"Yeah, I get a little crazy with the razor blades
Go on and call your mama if you need a band-aid
But everything worth it hurts a little bit
You don't want to run away and I won't let you anyway"
Take it Like a Man, Dragonette
When the Joker arrived back at his hideout from an incredibly frustrating meet up with one of Kowalski's goons who claimed to be willing to turn on his boss but had turned out to know nothing the Joker didn't already know, he found the place in complete chaos. What he managed to glean from the bits and pieces of information being offered to him was that Harley had lost her shit and stabbed Rocco. Harley stabbing one of the henchmen didn't really concern him. Random bouts of violence were a way of life around here. What did worry him was when Spider told him that Harley had stormed out with a duffle bag and not come back. He went back to their room to see if he could figure out what was going on. Her things were all still there so he couldn't imagine what was in the bag. Then he found the note with her knife. Harley never went anywhere without the knife he had given her. Now he was concerned. The note didn't help.
Joker,
You're not going to understand why I'm doing this and I can't really explain it but I have to leave. I'm not sure if you'll care or not but I'm inclined to think you will. Please believe me when I say there is no other option, I have to go. If you love me, even just a little you won't come looking for me. If you think you need to find me just to get some sort of revenge or something, well I think you already know there is nothing you can do to me that will hurt me worse than living without you. Knowing that I still chose to leave should tell you how necessary this is. Please just let me go.
Love,
H.
It was almost impossible to believe that his Harley would have written a note like this. First of all she wasn't given to being mysterious and he honestly couldn't come up with a scenario that would result in her leaving him. If Spider hadn't told him that she left on her own he'd worry she'd been kidnapped. He briefly considered respecting her wishes. He was a busy man and Kowalski was preparing to make the Joker's take down of Kowalski's operations very difficult. Maybe it was better for her to leave. It would be less dangerous for her and he would be more focused. He'd lived longer without her than with her, he didn't need her.
So why did everything seem so boring and empty before she was in his life? Because he loved her, damn it. He couldn't believe there was some doubt about that lingering in her mind. He'd had a cluster of red diamonds tattooed over his heart to celebrate their first year together, could he be any more obvious? Women! You have to spell everything out for them. He looked around again and saw that Harley hadn't left the wedding band she wore behind. It looked like she'd left every piece of clothing she owned along with her beloved baseball bat but the ring seemed to have gone with her. Maybe she hadn't left him as completely as she thought she had. Fuck Kowalski, he was going after his girl. Where to start? All he could think to do was to contact his source of difficult to acquire information. He pulled his phone out and dialed Nygma's number.
"Hey, Joker! What can I do for you?" Eddy answered. That was by far the most polite he had ever been to the Joker in the entire time they had known each other. How interesting.
"Hello there Eddy. I seem to have caught you in a good mood! Or have I just caught you?" The Joker changed his tone from friendly to accusatory for the last question.
"I was going to tell you, I was honestly just trying to think of how." Eddy replied with a gulp.
"Where is she?"
"She told me that this was for the best, any chance she's right?"
"Where is she?" He demanded in an almost inhuman growl.
"I don't actually know. She just called here a couple of hours ago, said she had to leave and asked for help getting a new identity."
"And did you help her Eddy?"
"Yes, I didn't want to but I was afraid if I didn't she'd get herself mixed up in something stupid. She's kind of impulsive in case you haven't noticed."
"So how did you help her? What did you do to help her keep from doing something stupid?" The Joker asked with a sarcastic tone.
"I hooked her up with a number for some Ukrainians who specialize in this. It's a professional outfit, they'll set her up with something fast and it won't get her in any trouble. Some people might try to take advantage of a good looking girl like her but these guys are all business."
"Alright, so find out from them where she is."
"Oh they won't help us. And if you're considering taking on the entire Ukrainian mob to find out where she went, allow me to suggest an alternate plan that results in us living long enough for you to find her."
"Mob guys don't scare me, Eddy." He'd love to take out a few dozen mob guys right about now.
"Yeah, yeah. Still, how long is it going to take you to take them down and force them to give you information that they probably won't even have versus how long it will take me using my computer?"
"I'm listening."
"Give me the license plate number of the car she's in and if she hasn't switched out the plates we can find her in less than an hour thanks to toll plaza photos."
"She's smart Eddy, she'll switch the plates."
