes.
Stay in your own species, yunno?
When you're 13, and you wouldn't even think abut fucking anybody under the age of 25,and you like yours at 35 and up, well, unless they managed to look like a man before that, you don't get as much action as you'd like, especially when you'd like it every day.
Twice.
Or more.
And that, Best Beloved, is why God made people who write fuckbooks.
There was a news-stand, right around the pawnshop, in her old neighbourhood in East New York, where the guy would sell anything to anybody who had the money to pay for it.
She kept them in a box under her bed, which is where this one would go after she finished with tonight.
Tonight, tonight!
Also, from the backpack, she carefully removed a carefully lifted half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels, and a prize, a trophy.
Call it fate, call it luck, call it karma, but this morning there was a new fifty cent dirty book out about Eddie.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.
His name rolled off her tongue as sweet and lowdown as she knew he would, and just saying his name made her think about unspeakable things.
He looked at her and he saw a little kid, but Liv knew she was growing up fast, and in three, four years he wasn't going anywhere.
Even if someday I have to put a gun to his head.
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, oh, Eddie…
The book was called "The Comedian's Audience", and from the blurb on the back, it looked like it was about him going around to meet up with broads he had saved from peril and them expressing their gratitude.
And, this very afternoon, while she was bumming around Laurie's house, after training, waiting for Laurie to change her clothes, Laurie was forever changing her clothes, Liv was smoking a cigarette and wondering where she was going to buy booze and get laid now that old Popeye MacTavish found out she was only 13 and gave her the shoe, and did Joe Mac really think of her that way, when opportunity presented itself.
Not the opportunity to liberate a half of a bottle of whiskey from under the kitchen table that Eddie and Sally would assume they had killed the night before, that was a rare, and wondrous opportunity, but not as rare, not as wondrous as the one that presented itself as Sally made her way to the laundry room, carrying the basket and complaining, as Liv was hastily putting out the cigarette and hiding the fuckbook inside her history textbook.
"…not enough that he doesn't call before he comes over, the sunnuvabitch, now he thinks he can leave his dirty shorts around…"
Leave his dirty shorts around?
Dirty shorts?
Dirty shorts!
DIRTY SHORTS! DIRTY SHORTS!
GREAT GOD IN HEAVEN, EDDIE'S….DIRTY… SHORTS!
Liv thought fast.
She got up, got a glass from the dish tray and threw it on the floor.
It broke.
Sally came in.
"What was that?"
"I broke a glass. Sorry. I'll get the broom."
ZOOOOOOOM!
She went to the laundry room, and grabbed those dirty shorts sitting off to the side of the basket and shoved them in her pocket.
In her pocket?
I've got Eddie's dirty shorts in my pocket!
Liv held onto the broom until her legs stopped trembling.
She swept up the glass.
"Well, I got this big History test tomorrow, so I gotta go, Sally. Tell Laurie I'm sorry an' I'll see her tomorrow, g'bye, seeya tomorrow after school!"
Liv handed Sally the broom and she was gone.
Like a coooooool breeze.
And now, alone in her secret spot, Liv stripped down to her GI-Issue boxers and undershirt, and climbed into her bed, uncapped the whiskey bottle, took a swallow and began to thumb through the dirty book, looking for something that was particularly and entirely filthy.
Something especially nasty, dirty and crude.
Oho!
Costume fucking!
Ah, in the world of things that are fine and hot, there must be nothing quite so fine and hot as getting pounded by Eddie Blake whilst he still has his costume on.
"…Alice allowed him to lift her onto the kitchen table…"
On the table!
Liv took another belt of whiskey.
She was starting to sweat, and her hands began to tremble; they trembled so much she had to put the whiskey bottle down.
"…he didn't even bother to take off his guns…"
Didn't he?
"…soft black leather of the pants was like a second skin…"
Liv was beginning to pant.
Sure is, it sure is.
Her heart raced in her chest, thudding against the wall of her ribs as sweat beaded on her forehead and her chest.
Her mouth was dry, she licked her lips.
The anticipation was murderous.
"…Alice could feel the slippery heat of the soft black leather and the cold steel of the grips of the pistols on her naked thighs that she wrapped around him, as, laughing, the Comedian thrust his long, thick, heavy cock into her hungry wet pussy, over and over again…"
BINGO!
Liv gasped, and grunted savagely in a kind of sublime frustration, as she entered compulsive masturbator's nirvana.
Her mind became wonderfully empty of anything except an extreme and violent need to get off, and the certainty that, in that moment she was capable of doing anything, anything, to ensure complete and total satisfaction.
She took another drink, tossed the book aside, grabbed the dirty shorts from her backpack, draped them over her face and took a good, long, sniff as she darted her hand inside the flap of her boxers.
