As dawn approached, Verlix found his conscious rising out of its idle state. As per usual, he began his morning routine with a sweeping check of all of the lair's systems. This took a little under half a second. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
Verlix pointed his camera to the two occupants of the couch. They were partially obscured by Robin's cape, which they were using as a blanket. Occasionally, one of them would stir a little. Jason's arm was still around her.
He shut off the camera and fell back into his dwelling of data. A few hours passed like this. Finally, Verlix decided that it was high time that the two woke up. It was well into the morning. Of course, it was hard to tell in an underground place like this, but Verlix had a very acute perception of the time.
The lights came on. Jason shifted and groaned, but he was not fully conscious. It was time to give them a good wake up call, Verlix-style.
Suddenly, a bellowing foghorn shook the air. Both of the humans jerked awake. The Robin cape was kicked into the air as two startled bodies hit the ground. Jocelyn sat there, her shoulders tensed all the way up to her ears and her hair sticking on all ends. Beside her, Jason lay in paralyzed shock. The cape gently billowed down and landed over his head.
"Good morning, cubs!" Verlix greeted cheerily. "Jo. Mr. Todd. Looking as elegant as ever!" In response, Jocelyn mumbled something incoherent. Even with Verlix's advanced speech recognition, he could only make out "kill you" among the gibberish. "Oversleeping is bad for you, little ones. I monitored the duration of your rest very closely, Jo; in your condition, you needed eight hours and 34 minutes of sleep."
Jason plucked the cape off of his face and threw it aside. "You know, you could have rounded up for that one," he grumbled. His remark was answered by another blare of the foghorn. They pressed their hands to their ears.
"Verlix, don't ever do that again," Jocelyn snapped, slowly pulling herself to her feet. Then, she reached down to help Jason up.
"Of course. I always suspected that the soothing melodies of a vuvuzela were more suitable as a morning alarm." He watched as Jo yawned and stretched her arms to the ceiling. "Mind that shoulder," he cautioned.
"The shoulder's fine," Jo mumbled at the end of her yawn. "Morning, Jason."
"Morning, babe," he replied. "How was your… hehe," he chuckled, looking at her. Jo frowned.
"I know! It's called bed hair, Jason."
"No, it's not that. You were sleeping on my chest, remember?" He tapped his own cheek. "You got a little mark now."
Jocelyn reached up and felt her cheek. There was an indention on parts of her cheek and temple. Her eyes fell on the 'R' insignia on Jason's uniform. An unimpressed expression covered her face. "Oh." She scrubbed at it with her fingertips. "That's going to take forever to go away!"
"Approximately an hour and a half to completely fade," Verlix added.
Jason glanced at the computer. "Are you always spouting statistics like that?"
"Of course. That's just who I am. Speaking of statistics, you have an hour yourself to get out of here. Otherwise, there's a 99.98 percent chance that I will kick your ass."
"It'll be pretty hard if you don't have legs."
"I'll find an alternative. You won't like it."
"All right, guys!" Jocelyn interrupted. "That's enough!"
"But Jo, Mr. Todd and I were merely having a pleasant conversation," Verlix defended. "Oh, and by the way, darling, I told you not to leave that picture under the vent. It blew onto the ground again."
"Oh. Sorry." Jo walked over to the small photograph lying facedown on the ground next to a shelf. Jason followed closely behind. When she reached the photo, she bent down to pick it up. Verlix's camera focused on Jason's eyes. He didn't need to calculate a trajectory line to see what he was looking at.
"Mr. Todd," he shot. "Kindly direct your eyes elsewhere."
Jocelyn straightened up and looked back to see Jason gazing off in a far off direction, slightly pink in the face. A coy smile crossed her lips. "You devil," she teased.
"Just admiring the view," Jason replied.
Jocelyn rolled her eyes and looked down at the picture in her hands. "Hey, this is one of my favorites. Remember this?" She held the picture out. It was a shot of the two of them lying in the grass, smiling up at the camera above them.
"Hell yeah," Jason said, moving closer to take a look. "That was in Gotham Park. I remember it started pouring after we took that, but we didn't give a shit. That was a good day."
Jocelyn placed the picture back onto the shelf and grabbed a brush. She began running it through her mane of a head. "There's a bathroom over there," she said, nodding. "By the android." Jason disappeared behind the door.
"So what are your plans for today?" Verlix asked.
"I'm going to find another lead on those files," Jocelyn answered.
"And here I was hoping you would spend the day with Mr. Todd. Who would have thought I'd say something like that?"
"He can certainly help," Jocelyn said. "We can tag-team it."
"That's… not what I meant." A screen suddenly lit up. "Incoming call," he announced. "It appears to be from Batman. Go tell Mr. Todd to get off the shitter; his mentor's on the line." Almost on cue, Jason rushed out of the bathroom. "Batman?" he said. "How did he reach you?"
"Because he's the motherfucking Batman," Verlix replied dryly. He opened the line. "Hello?"
"I need Jason," Batman said.
"So does Jo. You'll have to fight her for him."
"Verlix."
"I'm right here, Batman."
"Jason, meet me at the AmerTek warehouse in south Gotham," he instructed. "It's the Joker."
Jason was fitting the mask on his face. "Trying to get his hands on the biggest missile they have, no doubt?"
"Maybe. Word is, he has the files." Jocelyn's head immediately perked up.
"Then I'm coming too," she insisted.
