The Last Laugh
Chapter 4: Hardly Quinn
By, Frank Hunter
The next several nights flew by. Robin spent much of his time perched on that awning, watching and waiting to see if anything at all was going to happen. Occasionally Quinn would slip out of his sight, which had initially triggered his suspicions. But after moving onto the fire escape outside her window, he found that her kitchen (if you could call it that, it was just a corner with an oven and refrigerator) was not within line of sight from his usual nest. Most often when she would disappear, he found that she was just making for the bathroom or the kitchen.
Tim began to shorten these little vigils, simply telling Bruce that yes, he'd been watching, and yes, still nothing was happening.
"Have you had eyes on her during the day as well?" Bruce had asked him one night in the cave.
"I'm in school during the day!"
Tim had to keep up the ruse of being a student just as Bruce kept up the ruse of being a socialite. In truth, school had ceased to be challenging to him a long time ago. When he was accepted to university a year ahead of schedule, he thought things would get better, but the basic stuff was still far too basic. He continued going to keep up appearances. In his spare time though, he'd begun taking more advanced graduate courses online, which helped keep his intellect sharp.
"Where does she go during the day?"
"She got a job from the halfway house."
Bruce raised an eyebrow. "And you're certain she's going to it?"
Tim opened his mouth to retort, but wound up just shutting it up again. The idea had come to him, of course, that Quinn might be up to something in place of her day job, but he had checked the reports that were being filed by her parole officer, and everything seemed in order. That, coupled with the uneventful nights had convinced him that he hadn't needed to dig any deeper. But Quinn was nothing if not crafty. She may have been figuring out ways to slip through the cracks. Tim doubted it, but a little peek wouldn't go amiss.
On Friday, on his way back to the manor, he took a different bus route that brought him deeper into Gotham's outer boroughs. It was time-consuming and left him with too much time to think while he had little on his mind. He found himself staring out the window, eyes drawn up into the sky. Through the occasional breaks in the buildings, he could make out the familiar black and green elliptical shape of the LexCorp blimp floating in the sky over Gotham. He sighed. That thing represented yet another of Bruce's devoted and ultimately fruitless campaigns. A few years back, the executives at LexCorp had decided to shift the blimp back from Helium to the less stable Hydrogen as a cost-cutting measure for maintaining the dirigible. Bruce had publicly and vocally put pressure on LexCorp not to do that, citing numerous safety violations and the fact that a giant explosive bubble represented a tremendous safety hazard to the people of Gotham. But the LexCorp executives did what they did best: found all sorts of legal loopholes and maneuvers that got them the FAA permits and certifications they'd need to change over anyway. They lived for those kinds of back-handed deals, almost as much as they lived for the bottom line.
Long story short, the campaign had amounted to nothing, and yet somehow the blimp had not exploded into a fiery death ball from above. It was just one such example of Bruce needing to pick his battles with a little more scrutiny. He'd stress less if he only fought the fights that needed fighting. LexCorp, as it turned out, took safety aboard the blimp as a serious concern. The loss of the blimp would take a real cut into the company's profits, and they cared enough about that to ensure that no harm came to it.
Tim pulled the cord for a stop as the bus rolled up to the address he'd been given and tried to shake the loose musings from his mind. Obsession aside, he'd promised Bruce he would do this, and so he would get it done.
He was relieved when he stepped off the bus and found that the address was indeed for a supermarket, and that it was not difficult to find. The store was a shlubby little establishment, to be sure. The quality of it was a match for the apartment they'd stuck Quinn in. Tim guessed that the more profitable, better-maintained businesses around the city were probably less willing to hire an ex-con. The halfway house worked with what they could get.
He went inside apprehensive, but when he immediately spotted the familiar blonde woman behind a cash register he realized he hadn't needed to worry at all. There she was, ringing up customers, doing everything she was supposed to be doing.
"Thanks," she said with a drag in her voice as she handed over her customer's change. She didn't even bother to look up into the guy's eyes. "Come again."
Tim was hit again by a pang of sympathy at the sight of it. Or was it at the sound? He hadn't heard her speak since the asylum, and her tone of voice, everything really, was still exactly the same. Yeah, he thought, she's gotten past the Joker, but she's spent herself doing it. When the Joker was involved, it was realistically a small price to pay, but the years of torment she had suffered with him, all the harm done had left her with next to nothing. He thought of what the maniac had done to Barbara, and to her father, Jim. To everything he touched. Nobody deserved that kind of treatment. And Harley…Harley had been exposed more than anyone.
He wasn't sure why he wanted to do it, but he decided to speak to her. A few long strides from the front door brought him to her register. He pulled a magazine from the rack beside it, just one of those celebrity gossip rags that held absolutely no sense of journalistic integrity or truth, and tossed it down onto her counter. "Hi," he offered.