Mmmmmmm, now that's a whole lot of man!
Most people would regard this as something foul and shameful, but no such thoughts crowded Liv's mind, which was altogether too full of phantasmagoric, even Burroughsian visions of wild, muscular, lustful fucking.
It took her less than three minutes to completely come her brains out, her body arching violently ff and then slamming back onto the old mattress.
"Oh shit! Shit, shit, shit, oh fuck, fuck! FUCK! I'm dyin' dyin, Eddie, I'm dyin'!" she screamed.
There was a thin hope at the back of her mind that her screams of ecstasy didn't waft through the whole place, and if they did, that Pop, Dick and Alfred would be discreet.
Liv collapsed into the pillows in a tangled heap, and removed her trophy from her face so she could breathe.
Thinking fast, she stuffed them into a plastic lunch bag from the bottom of her knapsack, and stuck them under the mattress.
She took another drink, and stashed the bottle and the book.
"That oughta keep 'em fresh for awhile. Damn. That's what I call a great fuckin' night." She sighed.
Lying on her back, tingling pleasantly in the soft afterglow of the most amazing orgasm you could give yourself, she felt the edges of a heated feeling of urgency still prowling her guts.
She realised that she was going to need to get some real action, and soon.
She had known Joe since she was 7 and he was 8, and he was one of her best friends in the world.
They both liked to listen to records, read comic books, and work on cars, and even though Joe was 14, he had been shaving for about six months, he didn't look like any kid, and Laurie said she thought he kinda liked her, yunno, that way, and maybe Joe Mac, maybe he wouldn't mind, every once in awahile…
She put herself together, and went back down to her bedroom.
Dick was watching TV.
She reached for the phone.
"Hey, Joe…it's me, Liv. No, it ain't about the car, but yeah, we're gonna get to that. Listen, y'think, tomorrow night, late maybe, youse can let me in? I'll come up the fire escape…there's somethin' I gotta talk to you about. Okay, Joe. I'll see ya then. Bye."
She pulled up a cushion, and went and sat by Dick.
"Were you lining up a date with Joe Mac? Because if you were, that would be normal. Which would be a nice change for you."
"Shut up, Dick."
"My sister, the pervert."
"Didja hear me tellya to shut up?"
"Yeah, yeah. I heard you. Hey, John Wayne's on the Late Movie t'night."
"Really? Cool! I'll go make popcorn."
Liv got up and went to the door.
"Hey, Liv? Wash your hands, okay? Real good."
"Real funny, Dick. Real fuckin' funny."
New York City, 1968- Bushwick, Brooklyn
I: Anonymous
Like a lot of neighbourhoods in New York City, Bushwick used to be a nice place to live.
Decent, hard-working folks, living in neat wood houses on orderly blocks.
That was then.
This is now.
Now, like a lot of neighbourhoods in New York City, the place is like a demilitarized zone.
Derelict buildings.
Empty lots.
Drugs.
Crime.
Arson.
A typical inner-city hellhole, where those decent people, hell, even halfway decent people who are unlucky enough to be stuck there live in constant fear of victimisation, dreaming of and grasping towards the day when they can get the hell out.
It was the kind of place where people had little hope, and little help.
They were poor, and they were forgotten by the bigwigs downtown, and their plight was ignored by cops on the take, and masks so hell-bent on Saving the World that they never noticed the Armageddon going on in their own backyards.
Places like Bushwick were only a ride on the subway away from their gleaming headquarters in Manhattan, lining Fifth Avenue or overlooking Central Park.
Still, they might as well have been in another country.
But, there was one mask who didn't forget Bushwick, and places like it.
She didn't get her picture taken with the mayor, and there was no signal for Commissioner Gordon to call her; no shiny uniform and big smile and black-tie affairs.
They don't like to see a mask's costume with real blood and real bullet holes, not downtown.
But she was their superhero, she was a native son of the big, brawling boroughs, she had grown up in the streets with a cigarette in her mouth and a beer in the fist she wasn't using to punch somebody's lights out. She wasn't faster than a speeding bullet, but she had used her body to stop some of them, and she sure was fast with a speeding bullet, or a sharp knife, or a blow that could disable or kill.
She defended them when no one else would, and if the only justice that would do was street justice, rough justice, she wasn't afraid to mete it out.
It was a good night when the bodies in the street were badguy bodies.
When the flames that rose into the sky were from their lairs burning.
When the screams or pain and terror came from their throats.
Those were good nights.
The nights when somebody had called the Harlequin.
Maybe that's why they did it.
Chose Bushwick.
The car, big and black and speeding, tore down Knickerbocker Avenue in the dead of night like a thirty-aught-six bullet, and slowed, slowed but didn't stop, to disgorge a bundle of rags.
