A drop of this. A dash of that. The Joker continued mixing chemical compounds into his beaker, pausing momentarily between each addition to reference his new equation with a scanning fingertip. Harley and Ivy had been gone for nearly three hours now and he could feel the tension from the anxiety growing in his neck and shoulders. He placed another drop of a clear liquid into the mixture and stepped back for a moment to close his tired eyes and stretch his neck with a grimace. A roaring noise like a flaming cannonball shot up quickly in front of him and his eyes flew open to find an orb of flames licking the ceiling around the perimeter where a blob the size of a tennis ball clung to it.
"AH!" The Joker squealed in a short high pitch before dashing to the edge of the bar to retrieve one of the three fire extinguishers. He pointed the nozzle and spastically sprayed the white substance around the flames, successfully diminishing them into a blackened circle on the ceiling. A few of the white flakes drizzled down like snow and he sighed with relief. Cocking his head to one side with a devious grin, he squinted one eye and stuck his tongue out before drawing another dot and a curved line to create a smiley face over his lab. He chuckled to himself and jumped slightly when he looked down to notice the petite brunette staring at him with blue eyes from the bedroom door.
"Hey there, Princess!", he greeted her with a smile, "I think I may have accidentally discovered a new weapon. The Dork Knight is gonna shit his tights, what do you think?"
Harley's face remained expressionless as she pulled off her wig and walked toward the bathroom door. The light caught the reflection of moist streaks on her cheeks and The Joker suddenly realized she was crying. He set the red canister down and tried to walk around the bar toward her, but she reached the bathroom before him and closed the door behind her, locking it with a click.
"Harley?" he knocked softly, "You alright?"
"I just want to be alone right now", she answered quietly from the other side.
He rested his forearm on the door above him and lowered his voice, "You know you'll always be her mother, Sweetness."
There was a long pause before she answered between a sob, "She doesn't…even remember me."
He didn't know what to say. He knew there was nothing he could ever say to extinguish the pain she felt and it made him feel like a helpless bystander to watch her suffer, but he hoped that his Christmas gift to her this year would help.
He checked his watch, "We gotta see the Landshark in about an hour, Love."
"Go without me."
"I need you there, Harley, it's important."
"Just go away and leave me alone."
He clenched his jaw in an attempt to control his temper. Her tone of voice set him on edge, but he was trying with all his might to remain calm given the situation. Hitting her now wouldn't do any good and he didn't feel like replacing the bathroom door for a third time.
"Thirty minutes", he answered shortly, attempting to sound sympathetic through his growing frustration.
Cracking his knuckles, he left the room and took a seat on the couch in the foyer, crossing and ankle over his knee while he stared at the blank screen of the television on the wall. Almost exactly thirty minutes passed by when Harley finally emerged from the bedroom, and The Joker's temper had fizzled back down to a glowing ember that he could better control. She walked quietly over and sat next to him on the couch without making eye contact.
"Does it ever get any easier?" she asked him quietly.
He put an arm around her and pulled her into his side, "No. You just learn how to get through the day after a while."
She laid her head onto his shoulder, "I don't want to make it through the day anymore."
"Don't talk like that", he scolded, standing up and pulling her to her feet, "Come on, I have a surprise that might make you feel better."
She raised an eyebrow, "You didn't get me another puppy did you?"
He laughed, "If I did that every time you got all sad and sappy, we'd own the Gotham City Zoo by now."
She grinned, "May not be a bad business move."
He reached over to the arm chair next to the couch and picked up his suit coat and fedora, "There you go with those ideas again."
"Well, one of us has to be the entrepreneur", she shrugged, smile widening, "Speaking of which, did you and Eddie ever talk about the club?"
"Not yet", he answered, slipping his arms through his coat and placing the fedora on his head, "I figured it could be our Christmas gift to him."
She reached up and began adjusting his crooked tie, "Isn't he Jewish?"
"Don't censor me, woman", he said with a grin and she giggled.
An hour later, they were waiting in the back seat of the black Cadillac in an alleyway behind the local Starbucks, impatiently glancing out the tinted windows while Joey kept watch for the police and The Bat from the driver's seat. The self-heating leather seats were a welcomed shield against the bitter December cold that fell from the sky in a heaping white powder, glistening against the dim lights of the city. The Joker checked his watch with a sigh and continued twirling the open switchblade in his palm while Harley stared out the window on her passenger side. The door handle clicked on The Joker's side and a frantic looking man in a brown suit leaned down into view outside the window.
The Joker rolled the window down only a crack, "Go around, Dummy!"
The man hurried around the back of the car, skidding in the ice on the street and nearly falling onto his back. Harley unlocked the door and he opened it to quickly step inside, snow falling onto the heated seats and immediately melting into large droplets of cold water which ran into the cracks. She scooted back closer to her husband to prevent the moisture from touching the fur of her favorite coat and his arm enclosed around her, pointing the sharp knife.
"You're late", he growled.
The man stared wide-eyed at the shiny weapon, nervously brushing the fallen strands of his messy comb-over back into place on his forehead.
"Yes, Mr. Napier, I do apologize. I was held up in a meeting and the traffic is simply impossible with all the snow and-"
"-Yawn, Brownie, you're makin' me sleepy", The Joker warned, "And what the hell have I told you about using my legal name, damnit. You're fuckin' up left and right tonight."
