Winning To Lose
"I'm worse at what I do best
And for this gift I feel blessed.
Our little group has always been
And always will until the end."
There was no end to this, nothing after this. Nothing.
The four men approached her in the rain. Sitting on the roof of a police car, among the chaos and rubble, Harley still smiled. Her throat was thick like concrete, filling her veins and airways.
Deadshot greeted her. "We're glad you could make it."
He didn't want to hurt her pride. She, the queen, had decided to come back. On her own terms.
Like a drenched rat in the pouring rain, she gazed back. Putting on a front, a great performance for someone who had just seen their other half disappear in an explosion. It was the only way to keep her lungs functioning, to smile. Someone had taught her that, the emergency exit out of any situation was to smile.
She was on her own in the world. Without him, there was absolutely nothing. She was utterly alone, there was not a single soul that remembered Harleen Quinzel, or cared for what she had become. No one remembered her, and that made her want to get down on her knees and weep. He had been her beginning and her end.
Alone was a strange word. She had been in a cage for a long time, but not really on her own. She had never been a part from J, knowing he missed her just like she did. Every day that passed, she had kept track on in her own skin, and she knew that whether there was sunshine or rain outside her cage, he was somewhere too, breathing. Before that, they lived every single moment together, she was never apart from him even for a few hours.
Until now. Alone.
But so were they.
As Deadshot lifted her down from the roof of the car, bridal style, he figured she wanted to feel a bit like a lady again. Even if her prince was never coming back to pick her up. He could give her that.
She held his gaze for a moment, and he was glad he didn't kill her before.
She looked as if she was about to scream, her careful facade about to crack in front of them all. A pure, raw look of need. Deadshot wished he could give her what she needed, if only for this moment, but it wouldn't be enough.
Captain Boomerang tossed her bat to her, abruptly, a small grin on his face. His way of telling her welcome back. He had kept it for her - maybe as a memory.
Mr. J's bat. She almost cradled it, a broken gesture. For a moment the air got stuck in her lungs, she forgot how to use them, and her knees buckled violently. El Diablo found himself taking a step forward, as if to reach out a hand and support her, but she regained her composure with one, short, breath.
Finally, a small smile on her face as she eyed Croc and el Diablo.
El Diablo gave her the shadow of a smile in return. He was somehow glad to see her again, and he waited for her to compose herself, before walking down the street together. In the end, Harley knew it was everyone for themselves, but right then it felt like they all belonged together. She would do anything to feel like a part of something.
x
The resemblance. El Diablo, formerly Chato Santana, saw it in Harley Quinn's defeat on that car, the look on her face. The race was finished and lost, nothing more and nothing less.
She had lost her purpose, just like he did.
He couldn't keep it inside any longer, and that same fateful day was the day he told them, in an abandoned bar over a couple of drinks. He told them about Grace, the only one who could say no to him, his queen, but no words could ever do her justice. About Jack and Katie -
Boomerang almost choked on his beer. "An' the kids?"
The silence that followed was eerie.
Harley looked over to Chato. There was a slight, almost invisible tremble on her red lower lip. Her entire expression was so unstable, she could have been a mine about to explode in their faces.
"He killed them," she explained blankly. "Didn't you?"
And then she was ranting, raising her voice, losing control of her emotions while Chato struggled to get a hold of the dark hole opening wide inside his chest. Were all women like this, worked up about kids, or had she lost something too? Hadn't she or the Joker ever caused collateral damage?
He didn't hold it against her, for reacting like that. He forced the emotions back, the sorrow was too heavy, like being stoned off his ass again, a blanket that let no more violent emotions out. Locking it up and letting it scorch him on the inside while his tears stung. He deserved every bit of it.
Grace, the most beautiful woman in the world, the strongest. And he was the monster, the murderer. There was no doubt about it, but he had never lied to himself. He was a devil and he wasn't hiding that fact behind a pretty exterior.
Harley, on the other hand, saw no such thing as responsibility in her behavior, or her partner's. For a moment, el Diablo envied her. The complete absence of guilt and conscience was a luxury he had always wanted. Guilt was a murderer just like any other.
He had envied Harley once, but he didn't hate her. She was the mirror image of what he once had been.
And when she admitted her own ugliness, the part of herself that truly was rotten, el Diablo felt a kinship with her that couldn't be explained.
x
Rick Flag had not lost everything yet. He was about to, the chances were impossibly slim that she could be saved, and it all depended on this group of broken, mismatched misfits. He'd always looked down on them, contemned them, but not a single on of them scorned his own attachment, to the only one that mattered. June.
They had helped him, because their own lives depended on it, but the reason they still clung to life was just a misdirected instinct, and he didn't understand the point. Most of them had already lost their purpose for living.
Rick Flag knew he would always push through for work and duty, and Katana fought for the memory of her husband. Deadshot was in a similar position as himself, he still had something. He was the only one who actually, for sure, had something to live for, and that's why he chose to help him even when Rick let them go.
But Harley Quinn and el Diablo? Why would they still keep living after this?
He didn't know.
And this misery brought them all together, to willingly follow him into battle again. For the first time Rick felt respect, of the deepest kind.
x
The visions Enchantress showed them were the worst, shattering them all into separate dream worlds.
Harley was lost in a psychedelic craze of something so unreal, and el Diablo shook her awake. She had scorned him for wanting a family life, and he couldn't imagine she would. He was the one to bring them back to reality, to realize that none of them could escape into dream worlds.
It felt right to sacrifice himself. For them, the makeshift friends he made. They accepted him and he accepted them.
In the midst of battle, turning to his true blazing form, he could see Grace in front of him again. He remembered her first, whispered te quiero, like paradise. He hoped Deadshot would get his daughter back, that the woman inside Enchantress would survive, that Croc found his way back to the sewers, and Harley... was there even any hope left for her now?
He hoped that someone would someday pick her broken, misfit self up and make her feel alive again. Even if she remained broken and fugitive for the rest of her life, he wanted her to live. How could he envy her now, knowing she'd live with her loss forever, and he would get to leave? He could feel Grace's arms around him now, hear the laughter of his children and feel their presence...
With those thoughts he surrendered himself to the fight.
In the end they all got to borrow a small piece of life, something worth living for.
Just a little piece of reflection on these characters. Reviews are welcome.