Chapter Seven:
Fair Game
"Anything else?" the petrified cashier asked, his eyes on the two snarling dogs as they sat either side of the bright young girl.
"Nah, I'm good," Harley said, swiping up the packet of bubble gum and pushing a pice behind her teeth. She dropped a fifty dollar note on the desk of the newsagent's booth and flashed the cashier a smile. "Keep the change, kiddo."
"Gee, thanks!" the young boy squeaked, brightening up instantly. Harley adjusted her sunglasses and sashayed onwards down the busy high street, keeping the two huge dogs in check. The crowds were quick to part at her approach, and paid more attention to the two beasts than to the girl handling them, which was just as well because Harley was, after all, a wanted criminal, though her sunhat and oversized glasses would make it difficult for anyone to recognise her unless they were really looking out for her.
It had taken her and the pooches a while to find their way out of the apartment building through the underground car lot, but now that she was out in the sunshine Harley felt a thousand times better. Bud and Lou seemed to appreciate it, too; she stopped off to buy them a treat of pigs ears from the butchers which they devoured hungrily, then grabbed a tennis ball from a sports store on the strip and let the pair of them off the lead in a quiet park of the iron sisters' park for a while, letting them burn off some of that rampant energy. They seemed terribly content afterwards, and the experience solidified her as their new best friend. Bud had almost torn apart a yappy little dog who had come barking his way, but with a sharp set of blasts on the whistle both dogs had come instantly to heed, which Harley was very thankful for. After that she had muzzled the two of them again and they had set off, continuing their journey.
Harley knew exactly where she was going, though she tried not to worry over it as they got closer to their destination. She found a taxi company which would allow her to bring the two dogs along with her in the car and set course for Bludhaven. As they crossed the Gotham river, Harley allowed herself to dwell on everything. Her mind kept going back to the idea of the big party Joker had promised her for her one year anniversary. Could it really have been only a year since she ran away with the clown? She was someone new entirely now. Sometimes she scarcely recognised herself when she looked in the mirror. He'd promised her a big surprise; reason dictated that Nightwing was intended to be it. She thought of the things Nightwing has said, and the things she had felt; it pained her to think of her friend (yes, she knew, he truly had been her friend back then) coming to a bitter end. She played out many ideas of what she might do, but none of them lead to a resolution where both she and Nightwing would live to tell the tale.
"Here we are, sweets," the cabbie said as they pulled up onto the quiet little street, "that'll be twenty-five dollars, please."
As she had done with the cashier earlier, she slipped him a $50. It was no skin off her back; all of it was stolen, anyway.
Harley coaxed the hounds out of the back of the van and into the heavy downpour which had begun on their way over from Gotham. The two dogs panted in the rain, and Harley wondered when the last time they'd been outside was. She lead them down the street and to the little semi-detached house coated in a washy layer of textured masonry paint, a sign of just how old it was. The three of them stood opposite the house, staring into the well-lit house within. The moment Harley laid eyes on her parents through the glass, there together on the sofa in the lounge watching television, she stopped noticing the heavy rain.
She would not even speak of her parents to Joker. He knew they existed, but she had seen no reason to remind him of the fact. Her secret fears were of her own imagination, it was true; she imagined that, if she showed any interest in rekindling a relationship with the people who had raised her, the pair who she loved so dearly, Joker's insatiable jealousy would get the best of him and her parents would meet some kind of accident... or would he even bother trying to hide what he had done, would he go so far as to kill them in front of her? To make her be the one to do the deed? She would put nothing past the man. He was capable of anything, as she'd well learned over the years. Before that had excited her. Now it only made her feel sick.
They were cuddled up together, their lips moving softly as they joked about something happening on the television, teased each other with a peck on the cheek. They were nothing like the parents of her childhood. They looked so at one together, so at peace.
It didn't mean they had forgotten about her, of course. There would be good days and bad days, days when they could hardly get out of bed and days where they hardly thought about their estranged daughter at all. But today was one of the not-so-bad days and here, right now, they looked...