Bloody rags, yellow and purple and army green.
With bits of clanking metal attached to it.
The bundle of rags rolled a little down the sidewalk before it flopped into the gutter.
In the wake of the speeding car, it was still and quiet in the late night street, and, in their houses, they waited for a few moments.
These decent, or at least halfways decent, folks.
Soon, the lights came on in the windows.
It wasn't still for long, because the bundle of rags began to stir, and then to move.
To crawl along in the gutter, fighting to its last.
The lighted windows opened, and a few heads popped out, warily.
The first door to open was to Mr. Martinez' news-stand.
He came out, warily, a Saturday night special in his hands.
Something was familiar about the bloody bright-colored bundle of rags, dragging itself through the gutters.
"Help." It gurgled, reaching its small, bloody, tattooed hand up to Mr. Martinez.
He took it, squeezed her hand, almost instinctively.
"Dios mio! Don't worry, we'll help you. I'll get the doctor. They got her! Somebody got her! Help! Help! Call the police! Somebody, call the police!"
Old Mrs. Benza, who had lived in Bushwick since she was a baby and refused to leave no matter how bad things got, she and Mr. Benza were coming out of their building.
"You stay with her. I'm gonna go get the doctor."
Mrs. Benza knelt down beside the bloody bundle of rags and took the hard little tattooed hand in her gnarled old hand.
"It's alright. You're going to be alright."
Mr. Benza took the rope off of his bathrobe and tied it around the injured superhero's bleeding throat,
Martinez began to run, down the street, and then turned at the corner, to run to the All Nite Free Clinic, to get Dr. Levitt.
Mr. Robinson, who ran the diner across the street called for the ambulance, and he came out, with a shotgun in his hands, in case whoever it was came back.
Alejandrro Martinez' son came reeling out of a neighbourhood bar, with half the place behind him.
People had sticks and knives and chains and bats.
More are more were coming out as the word travelled the streets.
Faster than a speeding bullet.
Mr. Levitt, with his tattoo from Auschwitz, who ran the clinic at the end of the street came running, running into the night with his pyjamas still on.
"Who's not afraid of blood? I need to stop this bleeding."
"I'm not afraid. I just got back from 'Nam. I'll help."Alejandro's son said.
"I need you to hold those two bits of skin together. Good. That's good."
When the ambulance and the police cars got there, they found a little crowd of angry people in their pyjamas and robes, or standing in the street in their underwear and slippers.
The Puerto-Rican kid, the vet with the drug problem, who, Mr. Robinson and Dr Levitt thought, was Alejandro's son, he grabbed a cop by the lapels of his uniform.
An important-looking cop, who usually didn't go out on calls like this.
There was still blood on his hands.
"You motherfuckers, you better get the motherfucker who did this to the Harlequin! If you let them go, if you let her die, we're gonna burn down our own fuckin' neighbourhood! We're gonna make sure the whole fuckin' borough, all the boroughs go up in flames!"
The cop, an Irishman, watched the paramedics loading the body onto the stretcher, and looked at the pool of blood in the gutter.
He moved the boy's bloody hands away, leaving smears on his blue serge.
"The Harlequin's one of ours, kid. Nobody's gettin' away with this. Until we find out who did this, all bets are off." He said.
Another cop took statements, and the crime scene investigators came, and roped off the area.
Around that time, Commissioner Gordon's telephone jangled him out of a deep sleep.
He awoke with a start, knowing something was wrong.
"What? What now?"
"Jesus, Commissioner. It's Lieutenant Halloran. Somebody tried to take the Harlequin out. They dumped her out of a car in Bushwick, right on Knickerbocker Avenue. I just came from there. They beat her up good, like torture, and cut her throat from ear to ear."
"Oh my God! Oh, Jesus Christ! Is she still alive?"
"Barely. Jesus, Jim, lyin' there in the street, she looked so helpless. And so small. I never realised what a little girl she was. I got a daughter her age at home, about the same age. Red hair, too. You want me to fire up the Bat-Signal?"
"No. I know how to contact him. I'll phone him, myself."
II: Jack
They never explain anything to you, the Joker was used to that.
They came in the wee hours of the morning and told him to put his jumpsuit on, and they chained his hands together and his feet and marched him down the hall and into the elevator, and when it opened, Bats was there.
He had a quip at the ready, but there was something about the line of the Batman's mouth, and the cast to his usually emotionless eyes that froze the Joker's jocularity upon his lips.
Bats ushered him quietly and quickly up the stairs, to the roof, and into the Bat-Copter.
He was in the air in a matter of moments.
