Disclaimer: I own none of this, nope, nope.
Quick A/N: Thank you for the positive feedback! I hope this chapter delivers as well :)
June wrapped her hands around her warm coffee mug, avoiding looking at the men who were making it painfully obvious that they were watching her every move. June wasn't stupid—if anything, they were monitoring everything she did except for when she showered or took a shit. The man who had joined her class—Rick Flag—definitely did not understand the first thing about archeology. If Flag was smart enough to study for his Ph.D. like the rest of the people sitting through the long lectures, he probably would be taking notes instead of staring at the back of June's head.
And here she was, sitting in a Starbucks trying to complete her paper, with a man outside the glass door staring at her keenly, four others sitting around her—at different tables, but still at close proximity—and Rick Flag, directly opposite of her reading through a comic book.
"So, Rick," June started, as she resumed typing on her laptop, "have you started your paper yet?"
Rick looked up at her with a raised brow, and June, being the fossil and artifacts freak she'd been since she was thirteen, realized she hadn't paid much attention to how good-looking this man was. "What?"
June rolled her eyes, fighting the butterflies down. "The paper on landscape archeology? Where we set up our own thesis and it determines whether we pass of not?"
Rick raised his eyebrows lazily, and June could tell he wasn't taking her seriously at all. Absolutely insufferable. The butterflies were already dying.
"Look, if you're just going to be observing my every move except for when I shower and take a dump, I suggest you do it outside of the classroom." June burst out, trying to keep her voice low so that the other men around her wouldn't approach. "I am sick and tired of having someone like you, who has no appreciation whatsoever for archeology or history in the slightest, sitting and staring at the back of my head through doctoral level lectures that some people have been waiting years and years to accomplish."
Rick Flag's mouth hung ajar, and he set his comic book down. He tipped his head to the side. "Say, June."
"What?" June asked irritably.
"Why don't I take you out on a date?" Rick asked, a boyish smile on his face.
But June wasn't falling for that. She growled irritably. "Why don't you go to the library and put your nose in a book that doesn't have flashy pictures all over the place?"
She slammed her laptop down and stuffed it into her bag angrily, before pushing the door open and sending the man stationed outside an angry glare.
June set her bag down in her apartment and walked into the bathroom. She was tired—she needed to wash her face and wake herself up. The paper's deadline was coming up soon, and June wanted to complete this degree to the best of her abilities. No way in hell was she going to hand in a half-assed paper.
Turning the tap on, she let the cool water run through her stiff fingers. It had been weeks since she had heard that voice from the cave. Every morning, she'd sit on her bed quietly and wonder if that resonating voice would ring in her ears and reverberate in her skull again, just like it had in the cave. But that strange, ethereal being wouldn't speak to her, and she'd walk out of her room feeling uncertain, and somewhat afraid.
June splashed cold water onto her face, wiping the droplets away from her eyes as she blinked her vision back into focus.
Miss me, June?
June jerked, almost tripping backwards.
Oh, June, haven't you been wondering about me?
"Why are you in my head?" June asked out loud, staring at her reflection in the mirror. "And who are you?"
My name is lost in history, carved into stone that has long since faded away. But you may call me Enchantress.
"You aren't answering my questions properly." June whispered, shaking uncontrollably. Her limbs were feeling heavy. "Why are you in my head?"
You freed me, June. You let me share your body. The voice was getting louder and louder, the tone mocking. You let me compel you. All I want is to share it.
"This is my body. If you're an enchantress, then make one yourself." June growled.
Oh, June, six-thousand years of binding within stone has ruined me—so many limits, so much lost. Surely, you would be willing to help me, June? Just let me share this body—let me roam this Earth again once more until I regain my former glory. The mocking tone was gone now—Enchantress' voice had turned silky smooth, sweet like honey and soothing like a calm ocean.
June could feel the voice lulling her to sleep—June was losing control again. She gripped the sides of the sink tightly, shaking as she looked at herself in the mirror. She could see her eyes, full of fear—and her reflection shifted to show a darker, ethereal being. A woman covered in grit and dust, wearing a green dress and moon accessory on the crown of her head. Her hair was dark and matted as if it were a clump of seaweed—but worst of all, her eyes, hollow pits with blazing yellow irises, were horrifying.
And June blacked out.
"Director Waller, this is Colonel Flag reporting—part of June Moone's apartment spontaneously combusted. We're going in to put her down." Rick said into his walkie-talkie, rushing up the stairs through the smoke.
"Remember, I want her brought back alive." Waller said.
"Will do." Rick whistled as he got to June's door. He signaled for his men to stop for a few seconds, checking the parameters for any immediate signs of danger, before carefully opening the door.