Happy, Harley decided; that's what they were. Happy.
For Harley, that was enough, to see them happy. She'd almost forgotten what that felt like.
"Come on, babies," the young woman whispered, and turned the dogs away. "Let's go home."
With a soft whimper, as if wondering why they had been dragged so far for no reason at all, the pair followed after her, as the trio slipped away through the heavy rain.
When they returned to the apartment, Harley dried the dogs off well with an old towel and hid it in one of the disused rooms so there would be no suspicion, chaining the pair back up and giving each of them a loving fuss before returning upstairs. There were no sounds from Nightwing as she'd worked; she hoped that he was asleep.
Harley snuck back into the apartment and showered as soon as she stepped through the door, washing away the smell of petrichor and wet dog. As the water flowed through her hair, the red and black dyes which tainted her ends beginning to run free, she thought again of all that had happened since she'd woken up this morning. Her thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the front door; she decided she'd surprise Joker, turning off the shower and slipping into her red satin housecoat, wet hair streaming down her back as she leaned up against the bathroom door to greet him with a smile.
"Hey, Puddin'."
When he looked at her, his eyes were like fire. Harley knew in an instant to run.
She slammed the bathroom door to and twisted the lock tight before he had a chance to grab for her. His white fists pounded against the door, and he was yelling, screaming, roaring at her, and it was like being in a nightmare all over again. A gunshot fired and Harley screamed as it came through the door and hit the sink, cracking the ceramic; she crouched down low in the bathtub to avoid any futher rounds, two more of which came. One hit a pipe, and the sink began to sputter with life, water showering all over the room in sporadic bursts.
"I'm not going to hurt you, darling!" Joker screamed, but his tones were hardly convincing. "We just need to talk!"
"I haven't done anything!" Harley insisted with a scream, wondering in fact which of the many things she'd done today he had discovered and was enraged over.
"Come out here and we can talk about it!"
Not gonna happen, Harley thought, but was wiser than to say outloud. She heard his patience run out with a growl and just like that he was shooting the lock out of the door, one two three four bullets, and as quickly as she had shut him out he was inside. The door swung open on its hinges.
"Oh, look at this mess!" Joker yelled, throwing his arms out as water from the burst pipe showered over him, "now we're gonna need a new sink!"
Harley didn't have time to speak before his hand was in her hair and he was dragging her out of the bath, out of the bathroom, out of the apartment and down, down, down the stairs, screaming all the way, and here they were in the reception area of the hotel, and now in the diner area, and the dogs were barking over and over and over but knew brave enough than to approach Joker, and as he dragged Harleen to the door of the basement he gave Bud a sharp kick in the ribs which set him screaming, and he all but threw Harley down the basement stairs as he paused to turn on the lights, and lo and behold, Nightwing was gone.
"Care to explain," Joker said, his tone frightfully light, "why my prized bird is no longer in his cage?!"
"I ain't done nothin'!" Harley pleaded, backing up against the wall and stepping on something sticky and painfully sharp as she did so.
"DOUBLE NEGATIVE!" Joker roared at the top of his lungs, "which means you have done something, you little...!"
He reached down and swept something up off the floor; Harley saw that it was a piece of glass, more specifically a piece of glass from the bottle of soda she had been drinking from earlier. She was suddenly aware of the sickly sweet smell in the air.
"Tell me, is there anyone else who might have found their way down here with the lack of brain cells to actually enjoy such an abomination as grape-flavoured soda?" Joker said, pressing himself into Harley and holding the piece of glass close to her face, as though he might slice her cheek open with it at any moment. Harley saw the rest of the shattered glass on the floor, and saw how Nightwing had used the weaponized bottle to saw through his restraints, which lay torn to shreds on the ground, soaking in the sticky stain which was the last of her drink of choice.
"Puddin', I-"
"Don't call me Puddin'!"
He brought the shard of glass up to her throat, pressing hard.