"Tonight, someone pulled Trivelino off the street. Tortured her. Beat her up. Then they drove her down Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick, cut her throat from ear to ear and pushed her out of the car. She's at Brooklyn General. For one thing, she needs blood, and yours and her blood type is rare. For another, the doctors don't think she's going to make it. You need to be there." He said.
He was trying to keep the emotion out of his voice.
"Who did this, Mr. Wayne?"
Batman looked over at him, his eyes full of sorrow and malice.
"Don't you know, Dr. Napier?"
"Yes, Mr. Wayne. I think I do."
It seemed like an army of doctors that rushed him into the room in intensive care, where his daughter lay silent and still, looking very small and helpless indeed, hooked up to IV's and machines.
They put a paper in front of him, waiver something, and he signed it.
Someone was putting a needle in his arm, but Jack hardly noticed.
They filled up two bags with his blood, and bandaged his arm, and then they were pushing him back towards the door.
Batman stopped them.
"Let him stay. He's her father."
"I thought you…" the nurse began.
"I'm her stepfather."
Clanking all the way, Jack made his way over to the bed.
They were pumping his blood into Livvie's veins.
"Is it alright if I touch her?" he asked a nurse.
"Just her hand, Mr. Joker."
"Dr. Napier, if you please."
She didn't open her eyes, but her fingers closed around his.
Soon, they made him go.
They had work to do.
He and the Bat and Robin sat in the waiting room for an hour, and then Eddie showed up, with his nephew, Paulie, and his daughter, Laurie.
They both looked like they had been crying, and when they saw Jack, they both looked like they might cry some more.
Because they knew it was bad.
"Did we make it in time? Is the kid still alive?" Eddie asked.
"For now." Bats said.
Jack didn't say anything.
He sat there with his head in his hands.
Eddie came and sat beside him.
"She'll make it, Jack. She's tough."
"Do you think she's this tough, Eddie?"
"She's Merrie Damiano's kid, ain't she? Fuck yeah, she's tough."
II: Eddie
"Excuse me, but do any of you gentlemen have AB negative blood? I'm afraid we've taken as much from…Dr. Napier as we can without endangering his life. It's a miracle, but we almost have…er, the Harlequin stabilized. If we can get one more donor, quickly, I think we might be able to save her life."
The doctor, who had blood all over his bluish-green scrubs, and on his gloves and mask, had an anxious look in his eyes, behind his glasses.
"I'm O positive. Dick?"
"Type A, Bruce."
Eddie thought about it for a minute.
The kid had an old-fashioned attitude about blood.
If it was blood between them, well?
He thought about Merrie Napier, and about a Witch's Promise.
What did his mother tell him?
Even a witch can't change fate, but because she can see it, she can bend it, and shape it to her will.
The Comedian stood up and rolled up his sleeve.
"Me, Doc. That's my blood type. How about that, Bruce? Ya can't fuck with fate, canya?"
Batman gave him a grim smile and a slight nod.
The Comedian left with the anxious doctor.
"Bruce? Do you know what he's talking about?" Dick asked.
Bruce Wayne put his face in his hands.
"Yes, Dick. I do."
They were all in the waiting room another three hours before the same doctor came out again.
He couldn't believe it.
The Harlequin was awake, and alert, and she was asking for her father, and for her stepfather.
And for Mr. Blake.
"Pop? Mr. Blake? Daddy? Is this really happening? Am I still alive?"
"You're alive, Livvie."
"Did you save me, Daddy?"
"They took as much blood from me as they could. Then, Eddie took over. He just happens to have the same blood type as us? Isn't that funny?"
"No. It's fate." Batman said.
"Don't be morose, Bats."
"He's right. It's fate." Eddie said.
Liv reached for his arm, and put her hand over the place where the nurse put the bandage after she took the needle out.
"You didn't hafta do that, Mr. Blake."
"Sure I did, kid."
"You mean it's blood between us, now?"
The Comedian didn't hesitate.
"Yeah."
"Eddie, are you sure…" Jack began
"Jack, it's been blood between all three of us since 1951. I'm sure. And as for you, kid, ain't it been blood between us since I pulled you out from under my basement steps when you were just 11? After that punk kid stabbed youse in the park, an' you nearly killed him with a brick?"
Eddie put his hand over hers.
Liv smiled.
"If it's blood between us, we gotta have an oath. I swear, by my blood, and on my honour as long as I live, that wherever you have been, I have been. Whatever you have done, I have done. Whatever you do, I will do. And wherever you go, I will follow." She said.
Batman and the Joker exchanged anxious looks.
Eddie chuckled a little.
They must have been thinking, that's a hello of an oath.
Why would she swear an oath like that on goddamn Eddie Blake?
"It's like you and Merrie, Jack. It's alright. I can live with that, kid. You can hold me to it. An I'll be holdin' you to it, as well. I swear."