"Hey," came the response. As before, she didn't look up. She just slowly put her hand over the magazine and slid it across her scanner. Her nails were unpainted, and short, as though she had been chewing at them.
"Nice day out?" offered Tim, floundering for conversation. He hadn't really thought this through.
"Ain't gettin' any nicer," Harley answered. "That'll be $3.79."
Tim pulled out his wallet and unfolded a couple of bills, passing them out on top of the magazine for her.
"Well," Tim considered. "They say you get out of it what you put into it. It's something to consider."
"They're full'a crap," she said, taking the bills and making her change. "No offense."
"Could always be worse," Tim said. "You could still be in prison."
Harley jerked as she put the coins back into his hand and looked up at him with dawning recognition in her eyes. Was she putting it together? Did she recognize him, or had she just been shaken by his knowing comment?
"Gotta appreciate the little things, right?" he asked rhetorically as he took his magazine and headed for the exit. "Later."
He could feel her watching him leave. It set his hair on edge. She'd known. Of course she'd known. The last time they had seen each other in the flesh…God, they couldn't have gotten closer to each other if they'd been lovers. Funny thing, the similarities between love and violence. How either sort of resembles the other. The idea of it made Tim shiver.
/\/\/\
She was on top of him now, her legs straddling on either side. Holding his body in place. She was so incredibly strong for such a slight woman. It was the gymnastics, he thought absently. They kept her in incredible physical shape. Her legs unusually powerful
The shooting pain in his own leg was excruciating. Tim had only gotten a glimpse at the thing that had caught him up, right before Harley had come upon him like a storm. It was a bear trap, painted green with little red eyes on one end of it, like some sort of sick cartoon crocodile. It was eating into his leg, and it was going to take enormous effort and pain to pry that thing open and get his foot out. Both were things he was not going to be able to spare as long as Quinn was freely beating him.
"How's that feel, Bird Boy!" she gloated from where she sat. Tim thrust against her, trying desperately to throw her off, to the side, off balance, anything. It was no good. She had him dead to rights, hanging on as though he were a mechanical bull. Brass knuckles, he'd thought as her fists kept driving themselves into his face. That's why it feels like she's hitting so hard. She's got brass knuckles. Tim thought he could feel the under-the-surface toothache pain of a fractured cheekbone. He needed to get away from this.
"What's 'a matter?" she screamed between punches. "Cat got your tongue?" Through the haze and red fog of his own blood he could see her smiling in ecstasy, grinning from ear to ear through her whiteface make-up. Strands of her hair had come loose during the struggle, streaming down over her forehead. She was enjoying every minute of this.
Tim reached out to her with one hand, making a show of trying to push against her. To shove her back. She brushed his arm aside with no effort whatsoever, but that didn't matter. It was just a distraction. His other hand was going for the gold: the retractable staff he kept in his belt, under his cape, behind his back. Just a few more inches and he would have it. He just needed to stay lucid for that long…
"Who am I kiddin'? Pretty soon, the little birdie'll be straight down the hatch!" He pressed on, his fingers just brushing against the steel of his staff. It was within reach.
"What do you think Bats'll do when I drag your bloody corpse out for Mr. J? You think he'll lose it? You think he'll finally snap?!"
She reeled back a little too far for her next punch and Tim's arm finally made headway. He gripped the staff tightly and pulled it out, extending it as he did. In a fluid, flawless motion, he swung for the fences.
Quinn hadn't been prepared and the staff slammed straight into her temple. She let out a little cry as the momentum of it knocked her over sideways, loosening her grip on Robin's torso and spilling her to the floor. Tim wasted absolutely no time. He couldn't afford to let her get her bearings. To let her get the upper hand again. He flipped over and lunged forward. A spike of pain lurched through the snared leg as he jostled it, but he forced himself to put it out of his mind. He couldn't allow himself to succumb. Not now.
He grabbed onto one of the steel buckles strapped across Quinn's belly and used it for purchase to pull himself up on top of her, laying his body out and holding her down by the sheer force of his weight. Before she could fully shake off the hit, he took his staff and wedged it tightly beneath her jawbone, pressing at her trachea and cutting off the air supply to her brain.
She realized what was happening an instant too late, scowling back and struggling to tighten her own grip on the staff to push it away. Nuh uh, Tim thought. He climbed up a few inches higher to put the power of his shoulder behind the staff. Quinn's whole body was radiating heat, sweating from the exertion of the beating she'd been giving him. The full front of her leather suit was wet and slick with it, making it hard to keep on top of her, especially with her flailing and kicking. But Tim pressed his chest down to hers and pinned her as best he could.
