Suicide Squad-verse Joker x Harley. I wasn't sure about posting this, but I figured that someone might enjoy it.
Content warning: Explicit descriptions of gore, blood, angst. Sensitive readers are warned.
Hush Little Baby
'This is how we like to do it in the murder scene
Can we settle up the score?'
She was about to break a rule.
A handful of Ephedrine and a few sharp tools would be her way out, and he would never have to know. She remembered the imprint of his fingers around her throat, him growling through his teeth: You only live for me.
Not that she wanted this. She had not asked for it, and though she knew Harleen would, she pushed that thought away. That was a life Harleen had wanted, and Harley had said goodbye to her long ago. The very mention of her made the Joker's eyes cold and taunting. She knew what she had left behind.
She had started bleeding several days before, and she knew it must only be a matter of time. Her body couldn't handle it; her insides were too corroded and destroyed to keep something there. It was slipping away with every heartbeat, there was no time to waste. Time was ticking, fast.
It would not get in the way. Of them, of their plans, of him.
She could not even risk it. Most of all she couldn't risk him finding out.
She was alone, locked into one of their bathrooms, with everything she needed. She never had any doubts about her ability to do it; she could eviscerate a man in half the time, not just as cleanly as the Joker could.
A thought teased her in the back of her mind, you should let him do it, but there was no way she could ask him that.
There was no way for anyone else to survive this lifestyle. She would never be able to keep up with him if her body kept changing and left her weak, she knew he hated that. Everyone for themselves in the end.
She adjusted her position on the floor, spreading her legs on a towel. Harley took a firm hold around the thin metal knitting needle, shaped at the end to resemble a hook. She also had a pair of pliers, resembling a nutcracker, ready.
She closed her eyes, then concentrated again. Her hands were steady, her heart just the slightest bit rushed. She had prepared all her tools carefully and sterilized them. She could have asked Ivy for something strong enough to sedate her, but she needed to stay focused in order to not accidentally bleed out. This was her own moment, no matter how much she wished she wasn't alone.
If only he had been holding the tool for her, she would have felt safe, no matter what was happening. She would smile through it all. All for him.
Gritting her teeth for a moment, she slowly inserted the tool inside. She had had hard things of much larger size inside before, remembering all the times the Joker had roughly fucked her with them. Not until she had reached the opening of her cervix, discomfort spread through her.
It's still not too late.
Her head was aching again, the voices spoke up, one after another. She pushed through and grimaced.
What if he doesn't want this?
Whatever had managed to cling onto her damaged tissue and started growing couldn't stay there forever. One day it would have to meet reality, and she would rather not let it. She could let it remain a memory forever. Protect it.
She continued in, as her head grew dull, her hands started shaking, and her vision became blurry.
This was how the world worked. When she planned this she had not had any doubts, indifferent as if it was just the execution of another hostage. Eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed.
She bit her lip to keep the sounds and pained gasps from escaping her mouth, pressing the metal stick deeper, as the tearing pain spread in the insides of her womb, and the blood started spilling out. Now just to fixate the hook. Arching her back and closing her eyes, she slowly retreated the tool, feeling something fleshy slide out of her, using the other tools to gain access.
For a few moments she stared into the wall, panting heavily.
The insides of her thighs were slick with red fluid. It kept coming as the pain twisted and contorted in the bottom of her stomach. She looked down.
A tiny body, with a formed head and arms and legs, small enough to fit in her palm, was still connected to her through the smallest of strings. Still breathing, dying.
She leaned over, mouth and eyes wide open, as her breath came in panting gasps. The room was spinning and her nails scraped against the floor for leverage, her chest tightening.
It was dying. Unable to survive more than a few moments outside of her sheltering body, doomed to cease existing.
A proof of her connection to the Joker, a mark.
Harley lifted the small thing up in her bloody hands, cupping them like a cradle for the fetus. The blood kept warming her thighs, surrounding her in a fleshy puddle. She needed to figure out the next step, make sure she had not pierced a larger vein, but all her thoughts could focus on was the little thing.
The baby.
Slowly she laid down with the little thing still in her hands. The world was too heavy, her body couldn't remain upright. She would bury it somewhere nice later.