He squeezed her hand.
Liv smiled, thinly, and then, she drifted off to sleep.
The nurse made the three men leave.
Twenty-four hours from the time she arrived in the ICU, the doctors transferred Liv up to a regular room in Brooklyn General.
They were going to keep her for another day or so, for observation, and then she'd be ready to go home.
The danger was over.
The little band of supporters, tired and hungry, having stayed awake almost a whole day on cigarettes and coffee found their long vigil at an end.
Quietly, before the Batman came to return him to Arkham, the Joker and the Comedian spoke once more.
"That was a pretty serious oath, there, Eddie. Livvie's like her mother. She takes things like that seriously." She won't release you from it. Ever." Jack warned him.
"I know, Jack. I take it seriously, too. Because, if I break it, she'll kill me. Then again, I got no intention of lettin' her off the hook, either. But, better her than a stranger from the street. I gotta go home. Take a shower. Sleep."
Eddie Blake, however, did no such thing until Bruce Wayne returned from Arkham Asylum.
Then he took Paulie home, and then he took Laurie back to Sal's place, and finally, he went home, himself.
Batman escorted the Joker back to Arkham, in irons.
"Mr. Wayne?"
"Yes, Dr. Napier?"
"Did that thing in the hospital, with Livvie and Eddie and the oath, did it disturb you? I'm finding it very disturbing."
"So am I."
Silence.
"Dr. Napier?"
"Yes, Mr. Wayne?"
"It's probably for the best."
"Probably. You know what my wife would have said?"
"That it's fate?"
"Yes, Mr. Wayne. Fate. Do you believe in fate?"
"No."
"Neither do I."
Watchmen Headquarters, one month later
The Comedian knew damn well that the Watchmen only existed as a team in the minds of the press and the eyes of the public; their monthly meetings were just this side of brawls, and most of them hated one or more of the others for some reason.
That was why he rarely attended, but he was going to come to this one, because the Harlequin had come back from the dead, yet again, and, he wanted to see how she made out.
Besides, it was blood between them, now.
Of course, it always had been.
He had gone to see her in the hospital; Laurie quit hating him long enough to call him up in tears and ask him to drive her to Brooklyn General to see Liv, because Ostermann was in some weird mental state, and she wanted to see her friend before she died.
So did Eddie.
They were there for 24 hours, straight.
The doctors weren't too hopeful.
As usual, doctors didn't know shit.
But the kid, she was fucking tough, she was three quarters brawling Irishman and one quarter thick-skinned Sicilian, and she made the doctors look stupid by getting better in a big hurry, and although she had been back to her day job with the Doc and college for a few weeks, tonight was her debut in her costume.
Her first night back in the saddle after having her throat slit from ear to ear in some sicko supervillain plot that nobody had been able to figure yet.
He had some ideas about who was behind it, and Jack and the Bat, they probably had the same ideas.
Now, Liv was a JLA trainee, but as Sal had trained her, and Laurie was her best friend and she worked with Jon, and went out with Danny Boy and the Inkblot in his flying tin can, she was nominally with the Watchmen, too.
When the Comedian strolled in, he picked up snatches of conversation, and they were all about one thing.
Harlequin.
"…she had to have something like five blood transfusions. She's got a very rare blood type, too, they had to bring her father out of Arkham to be the donor. And they took as much as they could from him, so the Comedian volunteered…."
Danny Boy, chattering away.
"…visited her in hospital. She thanked me profusely. Said she appreciated a man like me coming to see trash like her. Trash like her. Not her fault. She doesn't know any better. Needs our help..."
There goes the Inkblot, right to the point.
"…even I have to say, I admire her courage, and her stamina. The way she dragged herself to safety. The woman has an indomitable will to live…"
You can say that, again, Ozz-man.
"…I'm telling you, Jon, I never saw anything like this new tattoo! Ivan outdid himself. Liv told me it took him eight hours to finish it. They took a break for lunch and a break for dinner. I asked her if it was painful, and she said it wasn't eight hours she wanted to have over again, but it was necessary. It's beautiful, it's like a work of art…"
Eddie heard about the tattoo before Laurie was talking about it; he jumped into that conversation.
"You see this?" he asked.
He fished his dog tags out from under his chestplate, and showed them a small, round medallion attached to them.
"That's the same pattern!" Laurie exclaimed.
The Doc looked at it with great curiosity.
"That's a Celtic design, isn't it?" he asked.
"No. It's fuckin' Siberian. Yeah, it's Irish. The kid's grandmother, Magdelene, she gave this to my Ma, after Pop really went off and beat her half to death. It was supposed to protect her, strongest magic this side of the black stuff. Design came out of a book that had been in the family for generations. Two weeks later, Pop died. When Ma was dying, she gave it to me, and made me promise her I'd keep it on me, always. She was worried about the line of work I was in. I'm not a real superstitious guy, but I have."