Everything inside the apartment was a mess—broken flower pots and spilled soil, torn pillows and scattered feathers, upturned chairs and tables, shattered glass and china, and piles and piles of books all over the place. Rick took in a deep breath and gingerly took a step in.
Just what had that girl gotten herself into?
Was it him irritating her earlier that day in that Starbucks that unleashed her inner witch-goddess? Hopefully, Rick prayed to himself, hopefully not.
He followed the trail of smoke into a bedroom that was just as trashed as the living room, and then into a large bathroom.
There, in a large bathtub filled with black water, was June Moone. Her legs were pulled to her chest and her hair was plastered to her shoulders as she shook uncontrollably, tears staining her face. She looked up at Rick, eyes bleary with tears that didn't seem to stop, and slowly opened her mouth.
"Please," she said, in a hoarse voice. "Help me."
"Ms. Moone, what exactly transpired in your apartment earlier today?" Amanda Waller asked, pacing in her office as June—who had changed into clean clothing—took a sip of hot tea.
"I don't really know." June confessed, looking down at her beverage. "I blacked out—but only when it happened."
"When what happened?" Amanda pressed.
"When… When the being, Enchantress, took over my body." June murmured, shifting in her chair uncomfortably. "I heard her clearly today, at my apartment. She asked for control over my body, and I think she managed to win me over. But I could still see and hear what I, or, what Enchantress, was doing."
"And what did she do?"
"She just used a burst of energy. A burst of really, really angry energy." June swallowed. "And then she sort of crumpled, like she had depleted all of her energy after that one burst, and I managed to take control over my body again."
"And why were you submerged in a tub full of suspicious liquid?" Amanda asked, crossing her arms.
"She made me do it, told me it would sooth me." June whispered, hanging her head. "And in the water—I don't know; I could think much more clearly. But I couldn't move my body at all."
Amanda Waller sat back behind her desk, watching June like June was some lab rat. "I know you want to complete your degree, but unfortunately, until you can fully control that meta-human, we'll have to have you here, in our compound."
"So a prisoner?" June asked bitterly.
"You'll still be able to go outside." Amanda replied. "However, we'll have Colonel Flag and his team accompanying you everywhere you go in case anything happens. Here, you'll be treated like one of our esteemed guests."
"And please," Amanda said, standing up and leaning over her desk to look June straight in the eye, "do not take our hospitality for granted."
Belle Reve
"Hello, hotness." Officer Griggs grinned. "Are you ready for today's special treatment?"
The woman hanging from her makeshift trapeze looked at him upside down, grinning from ear to ear sweetly as she beckoned with her hand. "Only if you'll play with me!"
"Don't be like that, you nutcase," Griggs groaned. "Just come down and let us escort you, and make everything easy for the both of us."
The woman jumped down, landing gracefully on her two feet, before brushing her long, blond hair behind her back. She looked over at the many guards that Griggs had brought with him—fifteen, max. "My puddin' wouldn't treat me like this." Harley Quinn pouted, clinging onto the bars of her cage pitifully.
"Your puddin' happens to be a psychopathic criminal who left you to die in the harbor while Batman came chasing for your sorry asses." Griggs rolled his eyes, as Harley Quinn snarled in anger. "And you know the rules—let go of the bars, or else."
Harley broke out into disjointed laughs, licking a bar of her cage defiantly as she looked up at Griggs challengingly.
"Okay, then." Griggs sighed, before talking into his earbud. "You know what to do."
And for the nth time, Harley Quinn felt the zap of electricity run through her fingers, up her arms, and fry her brain—just the way she liked it.
"Hello, Mr. Joker. I've brought you something today." Harleen smiled, sitting opposite the mad man in his rather uncomfortable-looking straight jacket. He wasn't looking at her, and his eyes were wandering around the room, as if she was just another piece of inconvenient furniture.
Harleen had promised her superiors to fix the Joker in a matter of months—he was her assignment and her responsibility. She had to bring the man back to sanity; she had to save him. He had mostly been responsive to her questions, and had requested little things now and then. A stuffed animal—preferably kittens or cats, a cup of coffee, a stick of butter, a toy sword, and even a coffee machine.
Harleen had brought him all of these things, and the Joker had showed a large sign of improvement. He'd tell her about his troubled past—his constant fight with Batman, his inexplicable urges, his transformation, his bad day, and his troubling mentality. His varying stories would begin to line up as the sessions continued, and Harleen was confident that she was reaching him.
"Hello, doctor." The Joker smiled amicably. "Why, what a lovely surprise—I do quite live for these moments with you."