Winding back with his spare arm, he clenched up his fist and brought it down on the same temple he'd already cracked. The blow brought a rasped choke and a muffled grunt from Quinn. She doubled her effort to push the staff up off her neck. He hit her again.
When he wound up the third time, he put everything he had behind the punch, connecting just below her eye, and finally it, coupled with the lack of air, put her down for the count. She let out one final little squeal and suddenly stopped fighting altogether, collapsing on the ground in a limp heap of tangled limbs and broken will.
As soon as Tim was sure she'd gone down, he was right behind her. He gave up and let himself collapse too.
He fell on top of Quinn and, for a moment, let himself lay there, his cheek pressed to her chest, just recovering his strength. He was breathing hard, but could still feel the small up and down movement of the air filling her lungs as well. She was still alive. Thank God.
As soon as he'd caught his breath he wasted no time. He was up, rolling off of Quinn and turning back to his injured leg. Now that the fight was over, the weariness had begun to set in and he swore he could feel the individual teeth of that damned thing digging into him. He needed to get it off, get a field dressing on, and tie up Harley before she had a chance to come to. He'd have to move quick, and this was going to suck.
He just hoped Bruce was holding his own against her boss. He was pretty sure his usefulness tonight was just about reaching its limit…
/\/\/\
He kicked himself over and over again as he sat on the bus once more, riding home into the darkening night. What had he been trying to accomplish by making contact? Why expose himself to her? It couldn't possibly do any good. It would only make her worry, and rightly so, that Robin was stalking her. And for a recovering psychopath, feeding into delusions of paranoia and persecution wouldn't aid in the recovery process.
When he arrived at the house, he let himself in without ringing for Alfred and stalked down to the basement alone. He was eager to get his actual night started, certain that this time he would have been left behind. He was just wondering where the Batman might be right about now when he found Bruce sitting, once again, in front of the computer. He was dressed from cowl to boots in the full batsuit and, once again, was dedicating his full attention to the security feeds the two of them had planted around town.
"Hm," Tim grunted.
"Something troubling you?"
"No, nothing," Tim said, stepping up behind Bruce. "I just thought I'd already seen the textbook example of 'depressing' today, but you proved me wrong."
Bruce didn't bother rising to the humor. He never did.
"How'd it go with Quinn?" he asked instead.
"Fine," Tim said. "Same as usual, no master plans in the works. Just a boring civilian life in action." He rested a hand on Bruce's chair. "How long have you been sitting here?"
"I wanted to take a look before I left," he answered. "Something's strange with this one."
Bruce pointed at the viewscreen in the top corner of his display. Tim recognized the feed. He'd put that camera in place himself, stuck to a light post on a street corner just down the block from the entrance to Life 2.0's old headquarters. The feed gave him a partial view of the door, the sidewalk, and the street, all of it slummy and dark, exemplary of just about everything in Old Gotham.
"A few minutes ago traffic on this street just stopped," Bruce went on.
"That's not so unusual," Tim said. "It's a back road in the middle of nowhere. It's empty a lot of the time."
"This early in the night?" Bruce asked. Fingers moving over the keyboard at hyper speed, he brought up a few additional feeds tiled across the screen. They were all the other cameras that had any visual on the streets, and all the rest showed fairly heavy streams of traffic flooding through rush hour in the Gotham night.
"I've checked the accident reports and police activity in the area, and I can't see any reason why traffic would have stopped here," Bruce said.
"You want to swing by first thing tonight?" Tim asked. "We can make sure everything's still dandy in about ten seconds."
He moved to go don his suit, but as he was about to turn away, something on the screen caught his eye. It wasn't much, little more than a couple of pixels toward the top of the viewscreen, but he leaned in over Bruce's shoulder for a closer look.
"What's that smudge up there, against the building?" he asked, pointing at the display.
Bruce isolated the image, drawing a box around it and zooming so that the anomaly Tim had seen got bigger. It took a moment to come back into focus, and when it did the resolution wasn't perfect, but the outline was visible and Tim squinted to make sense of it.
"It looks like a bird…" Bruce muttered, an intone creeping its way into his voice.
"Is it flying?" Tim asked. "It's not moving anywhere."
Bruce slammed his palms against the console and shoved his chair away from it. Tim, with reflexes sharp as a cat's, jumped away and missed getting knocked over by a millisecond. "What!?" he asked as Bruce immediately began stalking toward the car.
"The camera feed's been corrupted," Bruce called back to him. "It's frozen."
Tim's eyes shot back to the bird on the screen and he realized in a moment the implications here. "Oh damn," he said, and before the words were out of his mouth, he was moving. Looked like they were gonna finally see some action after all.