Danny Boy came over.
"I heard that Liv's mother and her grandmother practised old fashioned-folk medicine. And that they both had greater than normal psi abilities." He said.
The Comedian looked at him like he was something on the bottom of his boot.
"What the fuck does that mean? You can say they were witches. Every neighbourhood has at least one good one. Hell, her grandmother's still alive, and she's still a witch, and even if she's quiet about it, so is Liv."
Eddie tucked his dog tags back into his chest plate.
The Doc was about to go on about tentative scientific support at least for folk medicine when everybody shut the fuck up, because the Harlequin strolled in.
It was the same old strut and the same old smile, and the same old costume and she was still armed to the teeth, but Laurie was right, that was some kind of a tattoo.
It was the whole pattern, intricate knotwork painstakingly tattooed in overlapping black, green and dark purple ink, in a wide band all around her neck, with a round circle of it, like the Comedian's medallion, tattooed onto her throat, dipping down to meet and encompass the runic pentacle where her collarbone met her sternum, and coming all the way down and stopping just above "You can die today—I'll die tomorrow" on her chest, between the straps of her undershirt.
The scar, which she hadn't had Ivan ink over, was a thin and angry red line from ear to ear, and the knotwork in the tattoo was woven around it.
Just like they had all looked at her, everybody pretended not to, and just said hello, casually, as Harlequin made her way to go and sit beside the Comedian, as usual.
"What the fuck is the matter with you people? C'mere, kid, look at youse, struttin' around!"
He put her in a playful headlock, and tugged lightly on her pigtails.
"Lemme fuckin' go! Lemme go, goddamnit!" she laughed.
"C'mon kid, fight me! Youse can get out of it. I know ya can."
She could, too, laughing and pushing her shoulder against his chest like she was a linebacker for the Jets.
"You're goin ass over teacups t'day, Mr. Blake!" Liv announced.
Somehow, she did manage to get out of the headlock.
"Comedian, do you think that's…appropriate?" Ozymandias sniffed.
"What? I been horsin' around with this kid since she was a rugrat? You gotta dirty mind, Veidt."
Everybody sat down.
They were all waiting around for something, and something turned out to be Hollis Mason and Nelly showing up, in costume.
The Boy Scout got up, and stood by the chalkboard, and commenced with making a speech.
"As I'm sure you all know by now, last month, one of our members, the Harlequin, was criminally assaulted by villains as yet unknown to us, while in pursuit of her duties. She was assaulted, kidnapped, tortured, had her throat slashed from ear to ear and was then thrown from a moving car and dumped on the street, in Bushwick. Miraculously, she survived. This is her first night back in costume, after battling back from the point of death. So, let's all try and put our differences aside, tonight. I've invited Nelly and Hollis to the meeting tonight, in the hopes that we can all be inspired, by their presence, and Liv's courage and determination, to really get something accomplished. Did you want to say anything, Liv?"
"What?"
Danny Boy looked like he was faltering, so the kid went to his aid.
"Sure, Dan. I got something to say."
She got up and went to the podium, and put her hands on the outside of it, so you could see the right hand that said "Hell" across the knuckles and the left hand that said "Fire"
And the tattoo of the skull and crossbones on the back of her right hand.
"Well, first, I wanna thank Mr. Blake for savin' my life in the hospital. I won't forget that. And Hollis and Nelly for coming, tonight, and for alla you who came ta see me while I was in the hospital, thanks. Other than the obvious, though, you all know how it is in the street. Getting your throat cut is kind of like hello, right? All it shows me is that I'm doing my job right, because some motherfuckers want me to stop doing it. Yeah, well, fat fuckin' chance. I mean, you can go ahead and hang me up by my wrists and give me electric shocks and shit, and beat me with a rubber hose and shot like that, fuck you, if you wanna stop me, you'll hafta kill me. I'm not sure why it didn't kill me. My mother, she would have said it was fate. But, as a scientist and a materialist, I'm not sure I see fate that way. I think you make you own fate. At least, I make mine. You're either the master of your own fate, or it's the master of you."
