Chapter 3.
"Harley for God's sake stop crying!" Ivy begged, bending down in front of the sobbing blonde that had collapsed against the stained magnolia walls of Ivy's apartment after breaking the news. "You need to tell him Harl ... he is the dad right?" Ivy asked, calmly but with a note of curiosity in her smooth voice.
"Ivy! Of course he's the dad! I'd, I ... there could never be anyone else, ever!" Harley raised her head from her hands for a moment before returning to hiding her tear stained face.
"Okay okay! I just, you never know I mean all it takes is one clumsy night and well..." Ivy's eyes wandered off, staring into the distance, possibly reminiscing about one of her "clumsy nights".
"I can't tell him Red, you know what he's like ... he'll freak out." Harley raised her head only to slam backwards into the stained colours of the bricks behind her with a dull thud.
"You mean he'll hit you, like all the others time. He'll hit you for absolutely no reason apart from his anger problems and you'll just go running back to him straight after you've escaped. Don't you ever learn Harl? He doesn't love people! He uses them until, in his eyes, they've expired of their usage date and then they disappear." Ivy sighed, sitting down and placing a tinted green arm over the blondes shoulder.
"Red ... Ivy ... he, he really loves me! He just, he gets a little angry every –"
"Angry? Angry!" Ivy exclaimed, "don't you remember Harley! Only 3 months ago you came running into here with blood all over you and a broken nose? Don't you dare tell me he loves you Harley! Don't you dare!"
"Red stop! Okay so my Puddin's a little angry sometimes but he loves me, he really loves me." Ivy sighed, resisting the urge to shake some sense into her now pregnant friend.
"Whatever Harley, it's not me who gets the beatings. Just ... at least let me come with you when you tell him and well, if he tries to hurt you I'll stop him, even if you don't want me to and I don't care if he tries to tell me to get out Harley, you're my friend. You and Selena are the only friends I've got in this world." smiling softly, Ivy stood up and held her soft hand out to the heap of red, black and blonde mess on the floor.
"Ivy, I'm gunna struggle enough telling him on my own as it is never mind if anyone else is there. This is between me and him for now ... don't tell anyone, don't even let him know that you know Red, you know what he thinks of you ..." Harley took Ivy's hand and slowly pulled herself up, now feeling some sort of heavy weight resting upon her shoulders knowing that she was, one day soon, going to be a mother.
"Puddin'? Puddin'!" creeping into the abandoned warehouse she called home, Harley shouted her boyfriends pet name, praying he wouldn't answer so that she had some time to prepare.
"Oh you're home," a voice floated from the makeshift living room, "I wondered where you were till I read the note," the voice was familiar but not that of her boyfriends, "the boss sent me back to tell you he's going to be late and that you should eat without him ... God knows why he sent me as a messenger to tell you that when he's got a perfectly good working phone in his pocket but, what he says goes I suppose." The voice began to move from the living room closer to Harley until the tall, slender body of a man appeared from the archway and moved closer to where she stood. In the dim light Harley could just make out that the man was one of The Joker's goons but couldn't tell which although she knew it would only be from a small selection ... he didn't trust just anyone in their home, only a select few. Finally the slender body came to a stand still underneath a ceiling lamp and Harley could just make out the boyish features of Jake, the newest arrival of the select few to be allowed in their home.
"Jake?" the thin lips upon his face slowly curved upwards into a smile as if he was exceedingly pleased she had managed to remember his name, "where is he?" Harley asked curiously. The thin, smiling lips turned quickly into a frown.
"Out, on business, he said you didn't need to know." Jake's voice held a note of jealousy.
"Oh right ..." throwing her belongings onto the nearby table, Harley slowly wandered into the living room and slumped down onto the deep green sofa as Jake followed her.
"Can I get you anything? A drink? Coffee?" Jake stood in the archway, one large hand on the framework.
"Water please." Harley murmured, already lost in her own thoughts before Jake had even taken his hand away from the framework.
"Here ya-" Jake placed a tall, slim glass of water onto the coffee table in front of the sofa before turning to see tears strolling down Harleys flushed cheeks, "what's wrong?" he exclaimed, rushing to sit next to the unstable blonde. Harley sniffed, holding back yet another wave of tears as Jake placed a strong arm around her shoulder, pulling her into his flat chest.
"Nothing! Nothings wrong I'm fine..." she whimpered into his chest.
