Strange Love, Chapter One
By Sunflare2k5
Disclaimer: The characters and places in this story are DC Comics' property,
and are not being used for profit.
The hearse, only scratched up after its run-in with the police, raced away from
the Stacked Deck and into the maze of roads and alleys of Gotham's warehouse
district. Scarecrow, still in his Red Death costume, was at the wheel. And Harley
was currently trying to extract herself and her hyenas from the tangle of leashes
surrounding them. "Maybe I shoulda stolen those retractable leashes?" she
asked. Neither he nor the hyenas answered.
Finally, they reached one of Scarecrow's lairs in a "condemned" warehouse.
His remote signal got the garage doors open, and he drove the hearse inside.
Shutting the doors behind them, Scarecrow parked the hearse and headed
over to help Harley. By then she'd gotten the leashes undone, only to discover
a new problem. The temperature had dropped considerably during the party…
and she'd left her coat behind at the bar. Her teeth started chattering once she
got out of the hearse.
"Well, we can't have that…" Scarecrow remarked, looking around for... ah, there
it was! A trenchcoat he'd "liberated" during one of his hunts for new lab rats;
one of the few times he found clothes that fit him. He offered it to Harley; she
slipped into it, though the way it dragged on the floor after her made her seem
like she was playing dress-up in her parents' clothes. For a long moment, he
regarded her; she was such a dear child, too good to be so used by the Joker!
If only she'd... Under the mask, Scarecrow frowned; that was too dangerous a
train of thought to continue! He busied himself with resetting the security and
getting the door to the interior opened.
Harley snuggled into the coat. "Thanks, Professor!" she chirped, as her hyenas
settled down by her feet. "You're good for now, babies," she told them as she
bent down to scratch behind their ears with both hands. "Later, when we go
back --" Her face fell. "But we can't go back! Mistah J threw us out!" Harley
started sniffling, and her hyenas whined in sympathy.
By now, Scarecrow had shed the rubbery mask and gloves; they were much
too uncomfortable. At the sound of whining, he turned toward Harley... in time
to see the first tears sliding down her cheeks. Before he realized what he was
doing, Scarecrow had stroked her cheek with his fingertips to wipe away her
tears. "Oh! I shouldn't..." he started to gasp, until she leaned into his touch.
Her next move, much to his surprise, was to wrap her arms around him! He
goggled down at her, not sure of what he was meant to do now. Then Harley
looked up and saw his expression. "I -- I'm sorry!" she cried, and flung herself
away from him. Before he could say anything, she'd run into the warehouse.
Bud and Lou followed, leaving the Scarecrow alone with his thoughts...
(to be continued)