"Ok, I'll put her picture into some face recognition software and we can use the same photos to find her though it might take a little longer."
"I'll send you a picture."
"No need, I have some. And before you get all weird about it we're texting buddies. She sends me funny faces, dumb riddles. Nothing you have to slice me up for. Any idea where I should start looking for her?" He didn't bother to tell Eddy he knew about their friendship. Up until two months ago Harley's mind had been an open book to him.
"Start east, I think she'll head to Metropolis, she's spent most of her life there and might think she knows it well enough to stay hidden. I don't think she'll go to Gotham but you can try it if Metropolis is a bust."
"Alright, I'll check the toll roads that head east out of Chicago towards Metropolis and Gotham."
"You have an hour to find something or I'll switch from tracking her down to tracking you down." The Joker hung up on Eddy.
With Eddy working on tracking her movements outside of the hideout, the Joker decided to have a more detailed talk with the boys about what she had done in the warehouse. Most of them were useless so he confined his questioning to Spider who could be relied on more than the others and to Rocco who had experienced the greater part of Harley's tantrum today. When he called them over to talk to him they both looked scared. Apparently the only one not afraid of what he'd do if Harley left him was Harley herself.
"Tell me again what happened. Every detail. Don't leave anything out." He struggled to seem calm, he didn't really need his goons gossiping about how upset he was. Spider and Rocco looked at each other as though trying to decide amongst themselves who should have to talk to the boss. As usual Spider ended up being the one to do it.
"I didn't see everything, Boss, but some of the boys said she came out of your room and started frantically looking for something in the cabinets." Spider paused, he had seen more of Harley's departure than her initial actions.
"She was looking for cookies, Boss. And when she found there weren't none she started screaming and screeching and threatening to kill everyone." Rocco chimed in now that Spider had gotten the ball rolling.
"Cookies. She threated to kill everyone over cookies?" The girl did have a sweet tooth and she certainly loved murder but that seemed extreme even for Harley.
"Yeah, cookies. Oreos. So when no one volunteered to tell her who ate her cookies I decided to try and calm her down. Me and Harley get on ok so I thought it was no big deal. Then I said something stupid and she stabbed me in the shoulder." Rocco looked sheepish.
"What did you say?" This should be interesting.
"I asked her if it was her womanly time only maybe not so nice as that. I regretted it the minute I said it but she was actin' so crazy."
"Jesus, Rocco. That really was stupid." Even he wasn't crazy enough to ask a woman about her period.
"Well like I said, I regretted it as soon as I said it, and even more after she made a shishkabob outta me."
"What happened after that?" The Joker asked with a frustrated sigh. None of this gave him any better idea about why Harley left, it wasn't over cookies.
"She just left the knife right in me and went back to your room. Billy helped me get the knife out and before I was even bandaged up she was back again and grabbing the knife. I thought for a second she had come to take another poke at me but she just took it and left. I went to lay down after that so I don't know nothin' else." Rocco looked relived to have nothing else to say.
"She came storming back in about half an hour later. She didn't have anything with her, she just walked back to your room. She was in there maybe fifteen minutes at the most and then she left. She didn't come back." Spider finished the tale of Harley's leaving.
It had taken her fifteen minutes to pack up what she wanted from her life with him and leave him that ridiculous note. She had obviously made up her mind to leave before she got back here and had hurried to be gone before he got back. If he knew where she had been during that half hour he might be able to figure out why she left but there didn't seem to be any way to find that out other than having his goons go door to door with a picture of her all over this part of town. It was tempting but he didn't have much faith in either his henchmen or anyone who might have seen her actually providing him with useful information. He'd just have to rely on Eddy for now. With that thought it occurred to him for the first time that he might not actually be able to find her at all. He felt a strange and uncomfortable ache in the pit of his stomach.
He went back to their room and picked up Slugger. The bat was dented in a few places, it had seen a lot of action over the last year. He felt like he needed to beat the shit out of someone and he figured Slugger was probably feeling a little upset about his mistress's departure too, they might as well go out and find some trouble together. By the end of the night the score was Joker and Slugger: 5, random assholes in the wrong place at the wrong time: 0. He felt a little better when he got home and peeled off his blood soaked clothes. He did not go so far in his sentimentality that he slept with Slugger but he might have buried his face in Harley's pillow and been comforted by her scent.