"Arguing isn't going to work, so I'm just going to save us all the time," Verlix sighed.
"I've scanned the entire east side of the warehouse. No sign of the Joker or Harley," she heard Robin say over the intercom.
"There's a huge concentration of his men at the back. I'll go inspect it," Batman said.
"Just say the word, and we'll back you up," the Specter reminded. The three of them were all dispersed around the warehouse. She was in one of the loading bays, perched out of sight on top of a few shipping containers. She peeked over the edge and spotted a few masked men with their newly acquired rifles. Easy pickings.
The Specter leaped down from the containers. Her cloaked feet hit the ground. One of the men passed by her. Without hesitation, she grabbed his head and slammed it against the side of the container. The metallic crash echoed through the bay. Almost immediately, the others came to inspect the noise. The Specter polished the rest of them off until the loading bay was quite empty.
"There were just a few stragglers over here," she reported. "I took care of them. It looks like—." She was cut off by the sound of a shutter door opening. A thin figure stepped into the bay, a heavily decorated rifle in one hand.
Harley Quinn. The Specter had never faced her directly before. This should be fun. But before she could even move, Harley called out, "All right, Casper! Enough messin' around!"
The Specter crossed her arms and watched smugly. "Better call the Ghostbusters," she responded.
"Oh, I don't need no stupid vacuum cleaner," Harley replied. "I just need me this." She held up a small object. It was like a strangely shaped USB stick. The Specter tensed. The files!
"Ah, ah, ah, Casper!" Harley teased. She dropped the stick on the floor and pressed the barrel of the gun against it. "Try anything funny, and I'll gonna wipe this thing clean with a bullet! Now show yourself!"
She had no choice but to comply. The Specter dropped her cloak. Harley looked over at her. "Oh!" she chirped. "Why didn't you tell me you were so close? I wouldn't have to shout!" Then, over her shoulder, she barked, "Boys!" A new group of henchmen bustled into the loading bay. Two of them went around and grabbed the Specter's arms. The others stood around, guns trained on her.
"That's more like it!" Harley said. She stepped closer to inspect the Specter. As she walked, she dragged the data stick along the ground with the barrel. Behind the helmet, the Specter's eyes were trained on it.
Harley Quinn stopped in front of the Specter, placing a hand on her tilted hip. "So you're the chick that's been helping Bat-barf and the Boy Blunder," she chided. "Cool helmet. I don't know how you can see outta that thing, though." She brought her free hand up and began to inspect her nails. "Want a little advice, sis? You oughta ditch the dodo Bird. Mister J tells me he's a real, bonafide loser." The Specter felt her face grow a little hot. She bit back the fiery words that sprang onto her tongue. The more time this dunce spent talking, the better. While all this had been happening, she was sure that her lack of reports had alerted Batman and Robin.
She concentrated back on her current situation, and was appalled to see Harley Quinn still yapping away. "And I mean you guys probably think it's real cute, doing this crime fighting gig together. Well, Mister J and I have been out wrecking mayhem for a lot longer, ya hear?"
"We hear ya, boss," one of the henchmen automatically responded. Harley whirled around to face him, fists balled. "Shut your trap!" she cried in a shrill voice. "I ain't talking to you!"
"So how much longer are you planning to talk?" the Specter mumbled. "I'm planning on taking a quick little nap." The mens' grip on her arms was hurting her shoulder, but she refused to show it. And she couldn't phase now; they obviously didn't know about that little ability of hers. She needed to preserve that element of surprise.
"Think you're funny, huh?" Harley snapped, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Just you wait. We're gonna—."
"Harley, what did I tell you about playing with your food?"
When the Specter heard that voice, in involuntary chill ran down her spine. In contrast, Harley Quinn's face lit up. "Puddin'! Look what I caught for you!" she squealed.
He suddenly stepped daintily into the Specter's view. He was observing her, his grotesque grin supplemented by his painted one. "First a bat infestation, and now a haunting! I say Harley, Gotham's really going down the drain!" The Joker reached out and tapped on the Specter's helmet. "What's this? Little old Casper here's a bit too solid for my liking!"
"So what should we do?" Harley wondered. "Maybe we could fill her up with holes with this!" She raised her gun and propped it up against her other hand.
The Joker scowled and snatched the data stick up. "Really, Harley, could you be any more dull?" he snapped. Harley's face dropped.
"Sorry, Puddin'."
"Save it." The Joker threw the stick up and caught it. "Speaking of save…" He held it up and wagged it in front of the Specter's face. "You wanna know something, kiddo? Truth is, I don't really care about this. I just care about what it can do! It's a Bat magnet, see? Usually, my Bat-magnets include something like, oh… Like the mayor, or Commissioner Gordon! But when I heard that Batman wanted this, well, I had to have it! And now it's drawn you out too! Now I know how a kid feels when the claw machine nabs two prizes!" With a hand, the Joker motioned a command to his men. The two holding the Specter began to pull her away. "You're that little Robin's girl, aren't you? This'll hurt him more than any physical wound could. Oh, it's like killing two birds with one stone! Well, a bird and a bat."
As she was being dragged, the Specter looked over her shoulder. She saw what the Joker had in plan for her.
Addendum: He couldn't help it, Verlix. It's biology. You wouldn't understand. Swiggity swooty.
Also, the Joker's character is still really difficult for me to write. I hope I'm doing it right... otherwisefuckit.