"I didn't mean to!" Harley said, bubbling with panic. "Please, boss, I didn't even know he was down here, I heard the dogs barking and I just-"
"You idiot!" Joker roared, "you've ruined everything! That slimy leather-clad greaseball was my main event! And now he's gone, because of you!"
Harley closed her eyes tight. If this was it, at least in his anger he might make it quick.
She heard him sigh. The glass came away from her throat and he brushed the hand through his hair.
"Still," he said, "no matter. There's still plenty of fun to be had at your little party. We may have to postpone things, though, now that I've given away too much to that greasy little nobody. We don't want the Bat too hot on our tail."
Joker began to lead the girl back up the steps, past the whimpering hounds.
"So... you're not angry with me?"
"Oh, I'm angry with you, Harley," he said, squeezing her side a little too tightly, "but I'm saving it up until after the party. I want you looking your best for my big day- wouldn't want the bruises to spoil the photographs!"
Harley swallowed hard, but didn't say anything.
"It'll be a night to remember, I'll tell you that much. Oh, this is going to be so much fun!"
~oOo~
Dick Grayson limped through the dark streets, very near on the verge of collapse. He had managed to avoid any interactions with passers-by so far- he couldn't afford to accept their help and risk the police taking him in- so alone he trudged on, very nearly at his destination. When he finally reached the gates of the manor house, it took nearly all his strength to reach up and press the bell. At the touch of his finger on the buzzer, knowing that he was at last where he belonged, the last of Richard's strength left him and he collapsed to the ground.
When his eyes opened again, he was in a familiar room, lying in a bed. It was a bed he hadn't slept in since his teenage years, though the decor had changed; the posters on the walls were of someone else's interests, and the walls had been painted black rather than the light blue he remembered from childhood. The photographs on the walls were familiar, but it was not he who stood next to his guardian in them, but another boy, a younger boy.
"Jason," Dick murdered, and finally began to remember how he had come to be here.
"Dick?" a voice said desperately, and he realised that Bruce was here by his side, sat by him on the bed, willing him back into consciousness. "Dick, are you alright?!"
"I have the medical box," Alfred's was saying, and suddenly he was there too, placing something heavy on the bed and beginning to pull from it bandages and tonics and all manner of supplies. With Bruce's help the man who had always been like a grandfather to Richard began to cut him out of his bloodied clothes, and then ease him out of his suit; the kevlar stuck to him in places and he cried out as it was peeled away, revealing to his guardians a canvas of bruises and a series of bite marks which could only have come from the jaws of a very powerful animal. As Bruce began to clean up the wounds, reassuring his ward all the time that he was safe, Alfred reached for the telephone.
Dick really looked around, beginning to come to.
"You kept his room the same."
Bruce looked away, as though embarrassed. "You think I shouldn't have."
"No, not at all," Dick said.
"It's your room, too," Bruce said. "You'll always have a place here, Dick. When I brought Jason in, he was never meant to replace you. The two of you could have been brothers."
"I'd have liked that," Dick said quietly. For the first time, perhaps ever, they really talked about Jason.
"He was a good kid," Dick said sorrowfully.
"Yeah," Bruce said.
"He could have been great."
Bruce nodded his head. "He could have been. If it wasn't for that animal."
"Almost had him, you know," Dick said weakly, almost with a smile. "I was so close-"
"Hush now," Bruce said, swimming with heartache and relief but feeling, more than anything, like a failure. "I've been trying to find you," he felt the need to express, "Barry's been helping me, we were so close..."
"What have I told you, old man," Dick wheezed, the smile there now, "I can look after myself."
"Not anymore," Bruce said, his voice firm with resolve. "Not anymore. From now on, we do this together."
Dick squeezed his hand. At last, it felt as though his family were one again.
"Together," he said.
"Barbara, "He's home," Alfred called down the phone, tears in his eyes as he watched Bruce, the way he clung on tight to his son, burying his head into his shoulder. Dick brought his arm around his father and the two embraced.
"My God, thank God... he's home."