She turned her left hand over so that you could see the all-seeing eye tattooed into the palm. "I decided I wasn't going to die that night. Yeah, I got help from some people I'd helped, but I coulda given up the ghost. It woulda been easy. I was so sick and in so much pain, all I wanted to do was close my eyes. But I didn't. I held out. I fought it. So I could get better and put my costume back on and get out there on the street again. I think that's where we should be. Because that's where the trouble is. It's not in this meeting room, or in your hideout, or on a map, or in a report, or on a screen. Trouble's in the street. Innocent people are getting mugged, robbed, beaten, raped, fucked over, cheated, lied to and screwed, blued and tattooed out there. Maybe they're not all the kind of people you see in church on Sunday, but they're not badguys. The badguys, who aren't all supervillains, are sticking it to them. Trouble's in the street. That's where we should be. That's where I'll be tomorrow. And the next day. And they can fucking well beat me and stab me and shoot me and slit my throat and club me with rebar, and until I'm dead, I'm gonna keep coming back. Because I'm a mask. That's my job. It's not just what I do, its' who the fuck I am. And if it's not hwo the fuck you are, hang up your fuckin' tights an' don't quit your day job. That's all I have to say."
She turned her hand over again, and put her hands together grasping the end of the podium, so you could clearly see the word "Hellfire"
Mason was on his feet clapping, and so was Nelly, and the Boy Scout.
Ozzy was looking at the kid like she had ten heads.
"Harlequin, was there a significance to what you were doing with your hands?" he asked.
"Sure there was. Before I use the hand of Hell to deal Death, I use the Third Eye to look through the Fire and know if the killing is what justice calls for. I never let one take over for the other. Because that would be crossing the line." She replied.
Ozymandias looked shocked.
He liked to think there was nothing to the kid but booze, brawls and balling; it always pissed him off when she showed signs of forethought and intelligence.
Liv came and sat down with Eddie, again.
"That was a good speech, kid."
"I meant it."
"I know you did."
"Wait a minute. Before I go back to the shop, and let you all get on with business, I'd like to say something. Is that alright, Dan?"
"Certainly, Hollis. Please do."
Mason?
Mason was going to do something right for a change?
Well, the kid did a lot of work out of his garage, so he knew she wasn't as black as they painted.
"Adrian, you look surprised that Trivelino didn't just come up here and ask someone to get her a shot and a beer. Now, I've known Liv since she was 11, and my assistant mechanic, Joe Mac was 12. That's when they started their love affair with cars. Now I could stand here and say good things about Liv all day, but we're not supposed to be concerned with Trivelino J. Napier's personal life. Our business is with the Harlequin, and how she does her job as a mask. We're not here to judge each other about what we do in our free time, or who our families are. That's none of our business. Hell, you can ask the Comedian, some of us original members of the Minutemen came from some crazy circumstances, and did some things out of costume that most people would consider a helluva lot less normal than driving fast cars, going to bars, and meeting people of the opposite sex. What's more, if Liv was a man, none of you, or any other mask would think twice about it. But, as it stands, I hear things about the Harlequin that I don't like. People in this room, even, her fellow team-mates have used the ugliest words a man can use to describe a woman, some of the ugliest things one person can call another. I don't think that's right. I had my opinions about some of my fellow Minutemen, but, even when I wrote my book, I kept most of them to myself. And I've got one more thing to say. I may not be as young and as strong as I used to be, but the next time I hear "drunk", "whore", "slut", "thug" or anything like it come out of any mask's mouth about the Harlequin, I'm going to punch him in it. She's a good mask, and a good girl, and that ought to be the end of it."
Mason gave a little resolute nod, and started getting ready to leave.
Eddie looked over at the kid and she just about had tears in her eyes.
"Yeah, an' that goes triple for me! For once Mason, I'm with youse." He echoed.
Laurie jumped up.
"Yeah, an' I gotta say, for once I agree with Eddie! I mean, you guys have to get with the times. Women are allowed to be seen and heard and do what they want. It's a free country for everybody, now, not just people with three legs." She added.
Blushing, Hollis Mason took his leave.
"Why are you all looking at me?" Ozymandias insisted.
"Oh, I dunno, Ozzy. Maybe because you're the one flappin' your jaws alla time about shit that don't concern you." The Comedian piped in.
"I'm entitled to my opinion."
"Yeah, well your fuckin' opinion sucks, an' its got nothin' to do with business, an' you oughta keep it to your fuckin' self!" Eddie barked.
That was when the Boy Scout started calling for order, and Eddie sat down, and picked up his New York Post.
He wasn't interested in anything that moron had to say.
"Geez, I can't believe you an' Hollis went to bat for me like that. Especially considerin' that I am alla those things." Liv said.
"Shut up about that! Kid, who the hell convinced youse that you was lower than whale shit?"
"It's nice of you, Mr. Blake, but I know what I am."
The Comedian put his paper down.
"I know what you are, too. You're a certified genius, you're the Harlequin, and you're Merrie Damiano's little girl. An' if I hear you callin' yourself a drunk, a slut, a whore or a thug, I'll slap you in the chops."
"I'd like to see you try it, Mr. Blake."