"Explain to me why you're crying then." Harley sniffed before looking up to see Jake smiling down at her with a look of sadness deep in his coffee coloured eyes.
"I'm ... I've got myself in a ton of trouble Jake and I can't get out of it." Harley whimpered, snuggling herself deep within the folds of his jacket stretching across his chest. Suddenly the pair heard the click of the large front door and the clicking of The Jokers familiar tap shoes.
"Oh honey I'm home!" Harley's boyfriends voice practically shook the house. Before either of the two could move, The Joker strode into the makeshift living room, stopping as his eyes wandered across to his girlfriend and one of his goons cuddled up together on his sofa.
"What the hell are the pair of you doing?" he exclaimed, dropping the thick, faded brown sack in his hands onto the floor.
"Puddin'! Puddin' it's not what it looks like! Honestly!" Harley exclaimed, jumping up from the sofa and Jake and running towards her boyfriend only to be greeted by his hand across her cheek. The force of the blow made her stumble back and fall into the mahogany coffee table which split in two underneath her weight.
"Boss! Honestly it isn't what it looked like!" Jake exclaimed, jumping up from the sofa as he held his hands up into the air.
"Don't you dare tell me what it looked like boy, I know perfectly well what I saw. I saw you and my girlfriend having a quick go at it whilst I was out of the house!" the build up of anger within The Joker could be heard in his usually calm voice. Slowly, Harley picked herself up from the ruins of the coffee table and stumbled across to her boyfriend who had begun to walk very slowly towards Jake.
"Puddin' stop it! I was upset and –" again The Joker's hand met Harleys face slamming her backwards onto the bitterly cold floor.
"Don't lie to me you whore! I know what I saw!" The Joker grabbed Jake by the collar and lifted him upright with some unknown strength before throwing him into the nearby wall. Jake fell to the floor, blood oozing from a newly formed cut on his hand.
"Boss it –" Jake started before The Joker threw his balled up fist into Jake's nose, once, twice and again.
"Puddin'" Harley screamed, stumbling across the room and throwing herself at her angry boyfriend. The Joker turned and grabbed Harley, lifting her up in a similar way to the way in which he lifted up Jake.
"Don't pretend you weren't going to kiss him. Don't pretend you weren't going to sleep with him. I bet you already have haven't you you little whore?" The Joker hissed in Harleys tear stained face before throwing her back onto the remnants of the coffee table. Before Jake could say anything he found The Joker on top of him, throwing punches at him repeatedly. Eventually The Joker stopped, grating his teeth and glaring at the bloodied face of the boy, he stood up and spat at him. "As for you ..." he turned to see Harleys unconscious body lying on top of the broken coffee table. "Harley?" He asked calmly at first, walking over to his girlfriend slowly until he reached her crumpled body. As he looked down he saw blood slowly dripping from her nose and broken lip down her cheeks onto the mangled wood. "Harley?" he asked once more, this time a note of worry now in his voice. The blonde didn't move apart from the soft, rhythmic moving of her chest as she breathed in short gasps of air. The Joker sighed, placing his hands in his head he groaned and mumbled a string of curse words before he slowly picked up Harleys crumpled body in his strong arms and carried her up the stairs towards their bedroom. Gingerly, The Joker placed his unconscious girlfriend on their neatly made bed before kissing her forehead and grabbing his phone from his pocket. "Dr. Wilde?," he paused as someone on the other end of the line spoke quickly, "yes it's me, I need you to get here now, the abandoned industrial park on the edge of town, it's Harley, she needs your help." The Joker spoke calmly into the phone but with a slight note of hysteria in his voice before he ended the call and placed his sleek, silver phone back into the dark safety of his pocket.
"Well boys, this ones been a bit naughty and needs a good old lesson!" The Joker grinned madly as he dragged the body of Jake behind him into the circle of his most violent and insane goons. "There's a prize for whoever causes him the most pain of suffering and boy is it a good prize! I have to go for a while but I'll be back tomorrow afternoon and I expect him to either be in a hell of a lot of pain or well ... you all know." The Joker grinned before turning and walking out of the circle of excited madmen who had begun to laugh wildly. "Oh and, if any of you try contacting me before tomorrow afternoon, it won't just be him being taught a lesson, ta ta!" The Joker turned away, laughing as he climbed back into his car and drove back to the warehouse he called home.
/ I'm sososo sorry its taken me so long to update! But I've done it now and I've started writing the next chapter - yaay! /