Harleen gave him a bashful smile—so he even appreciated everything she was doing for him. He was so gentle; why couldn't anyone else see this friendly demeanor under that crazed grin? She pulled out a small stuffed cat from her pocket, and pushed it towards him. "It's a cat!"
"Wonderful." The Joker whispered, in that low voice that Harleen found to be so seductive. "You've been so dedicated to me, doctor, that I feel like you've been such a great help for fixing whatever looney tune that's singing in my brain."
"Thank you—you know, for accepting rehabilitation." Harleen smiled back.
"And you would be willing to do something for me, on the way?" The Joker asked, rocking on his chair. "To just… help my unsettled, rattled, addled poor little mind?"
"Anything." Harleen quickly replied, before blinking and regaining her composure. "I mean, yeah."
The Joker leaned forward, until his nose was barely brushing against Harleen's, and quite seriously said. "I need a machine gun."
"… A machine gun?" Harleen asked, breathing heavily as the Joker leaned closer.
The Joker broke into a smile, and Harleen knew she had to do it for her patient. Anything to make him appreciate her even more—anything to make him normal and fix him.
Anything to make him love her even more.
Harleen didn't regret it when the Joker's men razed Arkham Asylum to the ground. She didn't regret it when they threw her onto a table, although they did rough her up good. She showed resistance, trying to break free from their painful grip, before seeing the Joker walk in.
Instantly, she calmed down.
The Joker was her friend—he appreciated her. He would talk to her. He wouldn't kill her.
But when the Joker flashed the bright lamp light into her face, for just a moment, Harleen felt a dawning realization.
What the hell had she done?
"Hello, doctor." The Joker whispered, putting a hand to her cheek.
Harleen swallowed. "What, are you going to kill me now, Mr. J?"
The Joker looked genuinely surprised. "Now why would I do that to such an amazing woman like you?"
And just like that, Harleen's walls crumbled again. He appreciates me, she thought warmly, he appreciates me. I can trust him. I can love him.
The Joker smiled—that same, friendly smile—before putting a leather belt to her mouth. "I'm just gonna hurt you—really, really, bad."
But Harleen was far from fear. "Let me take it." She whispered, as the electrical currents ran through her brain.
"So, what do you want today? Vanilla, Chocolate or Strawberry, which drug would cure your fried brain?" Officer Griggs' voice was a far cry away as Harley Quinn breathed heavily in her chair. She couldn't even struggle or move—that last electrical current had definitely been a few volts higher, the fucking bastards.
Everything felt bleary and blank, and she could hear herself murmuring strawberry, but Griggs called for the weird doctors to use vanilla, and suddenly everything felt like it was spinning and Harley Quinn could see bats and mallets and more bats and colors and guards and her puddin' waiting with outstretched arms as she clutched at the arm rests of her chair in agony.
Somewhere in Gotham City
"She's probably been waiting at least a week for me to come get her." The Joker snarled as he assembled his favorite weapons—his most valuable toys. "That dumb girl, making me come get her. God, why couldn't she have just gone to Poison Ivy and cried into that bitch's shoulder for a day or two and then come back?"
Johnny Frost refrained from reminding the Joker that it had actually been a few weeks—almost a month—since Harley Quinn had disappeared. He also refrained from reminding the Joker that he had turned up at the club a few weeks prior, soaking wet in his suit, shooting everyone there except for his henchmen and screaming for Batman to return Harley Quinn.
The Joker didn't want to remember—and Johnny Frost knew better.
Belle Reve
"Hello, Floyd." Offcier Griggs called through the little opening in the cell door, before sliding a plate with a stale sandwich on it. "Bon Appetite."
Deadshot wasn't impressed. "Don't call me Floyd. And what the fuck is this? Hm? It looks like you got tar and slapped it between two flat-ass buns."
Griggs feigned sympathy. "It's all we got in this backwater hellhole, my friend."
"I am not your friend, you shit."
"Ouch. Well, have fun with your deluxe Rat Shit and Toe Nail sandwich. After that, we'll have the usual therapy." Griggs winked, before sliding the cell door shut.
Deadshot peeled the sandwich open—tuna salad and licorice. God, he hated this place. The only thing left to comfort him was his punching bag in the corner of his cell, and a tiny window that lead to the outside world. That tiny window was his only source of hope, and his only source of light—outside, somewhere, was his daughter, waiting for him to come back. And until then, all Deadshot could do was survive whatever brutality he had to face.
Deadshot didn't really know why the officers beat him up routinely with their batons. He just had super-human accuracy—beating him up wasn't going to make him shoot any worse, unless the officers wanted to snap his arms off. Which, they didn't. Perhaps he was their personal punching bag, a way for them to let out their frustration for having to work in such a dump.