"Kid, if you're gonna call me out, maybe you should start callin' me Eddie."
Around then, the meeting degenerated into the usual shouting match, this one starring Laurie and Ozzy, but the Comedian and the Harlequin weren't paying much attention.
She started telling him about her tattoo.
"It took 8 hours. But I knew Ivan could do it. I just brought the book and I showed him the design, and after I explained it to him, he really understood. This was the big one, Mr. Blake. I never came so close to death, before."
"It sure was, kid. I'm just sorry your first night back in costume hadda be for this shit. They don't even care."
"Not many masks do care about me. They'd just as soon see me dead as alive. Jesus, look at this bullshit. I got suited up for this?"
"Fuck this shit. C'mon, kid. Let's go to Grossmann's. Then, maybe we'll go to Trivelino Mac's, and have a few beers. I can't sit through this shit."
Meanwhile, Laurie wasn't putting up with any bullshit.
"…fuck you, Adrian! And if you're on his side, you know what, Jon? Fuck you, double! Don't bother calling me this weekend, I'm telling Ma to take the phone off the hook! Where are you two going?"
"Grossmann's. I'm not having the kid sit here and listen to you fuckers argue over bullshit when she should be trying to figure out who took her, and why. But, ya know what? Fuck you assholes. Me and the Bat will sort that one out. And the kid. C'mon, Liv. Let's get the fuck outa here."
"Oh yeah? Wait for me!"
Laurie stormed out with them.
"Look, if you're going after whoever tried to kill Liv, count me in! Jon can't ever take my side! Oh no! What Adrian says is right. Adrian is always right. Adrian ought to grow a dick and come out of the closet, like Nelly has. At least to us. The smartest man in the world! He's also the biggest prick in the universe! He almost makes you look good, Eddie."
The Comedian laughed.
"Lar, how come the only time ya don't hate me is when you're mad at somebody else?"
"I don't know. Maybe it's because I get sentimental about when I was a kid and I didn't know what an asshole you were."
"Ask your mother. I've always been an asshole."
The door opened, again, and Rorschach came out.
"Comedian, wait. Daniel and I want to help you and the Batman find the scum who assaulted Miss Napier. An attack on one of us is an assault on all of us. Is there a meeting scheduled?"
"Batcave. Monday night. Ten."
"We'll be there."
Grossmann's Diner, 5th Avenue, Manhattan. Later that night
The kid and her new tattoo were the toast of Grossmann's.
Paulie, who had a few tattoos, himself, started leaping around and showing off his tattoos his father gave him, and a lot of the regulars came over to congratulate her on her recovery.
The Doc showed up, contrite, to take Laurie home to Sally's place around 11, and said he would also be at the Batcave at ten for the meeting.
That's when Eddie figured he and the kid would take off for Mac's.
She went out the door first, and Cap grabbed her sleeve.
"What happens Monday at ten at the Batcave?"
"Coalition to figure out who took me and what they wanted." Liv told him.
"And you weren't asking me to come? I'll be there. Now, Liv, now if you get this big lummox, here, drunk and have your way with him, remember, be gentle. He's getting to be an old man." Steve joked.
"Gentle, my ass. He gets it the hard way." Liv said.
She winked at Eddie and walked out the door.
"Jeez, Eddie, I was kidding!" Cap told him.
"She wasn't. Don't gimme that look, Steve. She'll go up to her room over the bar, and I'll go home."
Captain America laughed.
He put his arm around his old friend's shoulders.
"Sure. Sure you will. You're doomed, Eddie. Let me tell you a secret that everybody knows. Liv's just crazy about you. Now, most of the time when a young girl is just crazy about an older man, when he's somebody she can look up to, somebody who'll take care of her, it's endearing and sweet. But, with Liv, it's heavy on the crazy part. She's had all she can stand of you dangling yourself in front of her like a carrot, and she can't stand anymore. That woman means business."
"What, you're tellin' me if I know what's good for me I'll shut up and take it like a man? What's she gonna do? Put a gun to my head and tell me it can go easy for me or it can go hard?" Eddie joked.
"I don't think it'll come to that. Do you?"
"Hey, Steve, sure she's a good lookin' girl, an' I've heard the same rumours about her everybody has. But she's crazy. You think I wanna wade into the middle of crazier than a shithouse rat, when I could have any broad I wanted?"
"Yeah, Eddie. I think that's exactly what you want to do, because the only women you really like are the ones who are as crazy as you are. I'll see what's left of you, around."
(Author's Note: Oh no, what the hell is going on? Have these people who have secret identities and wear masks and practise vigilantism been decieving us all along? Wait. That's not too surprising. But, just what kind of surprises lie ahead? Will they be dirty? Sexy? Violent? With this crew, you bet.)