Author's Note: Based on the prompt 'Prestidigitation' for my beloved glassfacet. The product of listening to Natalia Kills's song 'Kill My Boyfriend' and 'Gold, Guns and Girls' by Metric.
Disclaimer: I don't own Batman.
Harlequinade
She stands on the stage, an oblong box with a white head covered in a shock of green hair coming out one end and spatted feet out the other, sitting on a pair of hobby-horses in front of her, a saw twirling on the tip of her finger. Her makeup has been reapplied to perfection and her costume is clean and perfect. The red velvet curtains open to reveal a theatre full of people tired to their chairs. It is time for the performance of her life.
"Ladies, gentlemen, and androgynous beings, my name is Harley Quinn and I'll be your entertainer tonight." She smiles winningly and moves her arms in a sweeping motion to showcase a gorgeous redheaded woman with green skin dressed in plants. "Tonight I'll be assisted by my lovely assistant and the bestest friend a girl could have, Poison Ivy! Also, the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad, Clown Prince of Crime and my very own Colombina; Gotham's very own Mistah J!"
The theatre is deadly silent. The people of Gotham know the drill.
"It's alright. I don't expect y'all to applaud, especially with your hands tied and all. But, to make up for that, I'm just gonna head straight to the grande finale!" She flouishes at the box again and the redheaded woman spins the box around on a turntable built into the stage.
"So, for my first and final trick, I'll be sawing my Puddin' in half. And then possibly beatin' him to death. And maybe a few other things too. Ivy says I have to do this for closure." She buffs the flat of the saw on a sleeve before purposefully planting the teeth of the saw on the middle of the box. Poison Ivy moves across the stage, her hips swaying, and with a flourish removes the gag that has been binding the Joker's mouth.
"Let me out you crazy whore! I hate you, you're-" Ivy claps a hand across his mouth.
"Well that's not very nice, is it, Clown? You really shouldn't say such nasty things to the woman holding a saw above your midsection." Ivy's voice is chilly and the Joker suddenly quits his thrashing inside the box and she removes her hand.
"Now, I know this is somethin' the Dark Knight and every other citizen of this fair city has been waitin' for since forever, so I am here to say 'People of Gotham, the wait is over; tonight, the Joker dies!' "
"Harley, baby, you know I love you. How could you do this to me? You know I never mean any of the things I say to you. I have a temper, that's all! I love you baby, come home to me! I miss you."
"O, Puddin', I knew you really cared-"
"Harley, hon', he's lying, just like the last billion times he's lied to you and you've come crawling back. But today's different, today you're strong."
"Strong, right. I'm strong. Okay, well, I'm going to saw him in half. So, for all those suffering from haemophobia, there may be blood. Will there be blood? I've never sawed anyone in half before so I don't actually know. Well, I'll try everything once!"
She starts to move the saw across the box, and for a few minutes the only sound is the sound of wood being sawn in half, until the saw slides down into the gap between body and box and everyone but she and Ivy let out shrieks.
"Harley, baby, don't, please!" She saws determinately on and soon Gotham's Clown Prince of Crime starts to scream. Not the shrill, raucous, insane screams that have become his trademark, but loud, pitiful, sobbing ones, like those of a small child. Droplets of blood collect in the cuts on the box before slowly trailing down the uncut sides and dripping onto the floor. Ivy looks proudly on.
The many lately known as the Joker keeps screaming, his red mouth twisting and contorting into awful shapes. His feet twitch, confined by the small hole in the box that they stick out of. He throws his head back, tears streaming into his garish green hair and for one minute, one solitary second, she regrets what she's doing. And then she thinks of her mother and her nieces and nephews. She thinks of the years of crushing humiliation, the self-loathing and fear. And no matter how much she loves this pathetic thing in front of her, the part of her that's still Dr Harleen Quinzel, MD, the psychologist part, the part that still remembers all the stuff she learned at medical school, that what they have isn't healthy, it's not safe. It's the kind of thing that she knows would toss her on the street if not for Ivy and a healthy nest egg. Because Harleen knows that Harley's going to end up dead if it keeps going the way it is, whether by the Joker's hand, her own, or someone else's, she's going to die. So this is her, Harley Quinn, finally getting out of her shitty relationship for the last time.
There's a crunch as the saw starts to go through bone. It makes everyone in the theatre cringe and her Puddin' starts to scream again. She saws on, not letting the cries of the audience deter her. Ivy rubs her shoulders supportively. Her shoulder's started to get a little sore from the continuous movement, but she ignores the pain, she'll think about it later.
Then the crunching of bone stops and she starts to tear at his organs with the teeth of her saw, cutting them to pulpy ribbons. There's wet on her face and all she can think is 'Fuck, my makeup's running, I'm gonna look like shit'. She doesn't realise they're tears until Ivy wraps her arms around Harley's midsection from behind.
"It's okay," she murmurs. 'It's not okay now,' she wants to say, 'But it will be.' Instead she just keeps sawing.
Eventually, finally, the man she once though was the love of her life (and maybe he still is), stops twitching, and event then, she keeps going, the steady groan of the saw in wood and flesh and bone keeping her from falling to pieces on the stage where she stands. And she's pretty sure that not even Poison Ivy, who has become an expert at picking up the pieces of Harly Quinn off the floor would be able to fix up that mess.
Flesh gives way to wood once more and suddenly she's got two pieces instead of one and the show is over, she knows that and it's time for her bow. So that's what she does. She grabs her best friend's hand and moves to the front of the stage and does a large, theatrical bow. And, to her surprise, there's a clapping sound from the back, a young woman, about Harley's age, perhaps a bit younger, is clapping her hands against the armrest of her chair. Harley knows is not because of the bloodshed, but because she just did what every woman wants to do to and ex at some point, and because even though everyone in Gotham knows that the Joker and Harley Quinn are Arkham's finest, they also know that not all the puffiness around her eye the fifth time they got arrested wasn't from the Batman.
Harley smiles and bows once again.
She's not okay now, not by a long shot, but she will be.