And people were disgusted with criminals like him for trying to make a living.
Hilarious.
Now, some nice enough officers asked why Deadshot didn't just participate in the Olympics for the air rifle—after all, someone with accuracy like him could probably hit Olympic gold a few times and live care free for the rest of his damn life.
Deadshot had a family to take care of. His mother, then his ungrateful wife, and then his daughter. He had no time to dedicate four years to training and working with some renowned coach—and plus, doing mercenary work brought in much more money than whatever Olympic gold medal could.
And it was much more fun. Just because Deadshot cared for his family, didn't mean he had empathy for every other person. Shooting heads was much more fun than shooting a target.
Now, Deadshot didn't like to be sentimental, but whenever he heard the pitter-patter of rain outside the prison, he always remembered the faces of people he had killed. Not that he remembered everyone, he didn't have superhuman memory, but there were some people that he had regretted to kill. A single father of two daughters, targeted by some multi-millionaire. A man running for Senate with actual goals and realizable promises rather than all the bullshit that other government officials came up with. Some hotshot surfer who refused to be pimped. And a few more.
Of course, some were actual scumbags and uselessly annoying officials that Deadshot was more than happy to exterminate.
And he always thought of his daughter. She used to like playing in puddles made by rain water; that was when she was around nine. How tall would she be now? Would she still love the rain? Was she safe in Gotham City? Was her mother not being a complete bitch?
If only he could be free.
Part of Deadshot's wish came true when some new soldier and someone who looked like a well-fed government official walked him to a shooting range with the rest of the rotten officers at Belle Reve.
"My employer and I would like to see what you can do, Deadshot." The soldier crossed his arms.
"Uh-huh." Deadshot rolled his eyes. "And you're a what? A private?"
"Colonel. Colonel Rick Flag." The soldier replied tartly.
"Well, Flag," Deadshot sneered, "that's only happening if you let me shoot Griggs in the face."
Griggs and his men stiffened. Deadshot could hear them cocking their guns behind him, ready to shoot if he did anything out of line. Pussies. "Colonel, Director Waller, I told you this son of a bitch was trouble." Griggs stammered out. "Why would you put a renowned hit man in a shooting range, with every weapon possible?"
Waller remained stoic. "I'm here to make an offer, Deadshot. You show me what you can do, and I negotiate your prison sentence."
"Lady, I have a life sentence here." Deadshot rolled his eyes. "You might wanna try harder."
"If you cooperate," Waller replied, almost as if she had been waiting for it, "I'll see to it that your daughter enjoys some privileges."
Deadshot froze. "… You mean, like, pay for her tuition? Let her go to some posh-ass high school, and send her to one of those fancy Harvards, Yales, or Princetons?"
"Ivy League." Colonel Flag supplied.
"Yeah, that." Deadshot nodded. Waller knew he was listening. "If I show you what I can do, and if I'm right you want me to use my ability to do something for you—you'll help my daughter."
"Anything." Waller promised.
"Okay then." Deadshot shrugged. He picked up a small handgun. Oh, it felt so right back in his palm.
Silently, he aimed at one of the three dummies set up in the range, right between the eyes.
And he just kept firing. He didn't waver once—the bullets all hit home, simply enlarging the hole the previous bullet had made and never straying away, not even a millimeter. Once all the bullets had been fired, Deadshot gingerly set the hand gun down. "Comments? Questions? Reviews?"
Colonel Flag looked grudgingly lost for words, but Waller's face hadn't budged an inch. Deadshot took the liberty to speak up. "Okay, I want you to pay for my daughter's tuition. I want her to go to a nice, respectable high school, then go to an Ivy League university. If her grades don't make it, then just—just white people that shit. And I'm concerned because nobody's taking notes down because I am asking for quite a lot."
Colonel Flag frowned. "I don't think you're in the position to ask us of anything, Deadshot. You haven't even completed half of our requirement yet."
"I realized. Whatever bullshit you want me to deal with, I can finish in a matter of secods." Deadshot snarled. "And I'm not talking to you, hotshot. I'm talking to your employer."
"Officer Griggs," Amanda Waller said, her eyes peeling away from Deadshot. "See to it that this man is well-nourished until my next visit in three days. I'd like another word with him then."
A/N: I'm keeping up with the pace I prefer, but I do want to take some time to develop the characters. I've introduced June (more in-depth), Harley and Deadshot. It was easiest to write the latter two because of how much they're shown in the movie, but developing June took some time. Next update will probably include the rest of the squad, like Boomerang, Killer Croc, and El Diablo. There may be some mistakes here and there, but I hope this update doesn't disappoint. Until next time! Byeeeee