Her lips were moving, she tasted moist salt on her lips, wetness ran down her cheeks, as a coarse sound made its way through her thick throat. Strangled giggles bursting out of her, forming into a melody.
Hush little baby, don't you cry
... and if you grow up with his smile,
Momma's gonna be…
so proud..
of you..
She awoke sometime later, cold and shivering, by someone kicking the door.
"Harls," he grunted, and she knew he was back. His patience had ran out, because he shot the lock and walked straight in, before she had time to get herself off the floor or hide the evidence of what she had been doing.
The world was a bit diffuse, wrapping her in a distant realm. She couldn't see his face from where she was lying, and made no attempt to look. Only his figure standing above her, the silence.
The absence of his quiet breathing.
Harley made an attempt to smile weakly, still too heavy to move. Not until his large, white hands came into her vision and he seemed to pry the dead fetus from her hand, did she react. Her hands closed around it and she raised half-way from the floor, shaking her head desperately. "No, no, NO!"
He still didn't meet her eyes, but she heard his threatening, low growl.
"Don't touch it!" she panted, black dots in the edge of her vision.
He retreated and she wearily let her head fall back onto the floor, waiting for the explosion. She had gone behind his back, broken all the rules.
"It's alright, Puddin'," she mumbled weakly. "I took care of it. I fixed it up…"
His hand harshly moved her hair away from her sweaty face, and only then did she see his face, devoid of all emotion. More indifferent than she had ever seen him. Only a tense jaw and something in his eyes that she normally would have read as fury.
Then, a strange, cackling sound caught her attention. Dry, emptily, similar to her own giggles, he laughed without humor or emotion, almost choking on the air. It raised in frequency, startling her despite the familiar sound.
She heard a strange thump and tensed. He was close to her, on his knees, warm against her shivering cold, and his voice was low and hoarse in her ear. "Don't you dare fall asleep now."
Her vision blurred and she reached out for him, not caring about anything else in the world. When he came close enough for her to grab him, she smoothed his hair back tenderly, motherly.
He grasped her wrist so hard it cut her blood flow off and her skin felt prickling pain, she was sure he was going to break her bone right off. She could hear him growl again, a violent, tearing sound, as one hand pulled her head back harshly, by her hair.
Still, her heavy eyelids won the fight. Holding the fetus protectively, she fell down into the darkness.
The Joker was left there on the floor, cradling her in his arms. A part of him wanted to kill her right there and then, for defying him, hiding something like that from him. Hell, he should. It had been a long time since he last had been so urged to strangle her.
He wanted to crush that thing in his hand, that thing that had invaded Harley and led to this. He didn't give it permission to be there. But he didn't bother, now when it was already out, dried up and dead in her hand. She could keep it.
Another part of him knew there was no way he would allow her to die.
Not after this.
The blood from inside her was soaking his pants. He didn't mind, she was always the most alluring like this, paler than death itself. He always liked her covered in crimson, it made her skin glow. The only thing missing was her gaze.
The same part of him that kept her somewhat gently in his arms and restrained his murderous urges, was fuming.
That thing had belonged to him too. It was a part of him, no matter how repulsing it looked. She couldn't decide what to do with it, and she would have to pay.
Most of all he was furious that she had left him like this, her head rolled slackly to the side and her body limp. If she had been conscious he didn't know what he would have done with her, but now he could only hold her upright so she wouldn't choke.
Those strange sounds escaped his throat again, that dry cackling despite finding nothing funny in the situation. She was driving him insane, out of his goddamn mind, and whatever was happening to him now, it was all her fault.
He had always known that she would be the death of him.
She seemed to be barely breathing at all, and he ground his teeth together so hard they hurt. She would only dare cross that line too, and he would find a way to have his brains splattered across Gotham City Square before she could torture him any further.
He rose to his feet and carried her out of the room, determined to get her nicely patched up. There was no escaping this for her part. He would deal with her once she woke up – and he would make sure she would never live this down.
He couldn't understand why the part of him that wanted to murder her always lost to another part that he hated more than anything else, the part that actually gave a fuck if she was breathing or not.
Somehow she was all that mattered.
A/N: Feedback is appreciated!