"Let's just get down to business, Mr. Brown", Harley interjected calmly, "Mr. J is hungry, and he gets cranky when he's hungry."
The Joker lowered his knife and began cleaning the underside of his fingernails with the tip the way he always did when he was anticipating something; Harley silently wondered what it was. The anxious lawyer pulled his leather briefcase up into this lap and popped open the two golden locks with a quick flick of his thumbs. A pile of scattered documents and an electronic pad rested inside. He pulled the pad free and touched the screen with the tip of his index finger, bringing it to life to shine brightly so it lit up the back of the dark vehicle.
"All of the necessary arrangements have been made for the trust fund, I only need your electronic signature to finalize the transfer, Mr. Joker", he said quickly, handing the pad over toward his client who took it with a smug grin. Harley was perplexed; her husband never did business without her.
"Trust fund? Transfer? Puddin', what's going on?" she questioned him as he drew his legal signature across the line on the bottom of the screen;
Jack Napier
"Mrs. Napier, would you like to sign as well? It is not required, but it will give you rights for transfer and disposal in the future", Mr. Brown suggested, holding the pad in front of her.
She pushed it away with an angry look at her smug husband, "I'm not signing a damn thing until I know what you've done."
He held his hands out innocently and attempted to hide his keen grin, "What d'ya mean 'done'? "
"We always talk about where our money is going. Why is it suddenly different?"
"Maybe I wanted to surprise you."
"With what?"
He chuckled and placed an arm around her shoulders, "Alright now, Sugar, calm down. I wanted to give you somethin' that would make you feel like more a part of Angel's life. That signature I just gave puts about two million of our hard-earned cash into a trust fund account for her."
"No one else will be allowed to touch the funds once they are awarded to her on her eighteenth birthday, not even her parents", the lawyer added.
Harley shot him an angry glare and her husband shook his head slightly at him as a warning.
"I uh, I mean from a strictly legal standpoint, of course Mrs. Napier-"
"-Quinn, you Harvard reject!" she spat at him.
The Joker tightened his arm around her, "What'chu think, Darlin'? Two mill enough or should we throw in another three?"
Her blue eyes softened and she turned around to place a gentle hand on his scarred cheek, "You never cease to amaze me, you know that?"
She kissed him and the lawyer released a quiet sigh of relief.
"Remind me to thank you later", she winked at her husband and he grinned suggestively.
"Yes, Ma'am!"
Turning back around to face the now heavily perspiring lawyer, she snatched the pad from his hand and signed her own legal name on the bottom line below The Joker's;
Harleen Quinzel-Napier
Her husband scoffed at the print, "When are you gonna drop the 'Quinzel'?"
She rolled her eyes, "When are you going to drop that topic?"
"I married you so you would be mine in every way possible. It defeats the purpose of legal ownership if you keep your stupid last name in front of mine", he retorted with agitation.
"Puddin', you know I'm yours. I don't have to give up who I am for you to own me. I belong to you and only you."
The man in the brown suit snapped his fingers with sudden excitement, "That reminds me! Mr. Na-uh-Joker, I did some research on your behalf. According to law, now that you and Ms. Quinn are legally bound, you officially have a say in the manner of treatment she is to receive should she ever be returned to Arkham Asylum."
The Joker sat forward in his seat, "You mean I can tell them what they can and can't do with her?"
"Precisely, Sir. She will still receive the standard therapeutic treatment, but medications, hypnosis, and electroshock therapies will now be under your discretion to approve or deny."
"Standard meaning the usual 'blah blah, tell me about your feelings' routine?"
The man nodded with a smile and The Joker slapped his knee with a bounce in his seat, "Fuckin' A! That's the best news I've heard all year! Open that little pad thingy of yours and give yourself a bonus from me, Brownie. One million! Hell, it's the holidays, two million!"
Mr. Brown scrambled to open the account on the electronic pad, "That's very generous of you, Sir!"
"Haven't you heard? I'm a generous man, Brownie!"
Twelve stories directly above the vehicle, perched atop the boarder of the snowy rooftop, Robin listened to the conversation through his earpiece. Sticking a finger into his ear, he pressed the small button on the outside of the receiver and it beeped quietly.
"Did you get all of that?" he asked out loud.
"Yeah", a deep voice answered from the other side.
"You want me to take them down?"
"No, not on your own!"
The sidekick rolled his eyes, "I can handle it, Bruce. When are you gonna learn to trust me?"
"Just-", his answer was interrupted with a series of raspy coughs, "Ugh, just come back to the house. We'll sort out the details later."
"If you're so sick, why did you even bother letting me patrol tonight?"
"Taking out purse snatching thugs is different from The Joker and Harley Quinn. You know that."
Robin stood and kicked the pile of snow off the ledge with the edge of his boot, "You treat me like a kid!"
"Yeah well, tell it to Dick. Maybe you two can start a support group or something."
"Ass."
"Just come home. I want to start getting a room ready."
Robin watched as the small black dot that was the Cadillac below pulled away from the alleyway and into the darkness, "A room? For who?"
There was another long coughing fit on the other side and he grimaced with disgust at the wet sound of moving phlegm.
"A high security treatment room", Bruce answered hoarsely, "For Harleen Quinzel-Napier."